Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs of the Black Forest (2015)

Photos by Katie Swanson and Katie Wojtalewicz.

Items in this collection courtesy of Nicole Meyer and Katie Wojtalewicz.

Do you have additional photos, articles, or print materials we're missing from this production? We'd love to add them to this page! Please contact us here if you're willing to lend them for scanning and we'll be sure to give you credit and return them to you in their original condition.

Want a closer look? Right click on the photo, program, or article and select "open image in new tab." Now you'll have a magnifying glass that allows you to zoom in by simply clicking on it!

Check Out Our Teaser Trailer!

We can't wait to show off our production opening night! It's equal parts exciting and nerve-wracking as we add in all the final elements, and we think you're going to love the end result. This show is charming and ridiculous and insanely catchy--even people who are convinced that musicals aren't for them are sure to get a kick out of this one. And lucky for us, Earl Augst so thoughtfully shot footage of last week's rehearsal so he could piece together this fun teaser trailer to hold you over until Thursday! Help spread the word and be there on August 13th, 14th, and 15th at 7:30pm at the St. James High School Little Theater!!

Getting Closer!

Photos from our final run-through tonight courtesy of Teresa Holmquist!

Congratulations, Callie and Mike!

A heartfelt "Mazel Tov!" to Callie VanZandt and Mike Hedlund as they get married today! 

Callie and Mike met on our stage in 2012 when they were cast as couple Chava and Fyedka 

in St. James Community Theater's production of "Fiddler on the Roof." 

Here's to a lifetime of happiness.  L'chaim!

It's Time to Reserve Those Tickets!

On the Hunt for Some Items

Hi Everybody! We're in need of a few very specific props for Little Shop of Horrors and we're hoping someone out there might be able to help us out. This show takes place in the early 1960's, so we're looking for a couple of rotary phones and one transistor radio from that era. We have a couple of phones already but need them for a scene which calls for a total of four. Neither the radio nor the phones have to be operational, of course!

Please e-mail us at info@stjamescommunitytheater.org this week if you might be able to help--we'll take good care of them and get them back to you after the show wraps. Examples below:

Little Shop of Horrors Rehearsal Photos

Working hard to put all the elements together for our ensemble numbers--just look at that concentration!

Look out, here comes Audrey II!

Railroad Days Parade

We hope you enjoyed the sneak peek of our man-eating plant at the Railroad Days parade!

Audrey II loved all the attention!

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs of the Black Forest

That's a wrap on our 25th production of St. James Children's Theater! 

Wonderful job, kids--we're very proud of you!

See You There!

Don't Miss It!

Last minute touches underway for our children's theater production of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs of the Black Forest."  See it for yourself this Friday at 7pm and Saturday at 10am!

Little Shop of Horrors Cast List

It's official! St. James Community Theater is proud to present the cast list for Little Shop of Horrors! We think you'll be as thrilled as we are by this talented group of people. If you'd still like to be a part of our fantastic chorus/ensemble group, you're encouraged to e-mail us at info@stjamescommunitytheater.org within this next week. Stay tuned over the coming weeks for behind-the-scenes photos and updates and don't forget to reserve your tickets through Community Education at 507-375-4517 for performances August 13th, 14th, and 15th. 

Thanks for your support!

Auditions Extended!

We're extending auditions for "Little Shop of Horrors," so we can continue filling out our cast! We'll already be conducting some individual auditions Wednesday and Thursday night at the Little Theater, so you're welcome to drop in between 7:00 and 9:00pm to fill out a form, or contact us at info@stjamescommunitytheater.org to throw your hat in the ring. This is a great show and we'd love to have you join us!

Auditions Tonight!

"Don't Feed the Plants!"

One last chance to get familiar with "Little Shop of Horrors" before auditions June 8th & 9th! You may THINK you know how it ends, but the 1986 film had to scrap the original ending in favor of a "happily ever after" version that pleased focus groups. Fortunately for all of us, they released the original ending a few years ago in all its intended over-the-top, sci-fi movie monster glory. The play has always been faithful to the original ending and closes with this foreboding finale, fittingly titled "Don't Feed the Plants!" (skip ahead to the 5:27 mark in the video). We hope to see you at auditions!

"Feed Me"

Want to get familiar with "Little Shop of Horrors" before auditions June 8th & 9th? Here's a song featuring our soulful, blood-thirsty plant. We're looking to cast two people for him--one to provide the offstage voice and the other to physically manipulate the puppet. We hope you'll join us this summer!

"Mushnik and Son"

Want to get familiar with "Little Shop of Horrors" before auditions June 8th & 9th? Here's a song featuring our curmudgeon flower shop owner, Mr. Mushnik. You'll notice this clip is from the 2003 Broadway revival because Mushnik didn't really sing in the 1986 film. Fortunately, he's part of several great songs in the play. We hope you'll join us this summer!

A Message From Your Curator

We hope you’ve enjoyed this trip down memory lane! As you undoubtedly noticed, a lot of work went into compiling this history and we couldn’t have done it without those of you who truly put the “community” in community theater! A million thanks to the following people who loaned us photos, programs, and newspaper articles from their personal collections: Jen Anderson, Shawna Asendorf, Linda Becken, Mark Benzel, Bill Brown, Linda Buller, Lisa Carlson, Susie Carlson, Lisa Collier, John Hedlund, Karen Johnson, Dick Jokumsen, Mackenzie Jones, Marilyn Mueller, Jane Oldenburg, Anna Olson, Ann Reckow, Emma Reynolds, Elle Ribbe, Cathy Sargent Hauer, Amanda Schmidt, Mike Shupe, Margaret Smith, Jill Stark, Cindy Torkelson, Barry Wojtalewicz, and Michael Wojtalewicz. Thanks also to the additional 30+ people we contacted who helped fill in our production timeline and looked through their collections for us!

Amazingly, we’re only missing 4 programs out of 64 productions! Photos have been harder to come by since some of the shows didn’t have an official cast picture. I believe there are 15 shows still in need of a photo for our collection. Because our intention is to continue this archive in both physical and digital form, we’d love for you to take a look at our list of missing items (click here) and keep it in the back of your mind in the coming months. We suspect a number of you may have these tucked away somewhere and we’d encourage you to contact us if you stumble across them in the future. We’re planning to display the pages at our upcoming summer shows so audience members can enjoy them in person, and we’d love to complete our collection by that time! We’d also like you to consider tagging friends and family in the Facebook photos that have posted, as it’s the easiest way to draw the original cast and crew back to the page so they can browse through past shows and relive those fond summers!

For those who ask why I’ve taken on such an enormous project, the reasons are both practical and nostalgic. St. James Community Theater began in 1974 and the theater board is frequently tasked with remembering when a particular production was last performed on our stage. With each year that passes, it becomes more difficult to reach into our collective memory with the answer. We decided it would be useful to future directors, and the public in general, to have a legitimate archive where you could find such details. We had originally talked about highlighting a handful of memorable productions during upcoming shows, mostly to offer a glimpse of our decades-long history. As we began looking through all these charming photos and programs, it became evident we should attempt an archive that would catalogue the program in its entirety.

Community theater matters. Sometimes we take it for granted and assume it will always be around, but in reality it takes work and calls for engagement on many levels. We need you as both actor and audience in order to continue building on this impressive legacy. St. James Community Theater has been decades in the making and we owe much gratitude to folks like Dick Jokumsen, Sandy Sunde, and Cindy Torkelson who had the vision and commitment in our earliest years to build a program that has brightened the lives of thousands of people. It is now up to us to be good stewards of St. James Community Theater and ensure that it thrives in the years to come.

-Katie Wojtalewicz

Thanks, Plaindealer!

"Dentist"

Want to get familiar with "Little Shop of Horrors" before auditions June 8th & 9th? Here's a song featuring our sadistic dentist, Orin Scrivello. We hope you'll join us this summer!

The Secret Garden (2014)

This production also maintained a blog, which you can view here.

Photos by Melissa Haseman, Cathy Bruce, Dawn Witcraft, and Katie Wojtalewicz.

Items in this collection courtesy of Katie Wojtalewicz.

Do you have additional photos, articles, or print materials we're missing from this production? We'd love to add them to this page! Please contact us here if you're willing to lend them for scanning and we'll be sure to give you credit and return them to you in their original condition.

Want a closer look? Right click on the photo, program, or article and select "open image in new tab." Now you'll have a magnifying glass that allows you to zoom in by simply clicking on it!