Northern Fort Playhouse

South Dakota Premiere

by Tom Jacobson

Friday, July 12th and 19th at 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, July 6th at 7:30 p.m.

Sunday, July 14th at 2:00 p.m.

Based on ACTUAL minutes of a women's club called "The Friendly Hour" (that was formed in Beresford, South Dakota in 1934), this poignant comedy charts 70 years of personal and national history, from skinning skunks and julebukking when the tale begins, to restoring the native prairie in the new millennium.  Join these fascinating women as they laugh, cry, navigate the difficult changes in their relationships, and share their lives at their "friendly" monthly gathering.

"Tom Jacobson's lovely new play chronicles the rituals of a women's club in rural South Dakota from the late 1930's to 2007, and we watch the women with whom we grow increasingly familiar age and engage in theological disputes that are really at the heart of the matter.  God's purpose, and the purpose of community, interweave and clash through the decades."    LA Weekly

"Tom Jacobson has paid exemplary homage to real-life American heroes from a less jaded period in our history, using transcripts of minutes from a rual South Dakota women's club that gathered monthly from 1934 through 2007, when the last two survivors begin to fade.....These powerful Midwestern survivors are the stoic Americans to celebrate and honor, something Jacobson has accomplished with his lyrical, sweetly bucolic text."  Backstage

The Star-Spangled Musical Hit!

by Linda Thorsen Bond, William Repicci and Charles Busch

Friday, July 5th at 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, July 13th and 20th at 7:30 p.m.

Sunday, July 7th at 2:00 p.m.

After 17 years with MGM, still-glamourous movie legend Marian Ames is being put out to pasture. But this is 1944 and Marian has gathered up her instrument playing gal pals from the Hollywood Canteen and headed for London to entertain the troops.  Get ready for the rip-roaringest canteen show of them all as these five archetypal film characters from the 1940's prove their mettle while they sing over 30 vintage classics from the war years.