When donors give money to the International Wolf Center on Thursday, they’ll help the Ely, Minn.-based nonprofit make progress toward a $20,000 matching grant, one of any number of incentives that charitable organizations are rolling out to draw contributions on Minnesota’s annual “Give to the Max” Day.

Housing and social service organizations, schools and even a statewide sheriff’s organization have launched their own promotions, hoping to draw eyeballs and dollars to their causes in a one-day digital fundraising push.

Since the inaugural “Give to the Max” event in 2009, nearly one million donors have given more than $355 million to 14,000 nonprofits and schools as part of what’s billed as “Minnesota’s giving holiday,” a day of digital giving organized by fundraising coaches with GiveMN.

Thursday marks the 17th annual “Give to the Max” event, which has broadened in recent years to launch early giving on Nov. 1. More than $37 million was donated last year to 6,556 organizations.

Jenna Ray, the new chief executive officer of GiveMN, plans to host or participate in multiple promotional events throughout the day. Ray will greet visitors from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. at Wildflyer Coffee at 3262 Minnehaha Ave. in Minneapolis, spotlighting its life skills program, which is dedicated to ending youth homelessness.

Ray and GiveMN staff also will be headquartered throughout the day at 550 Vandalia St. in St. Paul, fielding questions from donors for 24 hours straight. The Bond Between — a pet adoption and foster agency formerly known as Secondhand Hounds — is scheduled to bring kittens for a “kitty party” designed to keep staff spirits lively. The event is not open to the public.

Later in the day, Ray will help distribute turkeys at a Minneapolis nonprofit, in partnership with the Minnesota Turkey Growers Association and Second Harvest Heartland. She’ll end the day at MetroNOME Brewery in downtown St. Paul for “Pour It Forward,” an event where breweries donate a percentage of sales to a nonprofit of their choice. MetroNOME will be pouring forward for Theater Latté Da and ComMUSICation, which provides music classes to youth.

For more information, visit GiveMN.org.

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Going into “Wicked” last year, my main concern was the seemingly bloated running time of the first of two stage-to-screen adaptations of the smash Broadway musical. The first film clocked in at roughly the time it would take to see the live show and it was only half of the story.

Some 160 minutes later, I found myself fully immersed in this reimagined world of Oz. It was full of energy and life and I was ready and waiting for my return trip.

But after sitting through a screening of “Wicked: For Good,” which opens in theaters Friday, I couldn’t wait for it to end. It’s dark, gloomy and utterly lacking in mirth. It’s difficult to believe the same team made both movies, which they filmed concurrently. That, plus it’s actually 23 minutes shorter than the first, yet comes across as a seemingly endless slog.

Based on the 1995 novel “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West,” the 2003 musical take wowed audiences from the very beginning. It retells the classic tale through the eyes of schoolmates Elphaba Thropp (Cynthia Erivo) and Galinda Upland (Ariana Grande), a pair of friends/rivals who ultimately become the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good.

“Wicked,” the film, offers a series of terrific songs and eye-popping dance sequences that culminate with the show’s signature tune, “Defying Gravity,” the rare modern Broadway number that found success beyond the stage.

“Wicked: For Good,” meanwhile, comes across like a bad hangover, with depressed and depressing characters and situations and one of the bleakest happy endings around.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum at his Jeff Goldblumiest) has transformed the land into an authoritarian state with the help of sorceress Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) and his army of enslaved winged monkeys. Still, Galinda is poised to marry a prince, Fiyero Tigelaar (People magazine’s current Sexiest Man Alive, Jonathan Bailey), a move she hopes will inspire the people of Oz.

As for Elphaba, she’s become public enemy number one thanks to her efforts to free the aforementioned flying monkeys and all of the other animals the Wizard of Oz has attempted to silence.

The second act of a musical should, in theory, build on the strengths of the first and bring the story together in a satisfying and timely manner. “Wicked: For Good” instead drags things out with lengthy and repetitive scenes. The songs aren’t as strong, either, and the two new ones add little to the proceedings.

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While the source material for all of this is definitely not for kids, the musical and the films in particular are marketed toward a wide audience of all ages. But parents should be warned that “Wicked: For Good” may be too dark and mature for some youngsters. At times, it’s even scary. For unknown reasons, director Jon M. Chu somehow makes two sequences of liberation utterly joyless.

Erivo and Grande make the most of what they’ve got. Erivo is a magnetic persona with a magical voice and she shines through the muck. And just like in the first installment, Grande knows her assignment and imbues Galinda with the perfect combination of charm and a deceiving aura of empty headedness. Also, the film’s witty and cutting portrayal of Dorothy Gale offers some much-needed laughs.

But in the end, “Wicked: For Good” squanders its predecessor’s strengths and overstays its welcome. What a disappointment.

‘Wicked: For Good’

Directed by: Jon M. Chu
Starring: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum
Rated: PG for action, thematic material and brief suggestive material
Should you go? You’re better off rewatching the first one. 2 stars.

Everyone should have a good cry now and then. It serves a heart well to get in touch with its capacity for compassion, reminding you that loss, heartbreak and confronting them are essential elements to being human.

The musical adaptation of “The Notebook” seems specifically designed for that purpose. So much so that the merchandise table at St. Paul’s Ordway Center — where its first North American tour has settled in for a fortnight — is selling $5 boxes of tissues emblazoned with the show’s logo. Unleashing the waterworks seems an obvious goal.

Nicholas Sparks’ bestselling 1996 novel and Nick Cassavetes’ 2004 film are both known for being big-time tearjerkers. But emotional engagement has a lot to do with how invested you are in the characters, and Bekah Brunstetter’s stage adaptation — propelled by the folk-rock balladry of Ingrid Michaelson — doesn’t draw an audience in as deeply as it could.

While directors Michael Greif and Schele Williams have fashioned a solidly rendered production with impressive stagecraft and performers who do about as much with the characters and songs as they can, “The Notebook” suffers from an overly simple story about two relatively generic lovers seemingly designed to establish some lowest-common-denominator connection with audiences.

That’s a flaw in Brunstetter’s writing (and perhaps Sparks’), although I give her credit for trying to add shadings through an interesting device: She divides each of the principal characters into three, showing us a couple when they first meet as teens, are reunited about a decade later, and in their final years together in assisted living, the memories eventually interweaving, the chronologies scrambled as they might be in a mind struggling with dementia.

Perhaps that tripartite split had something to do with it, but I came away from Tuesday’s opening night feeling as if I never really got to know these people. Allie and Noah come across as a couple of cute kids who have the hots for one another, but struggle against the constraints placed around Allie by her dishonest and overly class-conscious puppet master of a mother.

Yes, they dance in the rain, recreating the film’s most memorable scene. And the final exchanges between their aged incarnations have moving moments, especially when Sharon Catherine Brown eloquently expresses her memory struggles in song to Beau Gravitte, who spends much of the show injecting believable humanity into a production with a paucity of it.

Yet if there’s a profound emotional and spiritual link between Allie and Noah, we’re never made privy to it. While the lust comes through, we don’t learn enough about them to raise the stakes of a potential separation or give us a great sense of loss when their end seems near.

Hence, I’m not sure that you’ll need that trademarked box of tissues unless this show touches you in a particularly vulnerable place, depending upon your life experiences. In which case, weep at will.

Rob Hubbard can be reached at wordhub@yahoo.com.

‘The Notebook’

When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 1:30 and 7 p.m. Sunday, 7:30 p.m. Nov. 25 and 26, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Nov. 28 and 29, 1:30 and 7 p.m. Nov. 30

Where: Ordway Music Theater, 345 Washington St., St. Paul

Tickets: $144-$45, available at 651-224-4222 or ordway.org

Capsule: While potentially touching, it’s at root about the long-term love between two not terribly interesting people.

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Mark your calendars.

The Twins are officially scheduled to play in the “Field of Dreams” game, which will take place on Aug. 13 in Dyersville, Iowa, the site of the iconic movie. The Twins will play host to the Philadelphia Phillies in the third major league game set amongst the cornfields. Two days earlier, the Triple-A Saints will play a game there against the Iowa Cubs.

“The Minnesota Twins are thrilled to be playing in the return of MLB at ‘Field of Dreams,’” executive chair Joe Pohlad said in a release. “Taking the field in Dyersville, where so much of baseball’s magic comes alive, is special for our club and for our fans in Iowa. August 13, 2026 will be a true celebration of our sport and a memorable day in Twins history.”

The Chicago White Sox hosted the New York Yankees in 2021 and the Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds played in Iowa the next year. Since then, the site, which had featured a temporary stadium has undergone major renovations and expansion.

The original schedule had the Twins hosting the Phillies on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at Target Field. It has since been adjusted and now that Friday will be a day off before the series resumes in Minneapolis.

As part of their new agreement with Major League Baseball, that game will be streamed on Netflix.

“Major League Baseball is excited to return to Iowa in 2026 and to deliver a unique experience to the Twins, the Phillies, their players, our two Minor League teams, and fans across the game,” Commissioner Rob Manfred said in the release. “We look forward to working with Netflix and creating an event that all sports fans can enjoy.”

TV update

MLB announced new three-year media rights agreements with ESPN, NBCUniversal and Netflix on Wednesday.

With the new deal, ESPN will now have in-market rights for the teams whose games MLB produces and distributes, offering fans an additional way to stream games. The Twins are among those teams.

For now, things will be status quo for Twins.TV subscribers. The Twins will be available on the same linear and streaming platforms next season as they were in 2025 and in-market Twins fans do not need to purchase the ESPN app to watch the team. Information on Twins.TV subscription packages will be available later this offseason.

Briefly

It may be the offseason, but the Twins recently took home a victory when third baseman Royce Lewis and former Twins outfielder Aaron Hicks won the inaugural MLB Open in Las Vegas. The golf tournament, which featured two representatives from each team — typically a current and former player — was aired on TNT on Tuesday night.

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