When Sarah Elizabeth Wansley set out to develop a musical about Vermont farm life, she consulted the experts. First, Wansley, the associate artistic director of Northern Stage, assembled a creative team: New York playwright Jessica Kahkoska to write the book, Vermont actor-musician-composer (and Wansley’s husband) Tommy Crawford to write music and lyrics, and herself to direct. Then the threesome started visiting Vermont farms.
The people they met and the stories they heard determined their characters and shaped their show. One year, more than 17 farms and 32 farmworker interviews later, their indie folk musical, Vermont Farm Project, will have its first full reading at Northern Stage on Friday, July 7. The White River Junction professional theater commissioned the show.
“Our mission is to change lives one story at a time — for this area, specifically,” Wansley said. “And that, to me, means both telling the stories of this region of Vermont and New Hampshire and also bringing all the communities to Northern Stage to feel like this is their home theater.” This project, she said, is “an invitation to sort of bring some of the stories of rural Vermont onto our stage.”
Vermont Farm Project is an actor-musician show, which means the actors sing and play the instruments. Crawford said he envisions an ensemble that includes banjo, upright bass, fiddle, guitar and mandolin. Five actors will portray eight characters: Kim and Glenn, an older couple ready to retire; Matt and Kenza, new parents in their thirties who have just bought a farm; Gabriela, an undocumented farmworker who left her child behind in Mexico; and Mo, Hunter and Tara, college students with summer farm jobs.
“But these characters could change by the time we do the reading!” Wansley said. “We are very much in process.”
As of last week, the script followed the characters through one day, starting in the morning as they woke up thinking about their to-do lists.
The reading, which will include Vermont actor and Broadway veteran Dottie Stanley, will allow the creators to hear their entire show — including 15 songs — for the first time. Crawford drew on Americana, folk and bluegrass traditions as he composed. Instrumentation and arrangements aren’t finished yet, and he would like to collaborate with a Vermont farmworker to add Latin music, he said.
Besides helping the three creators determine which elements of the show work and which don’t, Friday’s event is designed to prompt feedback, specifically from those in the farming community. No show dates are scheduled yet; director Wansley would like to see the show premiere at Northern Stage and then tour the state, she said.
The trio’s conversations with farmers over the past year revealed some common themes, including the complications of retirement and consumers’ lack of understanding of food production costs. Several farmers spoke “about how there’s so little hesitation to buy a $6 latte,” Crawford said. “But then, if a tomato goes up by 25 cents, it’s like all hell breaks loose. Right? And the price of eggs was, like, literally front-page news for six months this year.
“A thing we heard echoed over and over again is, there’s a perception that consumers know what food should cost,” Crawford continued. “And yet we really don’t. We don’t know what goes into it.”
Jon Wright, owner of Taylor Farm in Londonderry, and his sister Mimi Wright, who has worked on the farm for more than 20 years, wanted to convey their love of Vermont when they talked with the creative team, Mimi said. But they also wanted the team to understand that farming hasn’t been easy.
When the Wrights couldn’t make ends meet selling milk, they started making award-winning Gouda cheese, Mimi said. When they couldn’t keep up with federal regulations for cheesemaking, they started offering pizza and music on the farm twice a week. COVID-19 stopped that. Now, they focus on agritourism.
Jon, 65, “is the most optimistic person you will ever meet, but he is very pessimistic about farming in Vermont,” said Mimi, who is 73. “There’s so many struggles,” she continued. “It’s beating your head against the wall all the time with so many problems. And that’s why I say the love of the land is what keeps us going. And the feeling that we have something here that’s very, very special.”
Mimi heard bits of the Vermont Farm Project at a reading in Weston in June. Farm life was presented “in a little bit superficial way,” she said, though she gave the creative team credit. “They were very open to talking with us and learning.”
Vermont Farm Project, Friday, July 7, 4 p.m., at Northern Stage in White River Junction. Free. Learn more at northernstage.org and reserve tickets by calling 296-7000. If reservations are full, Wansley encourages people to call the Northern Stage box office at 536-1740 or email boxoffice@northernstage.org to add their names to a wait list.
This article appears in The Cartoon Issue 2023.
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