“Jesse” Rides Again!

A play unique to the Northfield Arts Guild Musical Theater will be staged anew in September as Jesse returns to the NAG as both part of the annual Defeat of Jesse James Days and in celebration of the year-long commemoration of the NAG’s 50th Anniversary.

Performances are set for Sept. 4-6 and Sept. 10-12 with all shows at 7:30 p.m. except for a 2 p.m. matinee on the 6th.  Tickets are $10.

First staged in 1976, Jesse was principally developed for the Northfield stage through the collaborative effort of Bob Moulton, Vern Sutton and Myrna Johnson, who has been the director for five of the six shows—in 1977, 1986, 1994, 2001 and this year. Moulton directed the show in 1976.

“The show came from a theater ‘book’ that Bob and his wife Maggie had written,” Myrna explained. “It had played at The Stagecoach, where I had worked with Bob (longtime theater professor at the University of Minnesota). I thought it would be a perfect fit for our Northfield Theater, and Bob and Vern, who had many connections with us, agreed.”

Moulton, who often has been referred to as a “consummate” theater person—in addition to teaching theater, he was a dancer, actor, choreographer and director—did all the staging; Sutton, a noted Twin Cities performer, music professor at the University and a regular on Garrison Keillor’s “Prairie Home Companion,” wrote the lyrics for all the show’s songs and assisted with the staging.

The music was written by William Huckaby, Music Director of Western Opera Theater, the touring company of the San Francisco Opera. Donna Paulsen, who has been musical director for all six stagings of the show, took Huckaby’s melody line and expanded it to include complete accompaniment, “formally” writing all the music as a score, and developing what is called “underscoring,” an old-time melodrama style.  “It’s a melodrama written for and done in presentational style. We share it with the audience.”

“It is really a fun show, both to do and to watch,” Johnson said. “The wording is very clever, and the thing is it is based on Jesse’s life. It’s not a hoax or based on legends, but on fact. And, while the bank raid is part of it, it’s not as much about that as about Jesse himself.  It’s his own history beginning when he was a young man in the Civil War up through his assassination by Bob Ford.”

Myrna said that what also makes this a truly “Northfield” production is that both the Moultons and Sutton wrote the play with Northfield people in mind.  “They had certain people and their voices in mind.”  One of those was Charlie Black as Jesse. This year will be the first time that Black has not played the role. Jim Hansen, a faculty member at St. Olaf College and veteran of the Northfield stage, will have the lead in this production.

The cast also includes Jim Stenglein as Frank James, Ruth Sylte as Jesse’s wife Zee, Pauline Jennings as Cindy Ford, Kathy Doran-Norton as Ma Samuels, Bob Bruce as Dr. Samuels, and Nathan Kuhlman as Bob Ford.

Kathy Rush will be assistant director and Lucy Sweitzer the choreographer.  Noel Stratmoen and Chuck Sandstrom are designing the set, Alvin Ho is doing the lighting, and Ruth Legvold is handling the costuming. All have been involved in past stagings of the show. The show, prepared with two separate grants, is one of only two that were ever written for the NAG. The other, Donata’s Gift, also will be staged during this 50th anniversary year—during December.

“I really felt this was an appropriate time to do this show because it’s such an integral part of our theater’s history,” Johnson said. “It should be valued by all Northfielders,” Rush added, “because it’s such an important part of the history of the Arts Guild and its theater tradition.”