MAT's 'The Harvest' opens March 4

Montana Actors' Theatre will soon open their newest play "The Harvest," starring some of their most veteran actors and written by MAT Executive Director Jay Pyette.

The play, set on a small Montana wheat farm, revolves around the family dynamics of six adult children who come together from across the U.S. to help with the harvest after their father becomes too sick to run the farm.

"It's about this family coming to grips with, not just their relationship with each other and their relationship with their parents, but also the changing dynamics of this small family farm," Pyette said.

He said he's been writing the script on and off for the past few years, as many playwrights do, but once it started to really coalesce and become the story he wanted to tell he finished the rest of it very quickly.

Pyette, who grew up in Chinook, said the characters take inspiration from many people he's know in his own life growing up in a farming community, including his family, but in testing the script and showing it to different people he's found that it resonates with people from farming and non-farming families alike.

"Everyone is going to recognize the people in the script," he said. "... I know all of these people."

He said one of the drivers of the discord in the family is the different perspectives of the adult children, many of whom traveled thousands of miles to help with the harvest, and all of whom must find a way to not just cope with each other but also make the harvest happen.

Pyette said the world is changing for everyone, especially people in the farming industry, who no longer have the same expectations that they would have had in decades past, something the play explores.

"There was always the expectation that a farm would pass from one generation to the next, that there was always gonna be a kid or two who would just stay there and farm, and that's changed," he said.

Pyette, in addition to being the executive director of MAT has been writing plays for 20 years. His first, "Dead of Winter," was produced by MAT in London to positive reviews, and his second, a comedy called "Rugburns," toured Montana after its earliest productions in Havre by MAT.

He said he's hoping "The Harvest" will get produced by another company so it can tour Montana, as well, but for now they're focusing on making the local production as good as it can be.

Pyette said the script has gone through rewrites and been polished after a collaborative read through and a number of rehearsals, a process that helps to refine the play through word smithing and more comprehensive changes.

He said that when writing a play a line can seem really good in one's head, but when an actor actually says it out loud, perhaps with a different interpretation than expected, it can become clear that it doesn't work and needs to be changed.

Beyond the particulars of language, a big change that happened through the process, he said, was giving its female characters more time on stage.

He said in reading through the script and rehearsing it, it became clear that a number of the female characters had a lot more to them than expected and they needed more time in the spotlight to reach their full potential, becoming a much greater presence than in the first draft.

The play is being directed by Audrey Barger, a MAT veteran who Pyette said is an outstanding director, detail-oriented and insightful, whom he trusts completely with his work.

"It takes a lot of trust to say, 'here's this script I've been working on for years, and now I'm just going to give it to you,' but I absolutely trust Audrey as a director," he said.

Pyette said the play's first dress rehearsal will be Monday and it's shaping up very well with a mostly veteran cast including Grant Olson and Pam Veis.

He said the play does have one newcomer who has been keeping up with the vets, and he's confident in them.

The play opens March 4 and tickets are available on MAT's website at https://mtactors.com .