"A Cattywampus Christmas" - a radio play from Yellow Tree Theatre and A.D. Players at the George Theatre

2020 has been a year like no other. But one thing remains the same - fans of Yellow Tree Theatre can return to the charming and quirky (fictional) Minnesota town of Christmas Lake. Co-Founder and Interim Artistic Director Jessica Lind Peterson has written another very Minnesotan holiday* comedy, this one as an audio play, which I listened to whilst putting up my Christmas tree. For those of us who have grown to love Christmas Lake resident Martha Knutson and her tater tot hot dish, her pet lizard Katherine, and her obsession with Little House on the Prairie, listening to A Cattywampus Christmas feels like going home for the holidays.

"Miracle on Christmas Lake" at Yellow Tree Theatre

Gather round, children, this is one of my favorite stories in #TCTheater. Not that long ago, in a land not too far away, a couple moved home to Minnesota from NYC to start a theater company. Shortly after doing so, the rights to the holiday* show they were planning were pulled a few weeks before rehearsal was set to begin. Luckily, one of them was a playwright, so she wrote a play. That play was a comedy about a couple that moved to a small town in Minnesota from NYC to run a theater company, when the rights to their holiday play were pulled the night before opening. They say write what you know, and Jessica Lind Peterson did just that, to great success. She mixed her and Yellow Tree Theatre co-founder Jason Peterson's story together with Minnesota humor, soap operas, Little House on the Prairie, a handful of quirky characters, and a bearded dragon, put it all in a crock pot to simmer, and something delicious was born. Now, ten years later, Yellow Tree's holiday show is a huge hit every year and anchors their season to be able to produce some extraordinary and diverse work year-round. There have been two installments of Miracle on Christmas Lake, as well as two stand-alone plays A Hunting Shack Christmas (which you can see this December at Camp Bar produced by Actors Theater of Minnesota) and A Gone Fishin' Christmas. For their 11th season they're returning to where it all began, the original Miracle on Christmas Lake with most of the original cast. This was my 6th time seeing some iteration of the Christmas Lake franchise, and I love the silly, ridiculous, sweet, wonderful mess even more each time I see it. The show continues through the end of December, but as I mentioned it's always hugely popular, so get your tickets soon!

"String" at Yellow Tree Theatre

Seven years ago, just a few months after I started this #TCTheater blogging adventure, a friend told me about this little theater in a strip mall in Osseo. Since at the time I worked just a few miles away, I organized a group of coworkers to go see a play after work one day. That play was String, and the theater was Yellow Tree Theatre. I may not remember details of the show (I've seen a lot of theater in the intervening years), but I remember being so charmed by the experience at Yellow Tree's warm, inviting, intimate space that I've returned to see just about everything they've done, from goofy holiday comedies, to new original musicals, to classics of the American theater, to silly farce, and everything in between. As I've seen this blog grow beyond my wildest dreams to a place where I cannot possibly see all of the theater I'm invited to, people inexplicably know who I am, and I am given press comps to any theater in town, Yellow Tree has seen their theater grow to a place where now, in their 10th season, they consistently sell out shows, attract some of the top talent in #TCTheater, and have increased diversity of programming and artists. To celebrate, they're bringing back String, written by Yellow Tree co-founder Jessica Lind Peterson and co-starring her and her husband and co-founder Jason Peterson, their first time on stage together in years. If you're a Yellow Tree fan, it's a wonderful opportunity to celebrate this full circle moment with them, and if you've never been to Yellow Tree, it's time to make the (not that long) drive to the Northwest suburbs to see this charming, funny, quirky, sweet little play that started it all, a play that is "as Yellow Tree as plays get."

"Miracle on Christmas Lake" at Yellow Tree Theatre

A small regional theater is preparing for their Christmas play when the rights are unexpectedly pulled.  They have to scramble to pull together a new production in a short period of time.  This is both the plot of Miracle on Christmas Lake and the true story of how Yellow Tree Theatre developed the play two years ago in their inaugural season.  They were all set to do Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol when they were told they were granted the rights by mistake and could no longer do it.  Since one of the founders of the theater, Jessica Lind, is a playwright, she wrote a new play and chose to base it on what they were going through, although with many fictional and wacky additions.

Miracle on Christmas Lake is set in the fictional town of Christmas Lake, Minnesota.  Colin (Stuart Gates) inherited the town theater from his father and moved home from New York City with his wife Tess (Carolyn Jensen) to run it.  Colin left a semi-successful acting career in NYC, including a role on the fictional soap opera As Time Ticks On.  (Coincidentally, Jessica and her husband Jason Peterson, director of this production and Artistic Director of the theater, had also spent time in NYC before moving home to Minnesota to open the theater, and Jason appeared on the dear departed soap As the World Turns.)  Colin calls all of the actors in the cancelled production, It's a Wonderful Life, for an emergency all-night brainstorming/rehearsal session, but only the oddball Martha Knutson (Jessie Rae Rayle) can attend.  She brings along tator tot hotdish and her pet bearded lizard, named Katherine after her grandmother.  Martha is a caricature of Minnesota and seems to be stuck in the 80s judging by her high-waisted acid washed jeans and moon boots.  Jessie, who also appeared in String this fall, gives a fearless performance, contorting her face and invoking a crazy laugh and funny posture.  Piano tuner Neil (Ryan Nelson), who has an understandable obsession with Little House on the Prairie and Michael Landon, is roped into joining the new production.  After a failed attempt at trying to extract something interesting from Martha and Neil, Colin decides to act out an episode of As Time Ticks On to appeal to their chief benefactor, Mrs. Burlington (Diana Wilde, who also plays Colin's mom), who's a big fan of Colin and the show.  They also give her a part in the play.

The main character in As Time Ticks On is Victor Icon of Icon Enterprises, an obvious nod to Victor Newman from the number one soap, The Young and the Restless, who is most certainly a soap icon (even though he's a manipulative greedy bastard ;).  There's also a character named Marlena (Days of Our Lives).  Plot points include sperm switching, affairs, evil twins, and being buried alive, all soap staples.  The play begins, and chaos ensues.  The lizard Katherine has gone missing and Martha is beside herself.  Neil is only comfortable when using someone else's voice, from Bill Clinton to Marlon Brando to my favorite, Jimmy Stewart.  Mrs. Burlington has a hideous hairy mole on her chest, and Tess is forced to do an awkward Colombian accent.  The show falls apart, and Tess tries to save it by singing perhaps the most melancholy of Christmas songs, "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas."

The show is a disaster, and Colin is sure he's going to have to sell the theater and move back to NYC, something Tess thought she wanted until she sees how much the theater means to Colin.  But it turns out people loved the show; Mrs. Burlington comes through with her donation and they sell out the performance for the next night.  Like in The Producers, the show is so bad it's good!  Tess and Colin decide to stay in the little Minnesota town and make a life and a theater there.  I, for one, am glad that Jessica and Jason made the same choice.  While this fall's String was more my style, Miracle on Christmas Lake is a funny, silly, campy show with great performances that makes for an entertaining evening.  It pokes loving fun at everything from tator tot hotdish to lutefisk to soap operas to Little House on the Prairie.  I continue to be impressed with Yellow Tree and am looking forward to their upcoming productions, Our Town and the musical [title of show].

"String" at Yellow Tree Theatre

I've had a busy week. I saw three shows in four days: a touring production of the 80s rock musical Rock of Ages, Theater Latte Da's sublime Evita, and last night I saw what may be my favorite of the week: an original play called String at Yellow Tree Theatre in Osseo. It's definitely the one that made me laugh the most, and touched my heart the most. What more can you ask for from theater?

If you've never been to Osseo it's worth a visit. Only a few miles from the consumer mecca that is Maple Grove, when you're in downtown Osseo you could be in any small town in Minnesota. There's the butcher shop, the barber shop, the mom and pop diner, a great Thai restaurant, and a lovely wine bar and bistro (OK it's not like every small town). So when I heard about this theater, now in its third season, I was curious to check it out. It's in a strip mall not far from downtown, and doesn't look like much from the outside. But once you get inside, it's a warm and inviting space with a cozy lobby (with a tree in it, of course) and an intimate little theater. Yellow Tree was founded by husband and wife team and native Minnesotans Jason Peterson (Artistic Director and actor) and Jessica Lind (playwright and actor). They moved to New York for a few years after college, but soon realized Minnesota might be a better fit for what they wanted to do. "We were living in New York and were sitting on this gorgeous play," said Jason in an article in the local press. "It became a pipe dream to start our own company and produce String ourselves. That dream morphed into wanting a permanent home for our work, and that's how Yellow Tree was born."

String was written by Jessica and is a romantic comedy. But not in the bad Katherine Heigl movie kind of way, more in the quirky indie movie kind of way. Raina, played by Jessica, is the epitome of the "English major" that Garrison Keillor always jokes about. She wants to be paid for writing poems despite everyone telling her that she should get a job teaching high school English. But she wants more out of life. Ryan, played by Jason, is the pizza delivery guy whose car breaks down outside her house, so he has to come in to use the phone. She continues to run into him, and despite the fact that she's dating a man who seems perfect for her on paper, she can't seem to get Ryan out of her head (or her dreams). Meanwhile, her sister, the delightful Jessie Rae Rayle, is struggling with a new marriage and trying to start a family. When Raina receives flowers and a poem, she assumes it's from her medieval literature professor boyfriend. But she soon finds out that the pizza delivery guy is the one who wrote her the beautiful poem (which inspired the name of the theater):

If I am not the right one, there has never been an ocean.
A yellow tree never grew where it grew.
The sun never exchanged places with the moon.

At one point Raina describes a poem she's writing as something like, "it's about breaking free of the strings that hold us down, while coming to terms with them." That's a great way to describe this play, too. Jessica and Jason have great chemistry, and Jason's Ryan is an utterly charming goofball. I don't understand why it took Raina as long as it did to fall for him! I guess it's those strings and expectations she had to break loose of first.

I was really taken by the set design, it's an innovative use of the small space. The apartment setting has a chalkboard wall behind it that opens up to reveal a second floor bedroom, or a sign for the cafe. By the end of the play it had transformed into a train station with a single bench. I also really loved the music they played between scenes. If it were a movie, I would have bought the soundtrack. Instead I came home and listened to the Garden State soundtrack, which has a similar feel and even one song in common - Simon and Garfunkel's "The Only Living Boy in New York."

It's obvious this theater and this play are a labor of love. It's a great find (thanks Vicki!) and I'm excited to go back. They've got a great season ahead of them which includes the classic American play Our Town (which I've never seen) and the musical [title of show].

I'll leave you with this quote from their website:

"We at Yellow Tree Theatre have this dream. We see the people of this community gathering together and getting excited about theatre. We see our theatre as a meeting place where everyone feels welcome, an artistic venue where people of all ages and walks of life can mingle together. Maybe we’re a little romantic, maybe this sounds like a crazy convoluted idea, but we’re okay with that. We like crazy."

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go order a pizza.