An indie-folk musical premiering at Northern Stage this month gives viewers a taste of how farmers balance the idealism and struggle required to work the land. Commissioned by the White River Junction professional theater company, The Vermont Farm Project will run from May 7 to 25.
The pickup truck parked onstage is real. Above 50-some bales of actual hay rise the rafters of a barn, and beyond those timbers the stage designers create the changing colors of the sky. The show is set outside on the land and inside the shelter of a barn, and it uses design, music, movement and acting to suggest the everyday miracles a farmer experiences from sunrise to sunset.
Inspired by extensive interviews with Vermont farmers, the story looks at the large themes of farming, made concrete through eight characters facing particular challenges. Using the structure of a single day, from morning milking to evening chores, the action takes place on multiple farms.
Composer and lyricist Tommy Crawford, playwright Jessica Kahkoska, and director Sarah Elizabeth Wansley started collaborating on the project three years ago.
Wansley is in her fourth season as the theater’s associate artistic director and directed Spring Awakening, Sweat and Constellations, among others, at Northern Stage. She’s married to Crawford, an actor, composer and multi-instrumentalist who appeared at Northern Stage in 2018’s Only Yesterday and 2022’s The Railway Children.
Kahkoska is a writer, producer and researcher for theater and television who most recently was the dramaturge for the Broadway premiere of Good Night, and Good Luck, starring George Clooney. She has written or developed several original plays and musicals.
Wansley and Crawford moved from New York City to Wilder, Vt., in 2021 for her new job at Northern Stage, and they fell in love with the state, especially their farmers market. The couple had collaborated on previous theater projects and now turned to telling the story of Vermont’s local food culture, with references to national agricultural issues as well. Kahkoska, a partner on previous projects, came on board, and the three interviewed 47 Vermont farmers across the state.
“Sometimes they didn’t have time to sit down, so we just followed them around while they worked,” Wansley said.
The interviews were rigorous research but not academic, Kahkoska noted. They told farmers they were developing a play. “We’re not journalists,” she said. “We’re looking for emotions, and people shared deep feelings.”
To paint a picture of farms large and small, old and new, the characters are fictional composites of many farmers. Resilience, passion and humor keep them working the land, despite the obstacles. Kahkoska said she wrote “hyper-specific scenes that can spark universal questions about work-life balance, sustainability, life transitions and sacrifice.”
The range of stories is condensed into eight roles. Kim and Glenn have kept a multigenerational family farm going, but it may be nearing its economic end. Matt and Kenza are first-time farmers who moved to Vermont to start a family and an organic vegetable farm. Three summer student farmhands are learning farm life, and Gabriela is a migrant worker who cares for newborn calves while thinking of her son growing up without her in Mexico.
Five actor-musicians play the characters, some doubling in multiple roles. Between them, they play 13 musical instruments, from banjo to standup bass and fiddle to mandolin. The musical format not only conveys the real-life penchant of farmers to make music but is also a powerful way to tell a story. As Crawford said, “Music can make you feel things before you think them.”
As these actors originate the roles for the premiere, they’re interpreting characters in two mediums. “The way a musician plays an instrument is part of the character,” Crawford said.
The show combines realism with the magical quality of musical theater. “We need real mud on the boots,” Wansley said. “The people are working, not talking about feelings.” But the music lets emotion break through so that both styles of storytelling complement each other, she said.
Some of the actors, such as David M. Lutken, who plays Glenn, have been involved since early in the development process, contributing to the changes in the songs and script. “Glenn is who he is because of David Lutken,” Wansley noted. Lutken’s character faces the possibility that land that’s been in his family for generations may no longer be farmed.
Of her character, Gabriela, Raquel Chavez said, “Migrant workers are not often seen in theater, but they make this country happen.” Her role expresses the experience of people who straddle two cultures, two languages, two homes.
As scenes came together, the script continued to evolve in rehearsal. In addition to collaborating with the actors, the writers and director worked with Northern Stage’s design and production team to invent staging solutions, from finding the right wheelbarrow to installing a stage turntable. This premiere will use all the theater’s ample resources.
A new play is a risk on many levels, but this was one that Carol Dunne, Northern Stage’s producing artistic director, wanted to take. “When Sarah approached me with this idea a few years ago,” she said, “I was excited about her passion for the subject and her vision for a genuine portrayal of this important piece of Vermont life. We are deeply committed to our community, deeply committed to the development of new work and thrilled to bring this story to our stage.”
Northern Stage has cultivated an audience willing to see new works. What’s waiting for them in The Vermont Farm Project is toe-tapping indie-folk music and the story of people growing the food they eat. There’s humor, too, and it’s shared by the people making the play.
“Farming is too much like theater,” Wansley said, laughing. “The economics don’t make sense, but you do it because you love it.”