Collection on the Cricket Theatre

The Cricket Theatre started in 1968 in a building on Hennepin Ave and 28th street. With the success of, House of Leather, their first big hit, the theater decided to travel the show reaching local Twin Cities residents and moving on to New York where it flopped and the company promptly disbanded. After a brief break, the theater started up again in 1971, relocating to a movie theater in Northeast Minneapolis, now the Ritz Theatre. The Cricket got into dispute with their landlord who was overcharging them for rent and they won the case, receiving one year of free rent at that location.

The theater company moved into the Hennepin Center for the Arts in 1978 and between then and the late 1980s, the theater had three different artistic directors: William Semens, Lou Salerni, and William Partlan. The company closed yet again for a period in the 1980s due to lack of funding.

The Cricket Theatre, known for producing shows from emerging artists, closed in 1996 for financial reasons, which left the company $120,000 in debt. Their last show, Triple Espresso, became the biggest hit in the theater's 26-year history and continued to be performed locally and internationally, following The Cricket's closure, for the next seventeen years.