STORY BY KAREN BOSSICK
PHOTO BY KIRSTEN SHULTZ
Woody Guthrie rambled from New York to California during his lifetime, chronicling the Dust Bowl in Oklahoma, the building of the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington and more.
“Woody Guthrie’s American Song” has kept the rambling folksinger’s love affair with America alive, as it’s traveled all over America to rave reviews.
Company of Fools will join in the chorus when it presents the musical beginning Tuesday, June 26, and running through Sunday, July 15.
The musical features many of Guthrie’s songs, including his most famous, “This Land is Your Land,” which extols the splendors of America. Ninety-eight percent of the material in the musical is comprised of Guthrie’s own words.
“Woody Guthrie was a genuine American patriot—a lot of people don’t know he served in the U.S. Merchant Marine during World War II,” said Kent Thompson, the Fools interim director. “He believed patriotism involved a healthy dose of protest, and he was one of the fathers of the American folk protest movement, one of the fathers of American folk music. He sang songs about the destitute poor, the downtrodden—to him they were the forgotten people.”
The musical was conceived by Peter Glazer, former chair of the Department of Theater at the University of California-Berkeley, who has co-written and produced numerous commemorative performances and is currently collaborating with folksinger Tom Paxton on a musical based on Paxton’s music. It’s arranged by Grammy nominee Jeff Waxman, who collaborated with Glazer on “Almost Heaven—Songs and Stories of John Denver.”
“Woody Guthrie’s American Song” received a Drama Desk nomination.
The Fools production features such familiar faces as Andrew Alburger, Chris Carwithen and Karen Nelsen, along with Matt Musgrove of Los Angeles and Tess Worstell, a New York actor who appeared in the Fools’ “Grey Gardens.”
Each singer will get to play Woody as a character as they carry the audience through Wood’s Guthrie’s journey of self-discovery.
Born in Okemah Okla., in 1912, Guthrie learned cowboy and Indian songs, along with Scottish folk tunes from his father, a cowboy, land speculator and local politician. The younger Guthrie took to the road after an oil boom in his hometown collapsed, leaving the townspeople “busted, disgusted and not to be trusted.”
When the Dust Bowl hit the Great Plains in 1935, he hit Route 66 heading west along with hundreds of other dustbowl refugees hopping freight trains and living in makeshift cardboard shelters as he tried to support his family who remained in Pampa, Texas.
The musical paints a portrait of Guthrie as a very open, honest and genuine man who exhorted people to pull themselves out of the troubles in which they found themselves, said Carwithen.
It reveals aspects of Guthrie many likely do not know, such as the fact that he was an accomplished author and painter who sketched and doodled when he wasn’t composing and singing. It also teaches some American history, such as the building of the Grand Coulee Dam, said Alburger.
“He supported quality of life for all people, whether immigrants or someone else,” said Nelsen.
Guthrie’s music also inspired many singers, including Paul Simon, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, who recorded several of Guthrie’s songs.
He called singing a way to say what’s on your mind in places where it wasn’t too healthy to talk too loud or speak your mind, and he did just that as he railed against racial prejudice and assaults on the environment.
“Drop the word ‘folk’ and just call it real old honest-to-God American singing,” said Guthrie who wrote nearly 3,000 songs in his lifetime. “If the fight gets hot, the songs get hotter. If the going gets tough, the songs get tougher.”
“There’s nothing sweet about the songs he sings,” added John Steinbeck. “But there is something more important for those who still listen..the will of a people to endure and fight against oppression. I think we call this the American spirit.”
Woody Guthrie was someone who was willing to be himself, no matter what people thought, said R.L Rowsey, the musical’s music director. “And he was trying to figure out his purpose—it obviously was to tell people’s stories. And he tells their stories with dignity.”
Guthrie traveled through 46 states, listening to people who were suffering and letting what they said flow back through him in song, noted Worstell.
“We typically go to the theater to see life as we wish it could be. Woody did not try to glamorize the lives that he saw. He did life as it was,” she added.
That said, Guthrie said that he hates a song “that makes you think you’re not any good, that you’re just born to lose…I am out to fight those kinds of songs to my very last breath of air.”
Indeed, there’s always a sense of hopefulness, as he lets you know, “I ain’t gonna be treated this a-way,” ” added Alburger. “
The show for Music Director R.L. Rowsey is about possibility and positivity.
“We don’t think about the Depression and how many people were affected. Music helped them make it through the day because you get caught up in a song. Many of these songs were written during the hardest of times, yet there was always a ray of hope. Even today there’s a lot of noise going on in the world and we need music to survive, even thrive. Maybe we need to find a few Woody Guthrie’s for our time.”
That said, the musical is cautionary, said Worstell.
“This is the second Dust Bowl play I’ve been in in the last year. And it’s very troubling, as I’ve learned that a massive aquifer in eight states could be depleted in less than 50 years. So I could see a Dust Bowl in my time--in bread basket America.”
Song and words will be augmented by some of the earliest color photographs addressing abject poverty taken during the Depression for the Farm Security Administration. But the Fools have purposely tried not to get too glitzy with the production, said Rowsey.
“Often, we think of musical theater and we think: Bigger, better. Here, we have to make sure we don’t put too much icing on the cake. It’s good as it is.”
IF YOU GO…
What: “Woody Guthrie’s American Songbook”
When: June 26-July 15. 7 p.m. Tuesday through Thursdays, June 26-28, July 3 and 5, July 10-12 and Sundays July 8 and 15. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, June 29-30, July 6-7 and July 13-14.
Where: The Liberty Theatre in Hailey.
Tickets: $15 for students and $35 for seniors 62 and over, for members of a group of eight or more and members of the Sun Valley Center for the Arts. They’re $40 for all others, available online at www.sunvalleycenter.org, by phone at 208-578-9122 or at The Liberty Theatre Box Office.
Special Deals: Opening night on Tuesday, June 26, is Pay What You Feel Night. The Second Night, on Wednesday, June 27, all seats are $23. Educator Night on Friday, June 29, features two $15 tickets purchased in advance for currently employed educators and school administrators. The ten front-row seats will be offered for $10 each starting one hour before curtain before each show. Tickets are limited to two per person.
Girl’s Night Out on Saturday, July 7, features a pre-show happy half-hour with discounted wine, beer and bubbly, deals at local partner restaurants and a chance to win prizes.
A Post-Show Chat Back with actors and Backstage Tour will be offered Sunday, July 8 immediately following the show.