Ma's House on Ingalls Homestead

July tends to be a busy month for Laura fandom. Get caught up with the July Update on Trundlebed Tales Radio. Check back for a new update each month during Laura season.

Before heading out, also catch up on the radio shows from Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, and the 40th Anniversary of the De Smet Pageant.

Sarah S. Uthoff blogs at TrundleBed Tales; look for her on Twitter and YouTube and Blog Talk Radio
Laura Ingalls Wilder Legacy and Research Association, Vice-President and Membership Chair

Wilder Bros De Smet Pageant 2009

I hope many of you who attend the conference plan on going on to De Smet and also seeing the pageant there. It really is a different experience than the Walnut Grove conference and everyone should do both if they get the chance. The latest Pageant Perambulations column in the May 19, 2010 issue of  The De Smet News by Orval Van Deest and Marian Cramer reports back about the cast of this year’s De Smet pageant, presenting The First Four Years for the very first time. Returning from last year are father and son team Perry Anderson Jr. and Perry Anderson Sr. will return as Almanzo and Pa respectively. Also returning from the Anderson family are Lucas Anderson as a banker and cousin Peter Ingalls. Two of the four Ingalls girls are returning from last year including Caitlan Ostrander as Laura and Sara Scofield who moves from playing Grace to playing Mary. Neal Martens goes from playing Mr. Loftus to playing Norwegian setttler Ole Larsen and the frontier doctor. Truus Schukking will reprise youthful Ellie Boast and James R. Miller changes roles to play the voice of the prairie funeral. Kristi Hubbard and Shawnna Singrey are working together as a narrator to blend the cast and show together.

Ma will be played by newcomer Peggy Nelson. Mackenzie Huland will play Carrie and Jessica Todd will play Grace. I’m looking forward to see what they come up with.

http://www.desmetpageant.org

Sarah S. Uthoff,  http://trundlebedtales.wordpress.com

Follow me now on Twitter, http://twitter.com/Trundlebedtales

Upstairs Lobby to Deluxe Hotel

Every year Mt. Pleasant, Iowa is inundated with visitors for one week around Labor Day weekend during the Midwest Old Threshers celebration. The rest of the year they can support a couple of small hotels, but not nearly enough for all the people who would like rooms for that one week. I’ve always wondered why the Laura homesite towns don’t adopt a similar program for festival days. This summer anyway De Smet is.

A group with the Centers for Disease Control will be in De Smet from May through July doing an in-depth health survey of Kingsbury County, but it means a large group of non-Laura people are going to be taking up hotel rooms early this summer. Several pro-tourism groups in De Smet are organizing local people who will be willing to rent out a room overnight. After all rooms from motels and local bed and breakfasts are filled for a certain date, tourists will be referred to rooms on this list. I’m glad they are being proactive on this and you may want to make reservations NOW!

I also hope that other Laura sites (especially Walnut Grove and Pepin) take a good look at this program and how it works and considering adopting a similar program for themselves.

Sarah S. Uthoff,   http://trundlebedtales.wordpress.com

Follow me now on Twitter, http://twitter.com/Trundlebedtales

Sarah S. Uthoff, Trundle Bed Tales

De Smet Pageant

The De Smet News carried a big article on the De Smet Pageant. This year for the first time they are going to do an adaption of The First Four Years. The script was written by Orval Van Deest. Van Deest says “This will be something new for the audience, something they have not seen before.” He also wrote last year’s script which I think showed his experience. He is a South Dakota native who spent 26 years teaching university level theater and directing theater productions. Marion Cramer, known to many visitors, for her work in the one-room school at the Ingalls Homestead, is once again the musical diretor. Cramer has written several pageant scripts previously.

Other improvement this year come in the lighting and sound systems. They are replacing the current lavaliere mics that attach to clothing with “face bud” models that are currently popular in concert settings and with some Broadway shows. The change will make changing between outfits quicker and give the technical crew better control for balance when several different people are speaking. They will also hard wire a mic into each set to backup these people based mics. Special equipment was also installed for special scenes, one featuring fire and one featuring moonlight.

http://desmetpageant.org

Sarah S. Uthoff,  http://trundlebedtales.wordpress.com