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| Birney, Montana |
On July 10, a caravan transporting a stage and set, costumes and props, actors and everything needed for a summer on the road, arrived at Poker Jim Butte, 11 miles uphill from the town of Birney, Montana. When the dust settled (much of it inside the cargo trailer), the actors morphed into construction workers and began the frantic transformation of the remote summit into a theatre.
Shakespeare in the Parks, the venerable Montana State University institution, might be well known around Montana and into the surrounding states, but nobody knows Shakespeare like the people scattered around Birney. Old timers remember when there was a dance hall and bars in town, but now absent these social fixtures, the annual dose of Shakespeare is, as Butch Fjell, 77, describes, “an awful good shot at a little bit of culture.”
For Riley O’Toole, longest running cast member in the troupe, the Poker Jim performance is a highlight of the long tour and the epitome of what makes being a part of Shakespeare in the Parks so special. “Every night its the opening and closing for that community,” said O’Toole. “There’s an appreciation and engagement of having people invite you into their homes and cooking for you and telling you about their lives.”
The venue is the most remote of their stops, but what it lacks in running water and electricity is made up by the hospitality of the community. For Cindy Hagan, who coordinates the tour stop on Poker Jim, the goal is to make the show an “inclusive and wonderful experience not just for the community but also for all these actors that are going to be going back to all parts of the world.”
After performing, the cast camped on top of the butte, and when they woke up the next morning, Hagan filled them with breakfast and enough coffee to get them to their next show in Big Timber, four hours away.
LINK: Shakespeare on the butte