Be part of this extraordinary theater opportunity (for 14 years +) to help stage test and Premiere a brand new musical, adding your own creative energies!

Lucette! A Lively Tale of Lumberjacks, Trees & Paul Bunyon is a libretto by Marybeth Lorbecki with musical score by Owen Paul Olson (in process) and will be directed by Dr. Kathy Welch, UWRF professor.

Rehearsals: Monday through Thursday from July 5-August 5, 2023, from 9 am to noon, at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls auditorium (Kleinpell Fine Arts Building, 420 East Cascade Avenue, River Falls, WI). It ends with 3 public performances: 7 pm on August 3 and 4, and 10 am matinee on August 5. Mark your calendars.     

Premise: 

All is not well in the forests where Paul Bunyan and his lumberjacks are cutting trees. The tall tale woman Lucette must flee along with her animal friends. Now she must go in search of a new place where she can belong.

When Paul (with Babe the Blue Ox) and the lumberjacks come to her new community, Lucette and her enormous cow, Nel, are determined to teach them a lesson. Trouble is, Paul has fallen in love!

Humorous calamities pile up as he tries to win at her love tests. Will Lucette win the day to save the trees and animals?

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This dynamic new musical–with an environmental twist–integrates a wide range of American folk music styles made contemporary in memorable singable songs.

Summer of 2024, it will go for an international debut at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe through the University of Wisconsin-River Falls!

If you are interested (and think you can commit the time), please sign up! Fees to participate will be minimal (for copying of music and scripts) based on raising the matching grant funds needed on the Lucette! Musical GoFundMe site. You will receive more information as the summer approaches.

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Image art: Special thanks to illustrator Renée Graef for the use of her cover illustration from Paul Bunyan’s Sweetheart, the picture book on which the musical is based.