Shakespeare in the Parks Summer 2021

Kevin Brustuen

For 48 years, Montana Shakespeare in the Parks (MSIP) has brought free productions of Shakespeare to rural and remote communities across Montana and surrounding states. This summer, MSIP brings two more plays to stages across a five-state area…

The Montana Book Award

Kevin Brustuen

Gretchen Minton, professor of English at Montana State University, won the 2020 Montana Book of the Year Award, for her book “Shakespeare in Montana: Big Sky Country’s Love Affair with the World’s Most Famous Writer.” Honor…

Sustainable Ranching in 2021

Kevin Brustuen

photo: Chris Boyer, Kestrel AerialOne year ago, the Covid pandemic shocked most of us when we suddenly were confronted with shortages in grocery stores, restaurants were shut down, and food became a source of concern. Faced with this sudden and…

Polaroid Stories

Kevin Brustuen

In January of 2020, Bozeman Actors Theatre (BAT) began rehearsing a production of Naomi Iizuka’s Polaroid Stories, intending to stage nine performances in April of 2020. Rehearsals were well underway when Covid-19 reached Gallatin County, and…

Sonnets in the Snow

Kevin Brustuen

The desire to create is something important to humanity—a fundamental part of our very existence. The Covid19 pandemic has limited the outlets for this creative urge in everyone around the world, leaving not only frustrated audiences, but even…

Warren Miller Performing Arts Center

Kevin Brustuen

About forty miles south of Bozeman is the town of Big Sky and the Warren Miller Performing Arts Center, which brings world-renowned performing artists to the people who live and travel to Southwestern Montana.For over seven years, John Zirkle…

Peaks, Peace and Poetry

Kevin Brustuen

“When despair for the world grows in meand I wake in the night at the least soundin fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,I go and lie down where the wood drakerests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.I…

Up The Theatrical Creek

Kevin Brustuen

In mid-June of this year, I was walking along the East Gallatin River one afternoon when I saw a fascinating sight:A young man named Jacques, dressed in white and holding his flute as he sat beside the East Gallatin River in Bozeman, looked up at a…

Baroque Music Montana

Kevin Brustuen

Alessandro Stradella was one of the 17th century’s finest Baroque composers—and one of its most threatened composers due to his passion for wine, women, and song. Stradella lived in Venice, played the lute, composed music, and performed…

Theatre Culture in Bozeman

Kevin Brustuen

Gary Cooper, Hollywood star of the 1940s and 50s born in Helena and former student at Montana State College (today’s MSU), is enshrined in Bozeman’s history with a star embedded in the sidewalk near the Rialto Theatre in downtown Bozeman…

Arts in the Time of Plague

Kevin Brustuen

This time of the pandemic and stay-at-home orders is a time of catching up on things, right? I’ve always wanted to sleep in, deep-clean the house, read that pile of books, fix that door latch so it closes properly, clean the garage, write…

Life on the Streets: Polaroid Stories

Kevin Brustuen

Polaroid Stories, a play about homeless youth living on inner-city streets, tells the story of young people searching for self-identity in the face of powerlessness. Ovid’s Metamorphosesis is the…

Cyrano de Bergerac

Kevin Brustuen

Written in 1897 by Edmond Rostand, a French writer from Marseilles, Cyrano de Bergerac is a play set in France in 1640 during the Thirty Years’ war, one of the most destructive wars ever. After the Siege of Arras, the bloody war was brought to…

Intermountain Opera: Kiss Me Kate

Kevin Brustuen

Anyone who grew up in the 1960s-70s likely remembers the famous stormy relationship of Liz Taylor and Richard Burton. These internationally famous Hollywood stars argued and fought with each other in public and private, yet loved each other dearly…

Verge Theatre: 25 Years In Bozeman

Kevin Brustuen

Bozeman was a quiet sleepy little mountain town of about 23,000 people in 1990. Bozemanites would hike empty trails, go out to eat at Black Angus, have a couple drinks and maybe dance at the Cat’s Paw, and sometimes go see a play at the…

Bah Humbug! A Christmas Carol 2019

Kevin Brustuen

A Christmas Carol, the famous story by Charles Dickens, comes to The Ellen Theatre December 6 through December 22. Dickens first conceived of this story as a pamphlet meant to speak out against the conditions that led to poor children being forced…

Howl! A Montana Love Story

Kevin Brustuen

In 1995, wolves were successfully reintroduced into the Yellowstone National Park region after an absence of 70 years. Before long, the wolves formed into several viable packs, expanding their ranges to create their own territories. Introducing…

Theater at the Museum of the Rockies

Kevin Brustuen

People don’t generally think of a museum as a venue for live theater. In the case of the Museum of the Rockies, for instance, people usually think of dinosaurs, Native American artifacts, and some pioneer-era exhibit pieces. However, this fall…

Timon of Anaconda

Kevin Brustuen

Looking at the Anthropocene through Shakespeare

Bozeman’s 2019-2020 Theater Season

Kevin Brustuen

Bozeman is growing quickly, and the Bozeman-area theater scene is growing dramatically (pun intended) as well. As recently as ten years ago, people would scan bulletin boards, magazines and newspapers eagerly looking for things to do each weekend:…