PART 2 of summer musicals in Spring Grove
Ye Olde Gray Barn, for the past 41 Spring Grove summers, has been the venue for annual musical theatre productions. Don Vesterse performed in the first 16 shows, the first of 80 lifetime performances in three states. He christened the barn (as a stage) with a bottle of champagne in 1979.
There have been approximately 166 barn performances scheduled with only a few rained out. Early barn owners Dr. Jim and Karen Gray have attended every performance of every production except when he underwent surgery.
One 2003 performance of Sound of Music had a one-night record crowd of 1,050. There was one road performance when the 1982 cast of Fiddler on the Roof accepted an invitation from Lanesboro.
In the 2000 production of Lucky Stiff, a “dead guy” character was rolled out in a wheel chair. In each of the four performances, the surprise “corpse du jour” was a different past stage personality — Jim Gray, Rob Gross, Greg Wennes and Pastor (now Bishop) Jim Arends.
“I tended to die a lot,” chuckled Bill Fried, thinking back on six of his leading characters who met their demise during the play. He had 11 starring roles among 24 summer performances and also directed once. Fried ruled as King Arthur (Camelot), the king of Siam (The King and I), the king in Cinderella and the mayor in Grease.
In 1999, Fried had new contact lenses, which caused a distraction when he was able to see faces in the audience for the first time. He also recalls another opening night when he managed to bluff his way through the lyrics when memory failed to provide the first verse.
Another paragon of this summer stage, Mary Deters, has appeared in 25 musicals and was involved in 40 of the 41 productions in some way or another, very often involved with costuming. She said there were no costumes on hand for that first 1979 production. So Nancy O’Connor borrowed costumes from the Historical Society in Preston. That had to be the most daring costuming with the performers wearing actual antique clothing, rather than reproductions.
In the early years, Deters said it was easier to get people to appear on stage than to get back stage and pre-production workers. She did whatever needed to be done – including a brief “walk-on” appearance that first summer.
Two years later, Deters played the lead as Marian the Librarian in The Music Man and later one of the six major roles as the Hat Lady in Hello Dolly (1986). Then she went on to create many memorable “character” performances. She fondly recalls being the villainous stepmother in Cinderella (2008), sharing scenes with her real-life daughter, Rachel Udstuen, who was playing her daughter on stage.
Believed to be the longest-running annual event in town, the 42nd show (Spamalot) has been postponed by the pandemic until 2021. Kay Capps-Cross will then be directing her record seventh summer musical since successfully answering an ad for a director for Paint Your Wagon. She was eight months pregnant while directing that 1990 show. Six years later, Capps-Cross was expecting again and had a clever expanding costume for Wizard of Oz. She and all four adult children performed in Annie (2018).
She both directed and performed in Guys and Dolls. Along with either directing or performing in 13 barn musicals, she has been a costuming coordinator for many others.
David Storlie appeared in three summer musicals while in high school before directing as a college student in 1999. He has now directed five times along with 13 performances while being involved with 21 shows. Storlie especially enjoyed the role made famous by comedic actor Steve Martin in Little Shop of Horrors — just one of his numerous starring roles.
Scott Solberg and daughter Claire both debuted as fifth graders — he as one of the von Trapp children in Sound of Music, 34 years before she had the starring role of Annie. Scott has performed in eight musicals and the second thespian to have directed six.
According to Deters, the 41 years of great entertainment are much due to the leadership of the late Jane Wold.
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