MAT hosting a raft of plays this year

While the rest of February will be fairly quiet, Montana Actors’ Theatre has a full docket in 2022, with play after play scheduled for production in addition to their annual activities and events.

The first of these plays is “The Harvest,” written by MAT’s own Executive Director Jay Pyette.

MAT Artistic Director Grant Olson said Pyette’s play, opening March 4, is the story of a family gone their separate ways in life, being brought together from across the U.S. to help run their father’s farm after he falls ill enough that he cannot perform the titular harvest.

Olson said the script, which is driven by the family dynamics of its characters as they cope with the realities of running a small family farm, has already struck a cord with the people involved in the production and he believes it will do the same with audiences.

“Everyone who reads it or has a part to do in it says, ‘oh my god, this is my family,’” he said. “It’s very northern Montana but it reaches more than that. It’s about family.”

He said the play will run March 4, 5, 10, 11, 12, 17, 18 and 19.

He said the next big play is MAT’s high school production of “Anastasia,” directed by Angela Pratt, which will run for two weekends at the end of March.

Olson said the production is still looking for just a bit more funding to make up for the increased price to license the production and to lower the cost of tickets.

He said there’s a national tour of “Anastasia” going on right now so MAT couldn’t actually license the play for their adult troupe, and even after getting around that by making it a high school-age production, the price was still driven up by the on-going tour.

He said MAT also wants to lower the price of the tickets for the production to allow family members of performers to go multiple times if they want.

Olson said Pyette recently sent out a letter asking for more funding and the community has already responded generously so they only need a little bit more to reach their goal.

In early April, he said, MAT will be doing its touring dinner theater at the Eagles clubs in Havre and Chinook before moving on to Shelby and Lewistown.

This year’s production, “Charlie’s Aunt,” is a comedic farce from the 1800s, reworked for modern audiences by Martin Holt.

Olson said Holt’s rework modernizes some of the play’s more outdated ideas, but stays true to the original’s hilarious style.

“It’s one of the funniest plays I’ve ever read,” he said, “A great laugh-out-loud comedy.”

Later that month, MAT will also be putting on the three-person British play “Blue Orange,” he said, a fast-paced dark comedy about the consequences of Britain’s mental health care system that explores how societies go about deciding what deserves funding, and looks at the intersection between race and mental health.

Olson said the play is set in England, but its themes are very relevant to the U.S. as well.

In the summer, he said, MAT will also be starting up its youth workshops and will be putting on a high school-age production of “Happily Ever Before,” a time-traveling story about fairy-tale villains looking for their own happily ever after.

At the end of August they will also be holding Shakespeare in Beaver Creek Park, which will see casting open in mid- to late-spring, he said, followed by this year’s Death by Chocolate in September.