GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY Comes to Actor's Express
The musical is written by Conor McPherson with Music and Lyrics by Bob Dylan.
Actor’s Express will open its 38th season with Bob Dylan and Conor McPherson’s gorgeous musical Girl From The North Country. Performances run January 29th- March 8th, 2026 at the Actor’s Express Theatre in the King Plow Arts Center.
It’s 1934 in Duluth, Minnesota, and a group of restless travelers find respite from the Great Depression in a modest boarding house — a place where love and loss intertwine, and where music, resilience and hope breathe life into their weary spirits. Acclaimed playwright Conor McPherson daringly transforms the cherished songs of Bob Dylan, weaving them into a tale as breathtaking as the tunes that underscore it. This is AE’s fifth production in collaboration with Oglethorpe University, and the first time a production in association with OU will be performed in Actor’s Express’ theatre at the King Plow Arts Center.
When asked how he came to select Girl from the North Country for Actor’s Express’ 38th season, AE Artistic Director and director of the show Freddie Ashley recalled, “I saw Girl from the North Country on Broadway in November 2021. In fact, it was the first Broadway show I saw after the pandemic shutdown. The first thing about the musical that struck me was how exquisite the arrangements were of these great Bob Dylan songs. The music came to life in a way that I couldn’t have imagined previously. Also, in these tough years we’ve been living through, I think it’s really important to uplift stories about people from different backgrounds coming together in times of hardship to create family and community.”
Girl From The North Country premiered at London’s Old Vic Theatre in 2017, then transferred to the West End’s Noël Coward Theatre the same year. The West End production was highly praised by critics and audiences alike, with a five-star review from The Telegraph raving, “Not very often, a piece of theatre comes along that radiates an ineffable magic. Conor McPherson's musical play, which draws on heavily reworked versions of familiar and obscure Bob Dylan songs, is one such show…the rare alchemy with which McPherson fuses a dustbowl drama set in Depression-era Minnesota with the keening mysticism of Dylan's back catalogue makes it almost glow." Following its American debut Off-Broadway at The Public Theatre, Girl From The North Country moved to Broadway in 2020 and was named “#1 Musical of the Year” by numerous publications including The New York Times, Vogue and The Washington Post.
This musical is brought to life by a powerful 17-person ensemble including AE Vets Jill Hames as Elizabeth Laine (AE’s Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Company, Rocky Horror Show, Xanadu, Becky Shaw, Grey Gardens) and Robert Bryan Davis as Mr. Burke (AE’s Auntie Mame, The Harvey Milk Show, Company, The Crucible, Father Comes Home From The Wars, Angels in America Parts I & II). Making their AE debut are two Broadway veterans – Anny Jules as Mrs. Nielsen (The Lion King on Broadway; Radiant Baby Off-Broadway); and Pamela Gold as Mrs. Burke (How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Once Upon A Mattress on Broadway; A Chorus Line Broadway National Tour; Theatrical Outfit’s Indecent; City Springs Theatre’s Billy Elliot and The Music Man) and returning to AE is Robin Bloodworth as Nick Laine (AE’s Glengarry Glen Ross; Alliance Theatre’s Nick’s Flamingo and Klondike; Horizon Theatre’s The Weir, End Days and This Passion Thing). This cast also features three Oglethorpe Students including Justis Star as Marianne Laine, Neveah Riddle as Kate Draper and Eloa Noir in the Ensemble.
“There is a poignancy to a story about disparate people creating community in the shared pursuit of survival. Each character is at a significant turning point, even if they don’t know it yet,” director Freddie Ashley notes. “And despite many of them not having existing relationships, they support and lift up one another all the same. One of the relationships in the story depicts a burgeoning romance whose seeds are planted amidst this transitional moment; it’s a moving example of the power of love to transcend struggle as a sustaining force. Some of the relationships in the play become permanent and some are brief, but for this one pivotal moment in time they all lock into a shared rhythm of caring and support. I find that deeply moving.”
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