BUTTE – A group of Butte actors are getting a lesson in Montana history as they prepare for their next show, which may take them to a stage near you.
“The characters range from high fantasy to grounded historical fiction. Of course we have our historical figures and then we have several talking eagles; we may have a ghost and a person who can predict the future,” says Paisley Wanamaker, the stage manager of Orphan Girl Children’s Theatre.
Wanamaker describes the latest collaborative production by Montana playwrights Jay Kettering, Gwen McKenna and Fred Crase as a fun little historical spectacle that puts familiar figures from Montana’s past on the same train as an aspiring rodeo queen.
“This is the story of Alice Greenough, a Red Lodge native who wanted to participate in her first rodeo,” says Wanamaker.
Characters such as Janet Rankin and the ghost of a Butte miner join the rodeo queen on stage and break out into song while other characters provide laughs.
Eleven-year-old Drew Carr was chosen for the role of a train robber.
“My role is very silly and requires a certain amount of stealth, but a comical stealth, so that the audience obviously knows you’re there but the characters don’t,” says Carr.
While there were certainly train robbers in the Wild West, there were definitely no talking eagles.
“I have to be rocky because I have a rock and roll song and, I don’t know,” says Frances Shahan, a 10-year-old who plays a talking eagle, shaking her head back and forth as she shows what her character is like.
“However many head movements, um, you can go like this.”
Shahan moves her arms in a windmill motion.
“I guess it’s just kind of weird because there aren’t really any talking eagles.”
“It was really great to combine art and theater with real history education and to spark their interest in Montana history,” says Wanamaker.
She says the plan is to take the show on tour to Red Lodge and other Montana towns later this fall, but for now the show will be at the Orphan Girl Theater below the Mother Lode Theater in Butte Wednesday through Saturday at 6 p.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m.
Tickets are $23 for general admission and $18 for seniors. It is recommended to purchase tickets in advance of the show as the 100-seat theater fills up quickly.
