Back in 2010 (the birth year of Cherry and Spoon),
Illusion Theater won two Ivey Awards (remember the
Ivey Awards, Minnesota's own Tony Awards?) for their adaptation of Willa Cather's novel
My Ántonia, one for playwright Allison Moore and one for Kate Guentzel, who played the title character. I didn't see it that year, but lucky for me Illusion continued to produce the show every few years, and even toured it around the Midwest and into Cather's Nebraska. I've seen it three times,
most recently in 2019, and loved it more each time I saw it, calling the sparse 90-minute six-person play with music "a perfect adaptation, in that it captures the wistful and nostalgic tone of the novel as Willa describes the people and place she loved so much." I was excited and a little trepidatious when two years ago Theater Latte Da announced that a new musical adaptation of
My Ántonia would be part of their NEXT new play development series. I saw the reading of the musical in development that summer and was reassured that the tone of the novel was maintained (unlike the recent musical adaptation of
The Great Gatsby,
which turned it into a romcom). And now after seeing the full production, even though I'll always have a special place in my heart for Illusion's play that made me fall in love with this story, I love seeing another version of it that fills out the story with more life and music. With a talented cast twice the size of the play, a lovely indie folk score that I wish I could download and listen to on repeat, and sparse design that evokes the achingly beautiful prairies that surround us, Theater Latte Da has brought us another beautiful adaptation of this classic American story (
continuing through July 12).
