During the summer, many Glimmerglass staffers are asked – “do you ever take vacation?” The Glimmerglass season is a labor of love. We work many, many hours during the summer, but we love what we do.
That being said, yes, sometimes we do take a vacation. In fact several of us went on a trip out west in early September, which proved to be a somewhat work-related excursion. Abby, Andi and I went west with Yellowstone, the Black Hills and Badlands in mind, and found ourselves steeped in much of the history of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West – the show around which much of Annie Get Your Gun is based. Annie Oakley joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West in 1885 and stayed with the show for nearly 16 years, becoming about as famous as Buffalo Bill himself.
Upon exiting Yellowstone, we traveled to Cody, Wyoming, which Buffalo Bill helped found in the 1890s. We stopped at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center on our way through. And here you can see us posing with Ms. Oakley at Wall Drug in South Dakota.
Our trip finished at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis where we saw the first preview of The Master Butchers Singing Club, which Francesca Zambello directed and developed. Adapted for the stage by Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist Marsha Norman from the best-selling novel by Louise Erdrich, The Master Butchers Singing Club is based in a small town in North Dakota and follows the lives of German immigrant and butcher Fidelis and sideshow performer Delphine. The world-premiere production resonated with us particularly because we had just driven through the landscape in which this work is set. To hear more about the work, click here for an interview with Francesca Zambello and Louise Erdich on Minnesota Public Radio.
