Taproot Theater

Sweet Land rode a most unique path toward becoming a full fledged musical. “A Gravestone Made of Wheat” a short story written by Will Weaver, appeared in a 1989 Minneapolis Star Tribune Sunday magazine. In 2005, Ali Selim went on to write and direct an indie movie based on the story and re-titled it Sweet Land. Last year, playwrights Perrin Post and Laurie Flanigan Hegge with the aid of composer Dina Maccabee, tinkered with the premise a bit but held on to the primary characters of the story and transformed the work into a musical. Tap Root is now staging the show’s successful West Coast premiere. The focus of the play is on Olaf Torvik, a hard working Norwegian farmer living in rural Minnesota and Inge Altenberg, a German woman who in 1920 has sailed across the sea from Norway to marry the man she has never met. The current concerns about the acceptance of immigrants into our country naturally resonate throughout the evening, but the natural beauty of this unabashedly romantic love story is Sweet Land’s most important gift to its audiences.

Recently, Taproot Theatre has placed a number of historical big shots on its stage: Albert Einstein was featured in Relativity and Abe Lincoln, Grant and Lee in A Civil War Christmas. The troupe has outdone itself with its latest production, Camping with Henry and Tom. Playwright Mark St. Germain bases his “what if?” premise on an actual event: Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and President Harding really did go on a much publicized camping trip in the Blue Ridge Mountains in 1921. In actuality, press and family surrounded them throughout the event. Germain imagines the trio off on their own and suffering a car crash with a deer in the middle of the forest. What if these three famous Americans were stranded with each other for a patch of time? The outcome here provides for a wonderfully entertaining evening of dramatic, insightful and often hilarious conversations presented by three skilled actors at the top of their game.

Taproot’s artistic director Scott Nolte pulled off some crafty sleuthing in finding a script for Dorothy Sayers’ novel Busman’s Honeymoon. He had enjoyed the book and learned that the story was originally written for the stage. The work hadn’t been in publication for some time, but eventually Nolte was able to track down a photocopy of the play from a publisher’s shelf. Lord Peter Wimsey would be proud! The show lays out a baffling mystery with a basketful of clues available for the audience to help puzzle out the solution.

Room Service first hit Broadway in 1937, in the midst of our country’s long dark Depression. The Marx Brothers took the play’s script, written by John Murray and Allen Boretz and made it into a movie the following year. It was their only movie not specifically created for them. Although there are lots of wacky shenanigans in the Taproot’s production, don’t expect to see specific Groucho and Harpo bits here. Director Karen Lund has her own original take on the comedic madness.

Hearing performances of the Messiah has long been a major musical highlight for me during the holiday season. Last year I even joined the sing-along Messiah they put together in Wedgewood and had a ball! I had no idea that the story of Handel’s composing of the work and its first performances in London had such dramatic intrigue behind it. Taproot Theatre’s season closer, Joyful Noise, brings alive the story of the birth of this classic piece.

The Taproot Theatre is offering up a cute little stocking stuffer in its take on A Charlie Brown Christmas. The play recreates the warmth and good cheer Charles Schultz and director Bill Melendez first served up with their award winning 25-minute television special back in 1965.