Straw Hat Players Opens Summer Season with Nostalgic Humor
Gooseberry Park Players continues collaboration with MSUM
Minnesota State University Moorhead’s Straw Hat Players Summer Theatre opens its 53rd season with Church Basement Ladies. Inspired by Growing Up Lutheran, a book by Janet Letnes Martin and Suzann Nelson, Church Basement Ladies is a humorous “scrapbook of memories” of growing up Lutheran in the 1950’s Midwest. The musical runs May 31 to June 3 on the Gaede Stage.
The season continues with Blame It on the Movies! This musical features more than 75 songs from popular films. Blame It on the Movies! runs June 7 to 10 in Hansen Theatre.
Third in the lineup is the Broadway hit Greater Tuna, which runs four nights, beginning June 14 and closing on June 17 on the Gaede Stage. Greater Tuna is a comedy about Texas’ third smallest town, where the Lion’s Club is too liberal and Patsy Cline never dies. Only two performers portray the town’s eclectic citizens in this satire on life in rural America.
The final show of the season is the hit musical The Wedding Singer. The show runs June 21 to 24 on the Hansen Theatre stage. The Wedding Singer tells the story of rock-star wannabe Robbie Heart, New Jersey’s favorite wedding singer and the life of the party until his fiancée, Linda, leaves him at the altar. This show is set in 1985, when hair was big, greed was good, collars were up, and a wedding singer might just be the coolest guy in the room.
All Straw Hat shows start at 7:30 p.m. and are rated PG. Signed performances for the hearing impaired are Thursdays for all Straw Hat shows.
Following the Straw Hat season is a production by the Gooseberry Park Players, a summer youth theatre company. Gooseberry takes the Hansen Theatre stage for their production of Bye Bye Birdie July 13 to 17. The hit musical starts at 7:30 all days except for July 17, a matinee performance that starts at 1 p.m.
Hansen Theatre and the Gaede Stage are located in the Roland Dille Center for the Arts on the MSUM campus. Tickets are available for the entire Straw Hat season and for Gooseberry’s Bye Bye Birdie online at www.mnstate.edu/tickets, or by calling the MSUM Box Office Monday through Friday from noon to 4 p.m. at (218) 477-2271.