BCT Continues its Best-Selling Season with THE STORM IN THE BARN

Boise Contemporary Theater, celebrating the best-selling season in its 22-year history, opens its doors once again beginning December 6 to grownups and children alike for the second show of the 17|18 Season, Eric Coble's The Storm in the Barn. Based on the popular graphic novel for older kids (8 and up) by Matt Phelan, Storm tells the story of eleven-year-old Jack Clark (played by Chicago-based actor Sarah Cartwright) and his family who are weathering, as best they can, the Dust Bowl of 1937.

BCT's Storm is directed by BCT collaborator Julie Ritchey (No More Sad Things, Narwhal! Unicorn of the Sea, Lungs) with set design by BCT Resident Scenic Designer Michael Baltzell. Together they have created a magical, storybook world straight out of 1930s Kansas, with dramatic spectacle, period costumes designed by Chicago-based Noël Huntzinger, lighting design by BCT Resident Lighting Designer Raquel Davis and sound design by BCT Resident Sound Designer Peter John Still.

Travis Ward, Ali Ward and Mike Waite from local band Hillfolk Noir join the cast of Storm as "Storytellers" composing and performing a score the entire play live with instruments of the era. While Travis Ward has played live music for theater before, this is the first time the three members of the band will be part of the cast and the storytelling of a play. Local BCT veterans Tracy Sunderland (BCT Artistic Associate), Justin Ness and Stitch Marker, along with Tess Worstell, now based in NYC (Yitzhak from last year's Hedwig and the Angry Inch) round out the cast of Storytellers, along with two young actors, Matilda Gaddi and Nolie Schneider, from the BCT Theater Lab program, who will rotate in the role of Mabel, the youngest member of the storyteller family.

Eric Coble's adaptation of Matt Phelan's graphic novel blends history and fantasy into a
quintessentially American fairy tale for all audiences ages 8 and up. In Kansas in the year 1937, eleven-year-old Jack Clark faces his share of ordinary challenges: local bullies, his father's failed expectations, a little sister with an eye for trouble. But he also has to deal with the effects of the Dust Bowl, including rising tensions in his small town and the spread of a shadowy illness. Certainly, a case of "dust dementia" would explain who (or what) Jack has glimpsed in the Talbot's abandoned barn-a sinister figure with a face like rain. In a land where it never rains, it's hard to trust what you see with your own eyes, and harder still to take heart and be a hero when the time comes.

 

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