Venture back to wartime Montana with radio Christmas showcase
For one festive week only, Small Batch Arts presents stage production A Montana Radio Christmas 1944 at Reynolds Recital Hall on the Montana State University campus. Performances will take place December 17th and 18th, 21st and 22nd at 7pm each night. Two matinee performances will also take place on Dec. 19th and 23rd at 3pm.
In 2019, “A Bozeman Radio Christmas 1939” looked at the year Bozeman got its first commercial radio station. It featured stories of pioneer holidays in the Gallatin Valley and popular holiday swing tunes as sung by the fabulous Gallatin Gals (The GG’s). Following the success of that program, the decision was made to research and develop another holiday program set in a time significant to Montana history.
Over the last year, and with the invaluable assistance of the Montana Historical Society and Gallatin History Museum, A Montana Radio Christmas 1944 will come to life on the Reynolds Hall stage.
The audience will travel back to the dramatic years of WWII, but travel will not be easy. It’s 1944, gas is rationed, road maintenance has been suspended, car tires are impossible to find, and to save fuel the speed limit has been lowered to 35mph. The solution? Taking the train! And not just any train, the fabled Olympian, the Milwaukee Road’s most magnificent passenger train.
During the war the Olympian was converted to a troop train, so the audience will ride the rails with the troops through the heart of Montana hearing stories of Christmas in Montana and how the momentous events of that time affected everyday life:
How in March of 1944 a B-17 bomber and its crew saved Miles City from certain destruction. How the children of a homestead family living in isolation in the bitter winter of 1919 sent a letter to Santa down the Musselshell River in a bottle and the surprising result. And how a Will Thompson, a tight-fisted merchant in frontier Virginia City, served one of the most spectacularly unfortunate Christmas dinners ever.
These stories and more will be dramatized by a talented troupe of storytellers. Of course there will plenty of music on board and the fabulous GG’s will have a brand new slate of holiday songs from the 30s and 40s. Hop aboard!
General admission for A Montana Radio Christmas 1944 is $15.50, or $9.50 for those under 10. Advance tickets may be purchased through www.smallbatcharts.org. Reynolds is located in Howard Hall off of S 11th Ave., just across from the MSU Duck Pond.
An arm of the Children’s Shakespeare Society, Small Batch Arts produces pre-professional and professional art, educational, dance and theatrical events which harken to a time gone by. •
