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"You can't wear Wal-Mart clothes. Well, you can but then everybody wears the same clothes because that store has only 15 of one thing." -from Stories from Montevideo, MN, a CTC Land Bridge Project

For Immediate Release: January 13, 2003

The Children's Theatre Company announces Stories from Montevideo, MN a play about hope and community that was developed in CTC's Land Bridge Project. As we all know, rural communities have faced enormous challenges in the recent past. Their very existence has been threatened by many influences, including the growth of agribusiness, the influx of super stores and rural flight. But do we know how rural families are coping with these pressures? Do we know how their outlook for the future has been altered, not only for themselves, but their children? Montevideo, MN is a rural community. And, the members of this town are meeting those challenges through creativity, hard labor, community spirit and sheer will. They are finding ways to both survive and flourish. This is a play that tells their stories and celebrates their resolve. According to director Rebecca Brown, "It reaches into the past and looks to the present to show how ordinary acts of everyday heroism can combine to positively impact a community, creating a landscape of possibility and hope."

Stories from Montevideo, MN is born of the belief that theater is a community event and that a significant component of the work of artists is to listen and respond to the communities for whom they make plays. CTC designed The Land Bridge Project to use theater to create and nurture dialogue between rural and urban residents regarding the matters that most concern rural Minnesotans. The project is a collaboration between CTC artists and the residents of Montevideo, Minnesota, a farming community of 5,500 people, located 120 miles West of the Twin Cities. A series of performances, both at CTC and in Montevideo, will be followed by dialogues with the audiences (adult and young people) that will tap into rural and urban perspectives as they relate to the issues of the play.

To prepare for the project, CTC artists learned a particular movement-based theater technique (Anne Bogart's Viewpoints) that would help them establish a common physical way of working throughout the project. Next, they dove into textual research about farming communities in Minnesota and then, interviewed each other using the same questions they would ask the Montevideo residents. In July 2002, each artist interviewed four people in Montevideo, ranging from high school students to farmers of all types and ages, to teachers, doctors and ministers. When the artists came together again, director Rebecca Brown had selected interview text from which they would build a play. With Brown's creative oversight and crafting, that work continues today and will culminate in several workshop performances and post-show dialogues at CTC, and then fully staged final performances and accompanying dialogues in Montevideo, MN.

The project is funded by the Animating Democracy Initiative (ADI), a four-year initiative of Americans for the Arts, the nations leading nonprofit organization for advancing the arts and is made possible with support from The Ford Foundation. In the fall of 1999, more than 600 arts organizations applied to receive an ADI grant. The Children's Theatre Company was one of only 32 organizations awarded a grant. ADI's purpose is to foster artistic activity that encourages dialogue on important contemporary issues and to promote the concept of arts-based dialogue. Education activities have been developed through a partnership of The Children's Theatre Company and the Perpich Center for Arts Education.

WHAT:
The Children's Theatre Company presents Stories from Montevideo, MN. This play, which is a celebration of a rural community, was created through a collaboration with CTC artists and Montevideo residents of all ages.

AT THE CHILDREN'S THEATRE COMPANY:
The Children's Theatre Company, Dance Studio
2400 Third Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55404
Tickets and information: 612-874-0400
Suggested donation: $5.00

AT THE WATSON TOWN HALL
Central and Fourth Street, Watson, MN 56295
Tickets and Information: Patrick at Java River Café 320-269-7106
$5.00

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