VISTA Productions Performs 'Sweet Land The Musical' Outdoors

Press release from Visitation School:

May 24, 2021

VISTA Productions, the combined theater department of Visitation School and Saint Thomas Academy, presents its latest show, Sweet Land the Musical, debuting outdoors at Visitation School on May 21 at 5 p.m. Sweet Land the Musical is based on Minnesota author Bill Weaver’s short story A Gravestone of Wheat and the subsequent film adaptation Sweet Land by director Ali Selim. Selim graduated from Saint Thomas Academy in 1979.

VISTA Productions is the first high school theater company granted permission to produce Sweet Land the Musical. The show was created by a team of local female artists: Perrin Post (script), Laurie Flannigan Hegge (script/lyrics), and Dina Maccabee (music), and originally produced at the Minnesota History Theater.

VISTA Theater Director Wendy Short-Hays chose Sweet Land the Musical because she was looking for a piece that could be adapted to an outdoor environment, allowing students to safely perform for a live audience in accordance with Covid protocols. “Sweet Land, being set in 1920 Park Rapids Minnesota, was the perfect choice,” Short-Hays said.

The show will be performed live May 21, 22 and 23 on Visitation School’s Convent grounds, an expansive outdoor space near the school’s former monastery. VISTA Productions also made a video of the show, which will be available to stream from home.

Several local theater professionals helped VISTA Productions make Sweet Land the Musical a reality. VISTA student-actors had the opportunity to meet via Zoom with Sweet Land the Musical’s creators, Perrin Post and Laurie Flannigan, as well as Ann Michels and Robert O. Berdahl, who created the show’s lead roles. Professional designer Rich Hamson from the Chanhassen Dinner Theater designed the student-actors’ period-specific costumes. Grace Heatherington Tilka, a sound engineer at the Ordway who graduated from Visitation in 2009, is the show’s sound engineer, and 2009 Saint Thomas Academy graduate Tony Stoeri came back to serve as Director of Photography for the video version of the show. Robert Elhai, Orchestrator for Sweet Land the Musical, played accordion and keyboard for the video.

"Creating our version of Sweet Land the Musical has been a challenging journey and those challenges have been met and conquered by all of the students and staff involved,” Short-Hays
said. “The goal of performing for a live audience outdoors will be reached this weekend. In this version, with a wide-open performance space, crew and company members will be visible at all times. They all unite to tell the story and it is a beautiful thing to witness.”

Streamed Performance Information

On-demand tickets to watch the video version may be purchased on the VISTA Productions site.

Streamed performances will take place on the following dates:
May 28 at 6 p.m - May 29 at 6 p.m.
June 5 at 6 p.m - June 6 at 6 p.m.
June 12 at 6 p.m - June 13 at 6 p.m.

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This press release was produced by Visitation School. The views expressed here are the author's own.