Catching up with Jan Maxwell

One of the many pleasures of taking in The Royal Family on Broadway was being introduced to Jan Maxwell. I'd never seen the Tony-nominated actress but I'd heard great things about her - and she was terrific as the daughter in a famous 1920s theatrical family.

So to catch up on Maxwell's career, I listened to an interview from last fall with the American Theatre Wing's Downstage Center program. It's always interesting to hear performers talk about where they're from and how they got their start in the business.

In Maxwell's case, she grew up in West Fargo, North Dakota, the daughter of a lawyer (and later a judge) who was also a theatre lover, an amateur actor and a playwright. She's also the sister of experimental theatre director and playwright Richard Maxwell.

And a fun piece of trivia: Maxwell got her Equity card after being cast as the understudy for the role of Lily St. Regis in a bus-and-truck tour of Annie.

Since I made my first visit to Minneapolis' Guthrie Theater last year, and I wrote yesterday about the play that changed my life, I especially liked this quote:

"When I was 16 we took a field trip to the Guthrie and I saw Tennessee Williams' Streetcar and it was pretty much a life-changing event for me."

Catching up on theatre TV

The only time I watch The View is when they have Broadway-related guests. Otherwise, I'm not really into the banter. But this week featured a great lineup. You can watch the interviews here.

On Thursday, the guest was Angela Lansbury, currently appearing as the medium Madame Arcati in Blithe Spirit. Miss Lansbury looked wonderful - so fit and full of energy. "I love being back on stage again," she said. "It gives me a tremendous lift and it's made me feel not my age - which you probably all know." I do, but I'm not going to tell.

Then today, Geoffrey Rush and Susan Sarandon, the royal couple from Exit the King, made an appearance, walking into the studio looking appropriately regal in their floor-length robes. It was hilarious, and what a great way to promote the play. "We had to wear them today," Rush explained, "because Susan and I are both deeply method actors." Although Rush's crown did look like something they hand out at Burger King.

And Theater Talk took a road trip from New York to visit the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. Since I made my first trip to the Guthrie in September, to see the Little House on the Prairie musical, it was neat to learn a little bit more about its history from artistic director Joe Dowling.

A highlight: Getting to see the backstage area where the sets and costumes are put together. This video shows how the Guthrie craftspeople made the individual stalks of wheat for the Little House on the Prairie set.

Ingalls family is on the movie again

So the musical Little House on the Prairie didn't quite make it to Broadway after its premiere last fall at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis but at least it's coming to the tri-state area. New Jersey's close, right?

A national tour has been booked through June 2010 and these are the venues I've seen announced so far:

Paper Mill Playhouse in Milburn, N.J., from Sept. 10 to Oct. 10.
Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, in St. Paul, Minn., from Oct. 13-25 (official launch of the tour)
Denver Center for the Performing Arts, from Dec. 15-27

The show is coming to Toronto in early 2010 but no dates or location have been announced yet.

Melissa Gilbert will reprise her role as Caroline "Ma" Ingalls but I don't know whether any of the other Guthrie cast members are joining her. According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the musical, which didn't get great reviews but played to sellout audiences, has reportedly been "tweaked and re-designed."

(Update from Playbill: Steve Blanchard will continue as Pa and Kara Lindsay will reprise her role as Laura. Also, a few more cities have been announced, including Houston, Tempe, Ariz., and Sacramento, Calif., but no dates have been set.)

Personally, I thought the musical was kind of a mixed bag - some elements I liked, some I didn't. Maybe part of the appeal was being with friends and making my first visit to Minneapolis, but overall I enjoyed it. And I'm hoping the tour means there'll be a cast recording.

I think this is the kind of show that would do well on the road. It's got a "name" in the cast, the Little House books and television show are so familiar and it'll appeal to all ages. It's a great musical for children or adults who've read Laura Ingalls Wilder's series about life on the prairie in the 19th century.

Sure, I'm a little sad that it wasn't up to Broadway quality but on the bright side, it has the potential to draw a young audience. The more positive experiences you can provide to kids, the greater the chance that they'll grow up to be adult theatergoers. At least I hope so.

Shouting "Stella!" in a crowded theatre

Thanks to Chicago-based blogger Kris Vire of Storefront Rebellion for pointing me to this story from The Stranger, Seattle's alternative weekly. Writer Brendan Kiley has compiled a list of 10 things that regional theatre companies need to do right now to save themselves. (Robert Ullman did the illustration.)

You can read the details in the story but here's the list:

1.) Enough with the ********* Shakespeare already.
2.) Tell us something we don't know.
3.) Produce dirty, fast and often.
4.) Get them young.
5.) Offer child care.
6.) Fight for real estate.
7.) Build bars.
8.) Boors' night out.
9.) Expect poverty.
10.) Drop out of graduate school.

Okay, some of Kiley's suggestions may not be realistic, like Number 1, his call for a five-year, nationwide moratorium on all productions of Shakespeare. He says that Shakespeare has become a crutch that theatre companies use when they're timid and have run out of ideas. Kiley advises, "Stretch yourself. Live a little. Find new, good, weird plays nobody has heard of. Teach your audiences to want surprises, not pacifiers."

And some, like boors' night out, are kind of funny. Kiley says theatres should build audience participation into their productions, a la The Rocky Horror Picture Show. "For one performance of each show, invite the crowd to behave like an Elizabethan or vaudeville audience: Sell cheap tickets, serve popcorn, encourage people to boo, heckle, and shout out their favorite lines. ("Stella!")

But I really think that other items on his list have a lot of merit and definitely seem within the realm of possibility. Number 5, for example, is a great idea. Why don't theatres offer child care? A lot of theatre companies already have summer programs for kids, so it's not that much of a stretch.

Kiley says, let parents drop their kids off in a rehearsal room with some young actors who could entertain them for a couple of hours with some theatre-related activities. It'll encourage more people to subscribe, help fulfill the theatre's education mission and teach children to go to the theatre regularly. "They'll look forward to the day they graduate to sitting with the grown-ups."

And although Number 7, build bars, sounds a bit glib, Kiley actually has a good point. He says that theatres should "encourage patrons to come early drink lots and stay late." Trying to build a community with post-play talkbacks and lectures is going about things the wrong way. "You want community? Give people a place to sit, something to talk about (the play they just saw), and a bottle."

One of the things that amazed me about my visit to the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis in September is the extent to which the theatre is a destination. You can take a tour, take a class, eat in one of its restaurants, relax in the lounge and enjoy the view of the Mississippi River in addition to seeing a show.

Sure, not every theatre has the room for a full-service restaurant, the advantage of a breathtaking view or the staff to offer courses. But certainly most theatres could offer a backstage tour. And what about putting in a bar with some comfy chairs to entice patrons to come early or linger after the show?

Kiley's article has generated quite a bit of comment on The Stranger's Web site. Some readers took issue with his more snide remarks, like the suggestion to drop out of graduate school because theatre departments are staffed by "has-beens and never-weres." But I have to give him credit for being thought-provoking and starting a discussion.

Little House on the Prairie

Gratuitous Violins rating: *** out of ****

Although I'm a pretty emotional person, there have only been a few times over the past 18 months when something in a play or musical has reduced me to tears. Well, it happened again one week ago today, when I saw the new musical Little House on the Prairie at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.

There's a point near the end of Act I, after a bout of scarlet fever has left Mary Ingalls blind, when her younger sister Laura sings to her, "I'll be your eyes." It's such a moving scene, a beautiful duet between Kara Lindsay's Laura and Jenn Gambatese's Mary. For me, it was the most memorable part of lyricist Donna Di Novelli and composer Rachel Portman's score, and I was crying pretty much through the whole song.

In fact, it was so powerful, I was certain that "I'll be your eyes" would mark the end of Act I. But the show went on for what seemed like another half hour. As the mood on the McGuire Proscenium Stage became a more lighthearted one, I think some of the impact of that moment passed by a bit too quickly.

That kind of jarring transition sums up how I felt about Little House on the Prairie - there was lots to like, some truly soaring moments and terrific performances. But at the same time, there were a few things about the musical that just struck me as well, a bit out of place. (Although it's been awhile since I've read all the books so for all I know, they may be true to life.)

Beginning in 1932 with Little House in the Big Woods, Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote nine books about her childhood, describing her family's travels across the Midwest, what it was like to be a girl in the 1870s and 1880s, her career as a schoolteacher and her marriage to Almanzo Wilder.

The musical covers roughly the events of the middle books, beginning with By the Shores of Silver Lake, when Charles and Caroline Ingalls and their four daughters, including 12-year-old Laura, leave Walnut Grove, Minnesota, for a homestead in the Dakota Territory.

In adapting the work for the stage, book writer Rachel Sheinkin has tinkered a bit with the specifics of Wilder's life. For example, in the books, Mary is stricken with scarlet fever and becomes blind in Minnesota, before the family travels to the Dakotas. And there are only three Ingalls girls in the musical: Mary, Laura and Carrie. Baby Grace has been written out entirely.

Now, I loved Sheinkin's previous book of a musical, for The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Sheinkin, who won a Tony award, created a wonderful, quirky, distinct group of adolescents. Their stories were funny and moving and they seemed very true to life. So I was really curious to see how she would approach a group of 19th century adolescents.

In Little House on the Prairie, I don't think she's always successful in capturing the essence of Laura's character. Some things just struck me as out of place, a little too 21st century. While some of the dialog was taken right from the books, other lines seemed a little too modern. I think Sheinkin stumbles a bit in trying to capture a 19th-century sensibility.

For example, there's a scene in a schoolhouse when Laura's nemesis Nellie Oleson, a suitably snobbish Sara Jean Ford, makes fun of the Ingalls girls because they're barefoot and they don't have the proper slates to write on. Coming to her sister Carrie's defense, Laura acts up in a way that was so disruptive, it didn't quite seem believable.

First, I simply don't believe that Caroline Ingalls, who, after all, had been a teacher, would have sent her daughters to school without shoes and without the proper supplies. While Laura was high-spirited and headstrong at times, she was at heart a good girl, well brought up, and would never have been that obnoxious and bratty to an authority figure like a teacher.

There's another song, where the homesteaders, going through a difficult winter, sing "Uncle Sam, Where are you?" While I'm glad that the musical doesn't sugarcoat things, I just don't believe that 19th century homesteaders expected a government bailout.

But despite those qualms, there are lots of things Little House on the Prairie, directed by Francesca Zambello, does right - including depicting the harshness and deprivation and isolation of life in the Dakota Territory.

There's a scene in the beginning of the musical when all of the wagons are filled with pioneers heading west, aided by Adrianne Lobel's imaginative set design. You get a great sense of who they were, how they came from different backgrounds - the wagon train includes European immigrants and African-Americans - but they set off with the same great hopes and dreams. (I did chuckle, though, at a bit of Michele Lynch's choreography in that scene that reminded me of Fiddler on the Roof.)

And Kara Lindsay is so appealing, with a strong, soaring voice. Her Laura is spunky and daring, with an independent streak. I especially loved Lindsay's performance in Act II. At that point, the pigtails are gone and she's transformed into a young woman who becomes a teacher in an even more isolated town, to earn money to help send Mary to a college for the blind.

Even though she's grown up, with more adult responsibilities, Laura is still feisty, still a risk-taker, still an independent-minded person right up until the end of the musical. We see her at first rebuffing and then falling in love with Almanzo, played by a very boyish and charming and confident Kevin Massey. I liked the scene between the two of them in Almanzo's wagon, when Laura takes over the reins and wants to drive the horses as fast as they can go.

The rest of the cast is great, too. Maeve Moynihan is sweet as Carrie, Gambatese's more mature and focused Mary provides a nice counterpoint to Laura's impetuousness in Act I. And I loved Steve Blanchard's strong, forceful Pa. You can definitely tell that Laura gets some of her spunk from him. As Ma, I thought Melissa Gilbert hit the right tone but didn't have quite the same presence as some of the other performers, and her voice seemed a bit thin in her big song, "Wild Child." Still, like everyone else, I remember watching her as television's absolutely adorable Laura, aka "half-pint," and it was very cool to see her on stage.

Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote her books to preserve the stories of her childhood, to show succeeding generations how much America had changed in her lifetime. And the musical does a good job of portraying what the lives of those pioneers were like. But what had the most impact on me were the things that are timeless - Laura's adventurous spirit and independence, her devotion to her family and to a sibling who needed her.

My trip to the Twin Cities

I'm back from my weekend in the Twin Cities - lots of good food, good sightseeing, good theatre and of course, good friends. I met new people, got my first look at the Mississippi River, toured a restaurant kitchen and - I know this sounds hard to believe - walked a dog for the very first time in my life. In fact, at one point, I was walking two dogs!

I've always been partial to cities. Sure, the suburbs and the country have their attractions. I've been to many places with great natural beauty - the Scottish highlands and Yorkshire dales, Yosemite National Park and Sedona, Arizona. I've enjoyed all of them and there's lots more I'd love to see. But when it comes to travel, exploring a new city is at the top of my favorite things.

As I wrote last week, I haven't really spent much time in the Midwest and I've always wanted to see more of it. Here's a little bit of what I learned and saw during my whirlwind weekend in Minneapolis-St. Paul, thanks to my two wonderful tour guides.

It's pretty big - 3.2 million people live in the metropolitan area, which includes part of Wisconsin - and kind of flat. Also, despite the state's motto, there are apparently more than 10,000 lakes. And despite the Twin Cities nickname, Minneapolis and St. Paul have very different histories and cultures. Here's an interesting article that delves into the sibling rivalry between the two cities.

As a history buff, what I found really fascinating is that St. Paul is considered the last city of the East and Minneapolis the first city of the West. It's based in part on architecture - St. Paul's narrow streets and Victorian houses, versus the more modern look of Minneapolis. While St. Paul grew up haphazardly from its start as a fur-trading post known as Pig's Eye, Minneapolis was a planned city from the start whose base was in industry - lumber and flour mills.

And Minneapolis seems like a very livable city. It's big enough so that there's a lot to do but not so big that you constantly feel crowded. It's clean, it has some great restaurants, a big but walkable downtown with enclosed walkways for those bitterly cold winter months, lots of cultural attractions, green spaces and diverse neighborhoods. (I saw 2 of the 10,000 lakes - Lake of the Isles and Lake Calhoun).

Downtowns in America have been pretty beaten up over the past 25 years or so, with department stores closing and manufacturing folding up shop and residents leaving for the suburbs. Like a lot of cities, older buildings in Minneapolis are being renovated and turned into hotels and condos, breathing new life into downtown. And I think it's great that the new stadium for the Minnesota Twins is being built downtown.

I had to take in some sights from The Mary Tyler Moore Show. I saw the 8-foot bronze statue erected in 2002 at the spot on downtown's Nicollet Mall where Mary tossed her tam into the air in the opening credits. Mary Tyler Moore appeared at the dedication, where the crowd sang the show's theme song and had a group tam toss. And we drove by the house whose exterior was used for Mary's apartment. I didn't recognize it at first, because it's been repainted. It's a private home, at 2104 Kenwood Parkway, located on a quiet, leafy street in a very nice residential neighborhood. Now when I pop in a dvd from the tv series, I can say, "I've been there!"

We also stopped in Uptown to pick up a cake at the Twin Cities' famous Wuollet Bakery. (It was delicious!) From what I saw, it seems like a great neighborhood for browsing and strolling on a weekend, with a mix of quirky local shops, some national chains, ethnic restaurants, a movie theatre and a big bookstore. And the sign for the underground Walker Library, whose location is marked by large metal letters that spell out L-I-B-R-A-R-Y, made me smile.

And this was a total surprise for me - we went to Lakewood Cemetery, where I had a chance to visit the grave of one of Minneapolis' favorite sons, former vice president and senator Hubert H. Humphrey. I met Senator Humphrey in 1976, when I was a high school student on my first trip to Washington, D.C. I still remember how gracious he was in calling me by my first name (I was wearing my name tag from the Close Up program) and introducing me to his wife, Muriel. I'm glad that I had a chance to pay my respects and I'm glad I have a very thoughtful friend who knew how much it would mean to me.

I was also very excited about seeing the Mississippi River for the first time. The Guthrie Theater's cantilevered lobby, known as the Endless Bridge, offers a terrific view of the river and the old flour mills that once drove the city's economy. From its northern end the river seems so peaceful and calm. Hard to believe it's the same body of water that can lead to so much death and destruction at its southern end during hurricane season.

And the Guthrie itself, which opened in its new location overlooking the river in 2006, is beautiful. I saw Little House on the Prairie in the McGuire Proscenium Stage - the interior is draped in a deep red, with plush comfy seats and good sight lines and acoustics. I like the fact that it's a multipurpose building - you can see a show, (and there's often more than one going on at the same time) take a class or a tour, eat in the restaurants or just enjoy the view.

Food is a key element of a visit to any new city, and I had some great meals. Plus, Minneapolis and St. Paul have some of the friendliest, most engaging and talkative waiters I've ever met. In fact, one waiter spent so much time talking to us, I was certain my dining companions knew him. And another arranged a tour of the kitchen, which was a first for me!

On Friday night, we dined in St. Paul, which still had a few signs as reminders that the Republican National Convention had been there. We ate at Pazzaluna, where I had the house specialty gnocchi, with a tomato basil sauce, which went very nicely with some Banfi Chianti. I also got a lesson in the correct pronunciation of the tasty little potato dumplings. Believe me, I was in carbohydrate heaven.

On Saturday night, we ate at the 112 Eatery in Minneapolis, which got a nice mention last month in The New York Times. The restaurant is small and cozy, with a kind of old fashioned bar and grill feel. I had roasted halibut with marinated tomatoes. If you're not careful, white fish can come out a bit rubbery, but this was perfect - moist and tender and flaky. Accompanied by a bottle of Argentinian wine, bibb lettuce salad, spicy broccolini, cauliflower fritters and great conversation, it was a memorable meal.

Then for Sunday brunch, we went to Manny's Steak House, newly relocated at a new hotel, the W Minneapolis - The Foshay. Of course I had my favorite brunch beverage - a refreshing and sparkling mimosa, along with French toast with blueberries and part of a huge piece of chocolate brownie cake topped with whipped cream and ice cream - it truly was a sight to behold.

The hotel is in the 32-story art deco Foshay Tower, built by utilities magnate Wilbur Foshay in 1929 and modeled after the Washington Monument. It was a big deal when it opened - John Philip Sousa was commissioned to compose a march for the occasion. I'd never heard of the building, or Wilbur Foshay, but a small museum takes you through his career and the building's history. Plus, there's a great view from the open-air observation deck.

Of course, there was one final stop I had to make on my way to the airport - the Mall of America in suburban Bloomington. It's the most visited shopping mall in the world, with more than 40 million visitors every year to its 2.5 million square feet of retail space. Who am I to argue with that!

I only saw a small portion - it would take hours to walk through the entire place. The Mall of America has many of the same stores as any other enclosed shopping center - just more of them. It's like a mall on steroids. It's also the only mall I've been in that has its own amusement park, complete with Ferris wheel and roller coaster, an aquarium and a miniature golf course.

So, would I go back to Minnesota? You betcha!

On to Wisconsin - and Minneapolis

I'm at Logan Airport in Boston waiting for my flight to Milwaukee and from there, it's just a short hop to the Twin Cities.

I don't have a lot of experience with the Midwest. I spent a day in Columbus, Ohio, for a job interview. Another time, I traveled to Pontiac, Michigan, for a weekend with a busload of high school marching band members and their parents. And I changed planes once at O'Hare Airport in Chicago. That's about it.

So, I'm looking forward to soaking up the sights and sounds of Minneapolis-St. Paul. Tomorrow afternoon, I'll be at the Guthrie Theater for the musical Little House on the Prairie. Look for my review next week. The Guthrie, which overlooks the Mississippi River, is supposed to be a stunning building, and I can't wait to see it.

But most of all, I'm excited about spending some time with dear friends. Good friends, a new musical and the adventure of traveling to a new place and meeting new people. What could be better!

Revisiting Little House on the Prairie

I haven't read any of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie books since I was, well, little. So, in tandem with my upcoming trip to the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis to see the new Little House on the Prairie musical, I thought it was time for a look back.

I was going to tackle the three middle books, because that's roughly the time period that the musical's plot covers. Unfortunately, I've only had a chance to read one, By the Shores of Silver Lake. Published in 1939, it's the fifth out of the nine books in the Little House series. The story takes place in 1879 and 1880, as the Ingalls family moves from Walnut Grove, Minnesota, to the wide open spaces of the Dakota Territory, lured by the government's promise of free land.

I'm sure one of the things that appealed to me when I first read the Little House books was that the stories were about girls my age living such an unimaginably different life. But in returning to the series, I realized that I'd forgotten some of the ways in which that life was most different.

For example, while Charles Ingalls goes on ahead of his family, Caroline and the girls - Mary, Laura, Carrie and baby Grace - travel part of the way by train. It's the children's first train ride and I'd forgotten about what a frightening experience it was for 12-year-old Laura. "Trains went faster than horses can run. They went so terribly fast that often they were wrecked. You never knew what might happen to you on a train."

The story opens just after Mary has been blinded by scarlet fever, so Laura explains in detail what they're seeing during the journey. Her descriptions are incredibly beautiful and evocative. They travel the rest of the way by wagon to the railroad camp at Silver Lake, where Charles Ingalls is working. The land in front of them is so vast, it barely seems like they're moving at all. "The farther they went into the West, the smaller they seemed, and the less they seemed to be going anywhere."

I'm sure the near-poetry of the language was lost on me the first time I read it, but this time, it made an impression. You really get a sense of the wide open spaces in Laura Ingalls Wilder's description of "the endless waves of flowery grass" and "the enormous stillness that made you feel still. And when you were still, you could feel great stillness coming closer."

Another part of the story that really struck me was the violence. There's drunken carousing and fighting and killing. When I read all of the Little House books as a kid, and I don't remember them being particularly violent. Maybe I just glossed over that stuff, but it was a little shocking. You definitely get a sense of the lawlessness of the Dakotas in the 1880s.

Charles is the storekeeper at the Silver Lake camp, and part of his job is to pay the railroad workers. At one point, the workers riot because they're only getting paid for two weeks instead of a whole month, and a paymaster, who brings the money, is nearly killed. Later, a homesteader is shot and killed by a claim jumper. Throw in a few curse words and some scenes would be right at home in the HBO series Deadwood, which also takes place in the Dakotas during roughly the same time.

By the end of the book, Charles Ingalls stakes his claim to 160 acres of land under the Homestead Act. The chapter describing the frenzy at the land office is pretty interesting. There are a couple of hundred men pushing and shoving while they wait for the office to open. He literally fights his way into the office to claim a particular parcel before another homesteader, who also had his eye on it, gets a chance.

If you go to the Web site for the Ingalls homestead in De Smet, South Dakota, you can actually see Charles Ingalls' land records from The National Archives. It's very cool. I wish that had been available when I was a kid.

Reading By the Shores of Silver Lake, I wondered what would make a man like Charles Ingalls bring his family from Minnesota to such uncharted and dangerous territory. What was it that made the pioneers who settled the West constantly look for even more wide open and unpopulated spaces?

Today, you're almost shocked that anyone would subject their family, young children, including a daughter who'd just been blinded, to this harsh life. The first winter, before they stake their claim, they're living in the relative comfort of the surveyor's house. But all of the railroad workers have left. Their closest neighbor is 60 mile away. If someone got sick or hurt, there's no way they'd be able to get to a doctor.

But I guess that's my 21st-century adult sensibility speaking. As a kid, I probably thought it was all very fascinating and adventurous. I'm glad I reacquainted myself with the Little House books. It was great to return to a series that I loved reading as a child. Now, I'm looking forward to seeing the story unfold on stage.

Little love for Little House

The musical Little House on the Prairie opened last night at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis and unfortunately, the two reviews I could find range from scathing to lukewarm. You can pretty much sum it up this way: mostly praise for the cast, mostly criticism for the music and story.

In the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Dominic P. Papatola finds fault with just about every aspect of the show, from the score by Rachel Portman and Donna Di Novelli, to Tony winner Rachel Sheinkin's book, to the staging by director Francesca Zambello, to Melissa Gilbert's performance in the role of Caroline Ingalls.

"Though it's earnest as all get-out and though the overwhelming majority of the cast is more than up to the task of putting on a top-notch musical, the problems with this show are deep, structural and systemic." Papatola writes.

He's particularly critical of Portman's music. "Far too many of her compositions are song-like collations that are half-formed collections of musical phrases that don't build musically or thematically. Most feel like they're all introduction, cut off before they could develop into a melody. They're often shoehorned into the show as energy boosters or placeholders, rather than as plot-advancers."

Papatola calls Sheinkin's book "a scatter-brained collection of two-dimensional types," and says that Gilbert, obviously brought in for her marquee value, is "without question and by far the weakest link in the casting chain." She sounds "like someone trying to read foreign-language cue cards phonetically."

He does manage a few words of praise for the rest of the cast."Kara Lindsay, the just-out-of-college kid playing Laura, has an endearing spunkiness, plays Laura's various ages well and believably, and has a powerful-but-supple singing voice." And Kevin Massey, as Almanzo Wilder, Laura's love interest, "has a nicely awkward, aw-shucks charm."

In the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Graydon Royce is a bit kinder to the musical - calling it "a quaint throwback of instant nostalgia" and "an exuberant shout-out for rugged individualism all wrapped in a sanitized pageant of good-hearted Americana." Although he has some of the same criticisms of the book and score.

The creative team, Royce says, has "tricked out their proclamation with familiar types: grinning settlers who sweep women off their feet with big hugs; buggy races and July 4th firecrackers followed by the town burgher's call to "Circle round for the square dance!" Yee ha!" The score "has the broad strokes of Copland with its fiddles and hoedowns, and tries to corral a nod to the West with rhythms driven by tom-toms. The melodies, however, are pure Disney."

Still, Royce praises Lindsay, and Jenn Gambatese, who plays her sister Mary, blinded by scarlet fever. He describes their song, "I'll Be Your Eyes," as "a gorgeous duet that hits on every level." While Gilbert's singing "is not first class, Royce says that she "acquits herself absolutely fine." And Steve Blanchard's "broad shoulders and solid jaw" make him "the perfect vehicle to express Charles Ingalls' pioneer quest."

Despite the criticism, I'm keeping an open mind. I'll be in the audience for Little House on the Prairie in just three weeks, during my first-ever trip to Minnesota, and nothing can squelch my excitement. I'll let you know whether the critics have been too harsh or right on the mark.

Little House on tour

Wow, I can barely keep up with Little House on the Prairie news! The latest word, according to a story at Playbill.com, is that the musical, currently in previews at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, will embark on a 40-city tour beginning in the fall of 2009.

Obviously, we're in the very early stages, so there's no discussion yet of which cities or whether any of the cast currently with the show would go out on tour. And the matter of whether Little House will make a stop on Broadway first is still up in the air.

Producer Ben Sprecher says that a decision about a Broadway transfer will be made following the official opening at the Guthrie, scheduled for Friday. (I'm thinking they're waiting for the reviews to come in.) He tells Playbill that the producing team is keeping all options open.

So, good news for Little House fans who can't make it to Minneapolis and for those of us hoping that the show gets its moment in the Broadway spotlight.

One month to go

One month from today I'll be in Minneapolis, sitting in the audience at the Guthrie Theater's McGuire Proscenium watching the new musical Little House on the Prairie!

So with previews in full swing, and the Aug. 15 opening night a little more than a week away, it's time to catch up on a little Little House news.

Graydon Royce, theatre critic for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, has an interesting story about the show and its prospects after the Guthrie run, which has already been extended by two weeks - to Oct. 19. In the story, producer Ben Sprecher cautions that there are no official plans to take the musical to Broadway. Still, he doesn't rule out the possibility. "The show's got to be correct. It is very much a work-in-progress, and we hope we get it right at the Guthrie."

And Philip Boroff of Bloomberg News speaks to Adrianne Lobel, who conceived of the musical and designed the sets. Lobel was producer and set designer for A Year with Frog and Toad, based on the children's books written and illustrated by her father, Arnold Lobel.

As a child vacationing in Vermont during the summer she'd build houses out of sticks, imagining herself living on the prairie like Laura Ingalls. "What I love about the books is the power of autobiography,'' Lobel said. "That little girl made all her family immortal. Mary's blindness started Laura on that path. She had to describe things to her sister, which helped her remember them.''

Ticket sales on the first day broke a box office record for the Guthrie, and the theatre isn't the only place that's getting a boost. The musical has also sparked interest in visits to the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, according to director Amy Ankrum. "The books are still very popular, and when they hear that name (Little House), they think of the books as well, and it brings to mind the TV series."

Apparently I'll be in very good company on Sept. 6. In addition to my two excellent theatergoing companions, there'll be a contingent from Walnut Grove. The Walnut Grove group will be getting a backstage tour and hopefully a meeting with Melissa Gilbert, who plays Caroline Ingalls to Kara Lindsay's Laura. "I'll be on the bus that day, I gotta go," said museum board president Mary Jo Hendrickson. "It's a special event. It's important."

Also, check out the blog Only Laura, a great meeting place for fans of Little House on the Prairie. Blogger Sandra Hume edits The Homesteader, a newsletter about author Laura Ingalls Wilder that comes out twice a year.

Finally, you should stay away from these next two sites if you want to remain absolutely spoiler-free. (I'll admit, I'm a hopeless information junkie. I couldn't resist looking at either one of them.)

At Besides the Obvious, a Minneapolis blogger named Erika has a very detailed and thoughtful review of the musical. And, if you want to see what the show looks like on stage, Playbill has lots of photos of the entire cast, including Gilbert, Lindsay, Steven Blanchard as Pa; Jenn Gambatese as Mary, Sara Jean Ford as Nellie, and Kevin Massey as Almanzo Wilder.

Tickets for Little House on the Prairie are priced from $29 to $75, and are available by calling (612) 377-2224 or (877) 44-STAGE or by visiting the Guthrie Web site.

Break a leg, Little House

The new musical Little House on the Prairie begins previews tonight at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis. Because of the high demand for tickets, the Guthrie announced that the show has been extended by two weeks, to Oct. 19.

Here's an interview by Dominic Papatola from the St. Paul Pioneer Press with Kara Lindsay, who will play the teenage Laura. Lindsay says she didn't read Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books as a girl - her tastes ran to scary stories - but caught up with them before beginning rehearsals.

"I love their whole concept of family,'' she said. "It's so different now. We all have our own little lives — even little kids have soccer practice; they already have schedules. Back then, each person was really important; each person had to do something for the family."

When asked whether she saw any similarities between Laura as a girl and her own childhood, Lindsay said: "When I was 12, I was a tomboy with a unibrow and hairy legs and braces, and I played soccer and basketball. I can really relate to Laura when she goes to that first day of school and she does not fit in but doesn't realize it because she's so far into her own world. So, I'm trying to home in on the little Kara Lindsay that I was."

Little House on the Prairie is directed by Francesca Zambello, with music by Donna di Novelli, lyrics by Oscar-winner Rachel Portman (Emma) and a book by Rachel Sheinkin, Tony winner for The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

Here's an interview with Sheinkin in which she talks about the challenges of working on the musical. She says that a decision was made to focus on Laura's teenage years in the 1870s and 1880s, living in a prairie community in DeSmet, S.D., to make the story about "personal change and societal change — that's our history. It's not necessarily all to the good — that's not the point of the change."

Sheinkin describes the story as about "a girl who wants to run wild, growing up with her family in a land that also wants in some ways to remain wild. It's about the domestication of a girl alongside the domestication of the prairie, and the ways in which she finds her spirit within that land."

Melissa Gilbert, who starred as Laura in the Little House television series that ran from 1974 to 1983, will play Ma in the stage version. Other cast members include Steven Blanchard as Pa; Jenn Gambatese as Mary, Sara Jean Ford as Nellie, and Kevin Massey as Almanzo Wilder.

Tickets for Little House on the Prairie are priced from $29 to $75, and are available by calling (612) 377-2224 or (877) 44-STAGE or by visiting the Guthrie Web site.

Update 7-28: New York Times reporter Patrick Healey made his way to Minneapolis for a story about Little House on the Prairie. The article also has two pictures from the production.

Related blog posts about Little House on the Prairie:
Little House on Broadway?
Little House on the Internet
Little House casting
A Little sneak preview
Little House, big plans
The Wild(er) West

Little House on Broadway?

In a reversal of Horace Greeley's 19th-century advice to "Go West," the Little on the Prairie musical may be heading to the East.

There's an interesting article in Playbill this morning about a new company, Global Broadway Productions, formed by the backers of the Little House on the Prairie musical that runs from July 26 to Oct. 19 at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis. (The show had been scheduled to end on Oct. 5, but it's been extended by two weeks due to high demand for tickets.)

Apparently the company, headed by Ben Sprecher and Louise Forlenza, plans to bring Little House on the Prairie to Broadway in the 2008-2009 season, followed by a national tour. In an interview with Variety, Sprecher pegs the initial development costs for Little House at $1.85 million and the complete capitalization at $8 million.

This news is a little surprising to me because from everything I'd read, the show was supposed to bypass Broadway and simply mount a nationwide tour. I would think there'd be some retooling involved after the Minneapolis run, so aiming for Broadway this season seems unrealistic. But as I noted earlier, the first-day sales of Little House tickets broke a box office record for the Guthrie, so maybe the producers feel it has the legs to get to New York.

Little House on the Prairie will be directed by Francesca Zambello, with music by Donna di Novelli, lyrics by Oscar-winner Rachel Portman (Emma) and a book by Rachel Sheinkin, Tony winner for The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

Melissa Gilbert, who starred as Laura in the Little House television series that ran from 1974 to 1983, will play Ma in the stage version. Kara Lindsay, a 2007 graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, will portray a teenage Laura. Other cast members include Steven Blanchard as Pa; Jenn Gambatese as Mary, Sara Jean Ford as Nellie, and Kevin Massey as Almanzo Wilder.

Global Broadway's other projections include:

Havana, described as a "politically charged romance is set during the run-up to Castro's takeover of Cuba," with a book by Nilo Cruz, who won a Pulitzer Prize for Anna in the Tropics, and music and lyrics by Frank Wildhorn and Jack Murphy. The producers are looking for a Broadway debut for fall 2010.

Rebecca, an adaptation of the Daphne Du Maurier novel, which had its premiere in Vienna in 2006 and is still playing there. The musical is also playing in Tokyo, and productions are planned for Berlin and Helsinki. Global is looking at a spring 2010 Broadway opening.

Little House on the Internet

The Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis now has a Web site for its new musical Little House on the Prairie, which runs from July 26 to Oct. 5. There are activities for children (or for the kid in you), links to information about author Laura Ingalls Wilder, biographies of the cast and creative team, a short video, and more.

According to Variety, the first-day sale for Little House tickets, on June 26, shattered box-office records for the Guthrie. Nearly 5,500 tickets were sold — surpassing the previous record of 3,639 for last year's stint of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of King Lear, starring Ian McKellen. (Here's a report from the Guthrie blog on what it was like at the theatre that day).

For me, this is one of the most positive aspects of that record: according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 58 percent of the ticket buyers on that first day had never attended a show at the Guthrie. Ticket sales came from 25 states and several Canadian provinces. Obviously, a lot of people besides me are very excited about this show.

"We knew that the 'Little House' stories resonate in this region in a profound way," said Guthrie director Joe Dowling in a statement. "And now we know that 'Little House on the Prairie' as a musical -- a truly American art form -- speaks to people across the nation in a powerful way."

As much as I've been looking forward to this musical ever since I read about it, even I was a little surprised about the big demand for tickets. I mean, we're in the middle of a recession, with gas prices over $4 a gallon.

I think it says something about the popularity of the Little House books, with their stories of 19th-century pioneer life, to 21st-century readers. (And of course, the popularity of the TV series starring Melissa Gilbert as Laura, who'll play the role of Ma in the musical.)

Also in the Star-Tribune, Jill Burcum writes about that enduring appeal. She says that Laura Ingalls Wilder's "celebration of ordinary girls in ordinary places made her a childhood friend -- one we may not have thought of in a while, but one long overdue for a celebration like the Guthrie's."

I'll be one of those people attending their first show at the Guthrie and I'm incredibly excited. It's supposed to be a beautiful theatre, with a breathtaking view of the Mississippi River, which I've never seen. In fact, I haven't spent much time at all in the Midwest. (I'm not sure if a weekend in suburban Detroit and a day in Columbus, Ohio count).

Best of all, while I'm in the Twin Cities, I'll be the guest of two wonderful friends - Steve on Broadway and his true love. A great adventure, a great theatre, great friends. Really, it doesn't get any better.

Little House casting

There's a familiar name in the just-announced cast for Little House on the Prairie, the musical that will premiere in July at Minneapolis' Guthrie Theater, and it's sure to please fans of the long-running television show.

Melissa Gilbert, who starred as Laura, opposite the late Michael Landon's Pa in the series that ran from 1974 to 1983, will play the role of Ma in the stage version. Gilbert, who served for two terms as president of the Screen Actors Guild, told Variety, "I'm very careful about the way the legacy is handled. My primary concern was that the material was done the right way."

Kara Lindsay, a 2007 graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, will portray Laura in the musical, based on Laura Ingalls Wilder's beloved books about growing up in a 19th-century pioneer family. Lindsay was in the cast of Randy Quaid's ill-fated musical Lone Star Love in Seattle last fall.

Other Little House cast members include Broadway veterans Steven Blanchard as Pa; Jenn Gambatese as Mary; Sara Jean Ford as Nellie; and Kevin Massey as Almanzo Wilder.

I haven't been able to find out much about Lindsay. Reactions to Lone Star Love were mixed, and Lindsay gets only the briefest mention in reviews, but they're generally good, and along the lines of this one:

"Perhaps the sweetest pair on stage was a yodeling cowboy, Fenton (Clarke Thorell) and his newfound eternal love, the perfectly adorable MissAnn (Kara Lindsay). Their silly, winking from the wings romance had the best songs of the show, "Prairie Moon" and "Count on My Love" and really felt closest to the simple and unabashed tenderness of a romantic comedy. "

I did catch a glimpse of Lindsay singing, in a video from a Lone Star Love rehearsal held for the press in New York last summer. You can see and hear her near the end, in a duet with her yodeling cowboy beau.

Little House on the Prairie will be directed by Francesca Zambello, with music by Donna di Novelli, lyrics by Oscar-winner Rachel Portman (Emma) and a book by Rachel Sheinkin, Tony winner for The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Previews begin at the Guthrie on July 26 and the musical runs through Oct. 5. For more background, Steve on Broadway attended a sneak preview held at the Guthrie in March.