TELL ME A STORY AND SING ME A SONG

Jeff Herbst, Artistic Director

For over fifty years, the park amphitheater has come alive in the summer with stories and songs wafting through the pines into the ether to the stars above. We’ve decided to draw on that core experience of storytelling and singing, like our predecessor the Heritage Ensemble, to craft our 2021 Northern Sky season. Because of Covid safety issues and delays in getting permission to perform, we have chosen and created shows that are designed to be presented within any ongoing constraints governed by forces still beyond our control. All of the shows truly celebrate the characters, their story, and why it is they need to burst into song in order to express themselves.

Rather than present shows in repertory as we usually do, we’ll run each show 4-6 weeks at a time, in order to minimize the number of people working together at any given time. This also allows us to hire more people, albeit for shorter periods, giving contracts to over 40 artists, all of whom have been out of regular theater work for over a year now. To ensure Covid safety, the shows in the park have been developed to be performed with minimal staging and without traditional scenery and props. We simply had no way of planning for (finding, hiring, housing) a full crew to handle putting up and taking down sets, managing a dressing room and all of the costume needs, etc. As a result, the shows that we’ve chosen to do in the park aren’t at all compromised, but are customized for our circumstances. That’s the beauty of doing original work. In the Gould, we’ll be able to put up a set and leave it up and the shows being presented indoors are small cast and self-contained. As a result, they will be performed with full production values.

Summer Season Schedule

AT THE PARK

I’m hooked.

The Fisherman’s Daughters (by Katie Dahl; runs in the park June 14-July 10) tells the story of two sisters in 1908 Fish Creek who must reckon with their differences when Wisconsin’s governor decides to turn their homestead into part of Peninsula State Park. We had intended to do a world premiere, full production of Fisherman’s Daughters this year, but instead will do what we’re calling a preview production that will be fully acted, sung, and orchestrated. Customized for our circumstances! We have a stellar trio of musicians (Andrew Crowe, Dennis Johnson, and John Lewis) and a crackerjack arranger (Alissa Rhode), who will be collaborating on realizing Katie’s score and bringing it to colorful life. The cast of four will comprise Kelly Doherty, Eva Nimmer, Chase Stoeger, and Alex Campea, all of whom have been associated with the show since its first reading in 2016. Molly Rhode, who has spearheaded the development of the piece, will direct. Jimmy Balistreri will be on hand, after interning with us in 2018, as our assistant technical director, and he will create all lighting designs for the three park shows. Shawn Galligan has been promoted to our Equity stage manager position. He will be joined by Isaiah Spetz and Hayden Hoffman as his assistants for all things needing to happen to manage the park operation. Dan Klarer will facilitate a single clothing look for each of the actors, which will help minimize backstage and dressing room traffic. Although we don’t have a full intern crew this year, we will have an audio intern, John Johnson, on board at the park.

No cows were harmed (or milked) during the making of this musical.

Tongue ’n Cheek (by Fred Alley and James Kaplan; runs in the park July 12-August 7) is an old-time radio comedy about a long-suffering farm wife, her work-averse husband, a snake oil salesman, and the young woman he tries to woo. Tongue ’n Cheek was the first book musical that Fred Alley wrote for Northern Sky, in 1991. All the songs for that production were existing folk songs that Fred used to enrich his story. Fred was inspired by Prairie Home Companion and wrote the show to be performed like a live radio play. The five characters step up to mics to tell the story and provide musical accompaniment for the songs. In 1997, Fred augmented the show by adding opening and closing musical numbers with music composed by James. The initial production was specifically written for the actors who originated the roles, a trademark of Northern Sky shows that continues to this day. Although the cast this time around will all be new to the piece, they have all appeared on stage at Northern Sky, and, in every case, had roles written for them to premiere. I will direct the veteran cast comprising Dan Klarer, Lachrisa Grandberry, Isaiah Spetz, Jamie Mercado, and Anna Cline. Andrew Crowe will provide musical direction and play multiple instruments for accompaniment, augmented by cast members. This show will be staged as originally intended. Customization built in!

Unsolved mysteries.

Whatever Happened to Karl Janko? (by Matt Zembrowski; runs in the park August 9-September 18) is a musical mystery comedy based on a real-life unsolved mystery in small-town Wisconsin. Matt, who wrote Doctor! Doctor! and Dad’s Season Tickets, is always at work on the next project. He had a couple of things that were in the pipeline before the pandemic hit, but he quickly realized that his writing skills might be better used for the immediate circumstances we were facing. So he changed course and started working on a show he had in mind inspired by a missing person’s case in Door County that had never been solved. The similarities basically end there, with Matt focusing his attention on the made-up characters, including Karl Janko, who is the missing person, and how those in the town he disappeared from respond to an outsider coming in to find out the real story. Matt has written the play to be performed by five people, all taking on multiple roles. The cast of five will be Doc Heide, Doug Mancheski, Karen Mal, Lachrisa Grandberry, and me, Jeff Herbst. Molly will direct and Alissa will provide piano arrangements, musical direction and live accompaniment, which will be augmented by the cast. Isn’t it amazing that we have writers at Northern Sky who customize on the spot to bring you another Northern Sky world premiere?

IN THE GOULD

It’s Alive!

Not Even Remotely (written by Richard Carsey and Stephen Kovacs; runs at the Gould July 12-August 7 and virtually May 30-June 3) tells the story of two actors who are forced to mount an extravagant musical version of Frankenstein over Zoom. Richard and Steve, with a story assist from Corrie Beula Kovacs, set out to create a piece completely reflective of the circumstances we all had found ourselves in with trying to present theater once the pandemic hit. Every theater company’s season, no matter where they were in the process of rehearsal or performing, was immediately shut down. Well, these two actors aren’t content to let the piece they had poured their creative spirits into just lie fallow. For starters, they have an obligation to present something in order to keep a grant they had been awarded, so in their case, the show had to go on. You can imagine how much might go wrong as two actors have to play all the roles in a sprawling musical and what hilarity could ensue from their attempts to pull this off. We have engaged Richard and Steve as authors but also as part of a creative team of five to get this show ready in all aspects for a live virtual run. That team also includes director/stage manager Nadja Simmonds and actors Doug Clemons and Alex Campea. Not Even Remotely had its premiere virtual performance as the culminating event of Raise the Curtain on May 30 and continued with nightly live performances (streamed from a condo in Milwaukee!) through June 3. The wonderful thing about this show is that it also lends itself to being done in a theater with a live audience. So we will present it in the Gould and run it for four weeks concurrent with Tongue ’n Cheek, playing in the park. This will be our first experience with doing two shows at once in both venues. It’s our answer, this particular season, to doing repertory theater. Dave Alley will make the transfer to the Gould from the park to design lights and run sound for this production.

Where’s your pants?

Naked Radio (written by Dave Hudson and Paul Libman; runs in the Gould August 23-November 6) is the story of two local DJs forced to improvise programming when a snowstorm knocks out their station’s pre-programmed feed. We premiered Naked Radio in 2017 at the Door Community Auditorium and had planned on remounting it in 2020. This show is particularly apt this season because it’s entirely self-contained. The three actors provide everything that is needed for musical accompaniment and are all onstage almost the entire show. Molly Rhode will reprise her tour de force portrayal of all the townspeople. Chase Stoeger, who was in the original cast, will be joined by Andrew Crowe, who did the very first reading of the show back in 2016, but this round Chase will play the character Bart while Andrew will take Chase’s previous role, Mike. We will remount the show using Lisa Schlenker’s set and Karen BrownLarimore’s costumes. Naked Radio addressed the issue of how to quickly pivot before anyone knew that it would become the word of the year in 2020, especially for theater companies.

In order to keep things consistent between venues and to adhere to prescribed safety protocols, we will be doing all of our in-person performances at 7:30, Monday through Saturday. We are also going to experiment with going almost three weeks later in the park than we usually do, by running ...Karl Janko through September 18th.

We trust that you’ll find your way, out of curiosity or habit, back to the park and now the Gould, as audiences have done for over fifty years. We also hope that your desire to share a laugh in good company is keener than ever. This season was, as always, designed with you in mind. We are eager to be together with you again, under the stars, sharing stories and singing songs.