This Way Yonder
This Way Yonder
History Theatre Presents in collaboration with Turtle Theater Collective is proud to present the world premiere of "This Way Yonder" by Montana Cypress and directed by Ernest Briggs. Performances Thursday-Saturday 7 pm and Sunday at 5 pm from December 3-11 at the History Theatre auditorium, 30 E. 10th Street, St. Paul. For advance tickets, please click here.
This new drama is set in Everglades City, Florida, weeks after Hurricane Andrews in 1992. A Native American family struggles with their current circumstances and their yearning for more. The cast will feature Brian Joyce, Adrienne Zimiga-January, Elizabeth Cates, Oogie_Push and Ernest Briggs.
Turtle Theater Collective is committed to producing high-quality, contemporary work that explores Native experiences and subverts expectations about how and when Native artists can create theater. In addition to producing Indigenous plays, we center Native bodies and voices by situating them within the broader theatrical canon, providing opportunities for Native artists to grow and play.
- December 8-11 | Thursday-Saturday 7 pm and Sunday at 5 pm
- History Theatre auditorium (30 E. 10th Street, St. Paul)
- Click HERE to buy your tickets in advance
- Tickets are also available at the door: $10 Cash Only.
Statement from This Way Yonder playwright Montana Cypress
In the process of writing This Way Yonder, a couple of thoughts/concerns came to mind in terms of the overall tone: was it a comedy? A straight old-school-style drama? Or perhaps it would fall into that strange territory in which plays are labeled Dramadies. What I can say is that my writing has definitely been influenced by playwrights ranging from Neil Simon and Eugene O’Neill to modern-day ones such as Theresa Rebeck and Tony Kushner. What I learned from watching a production of one of their plays is that in the worst of situations…complex characters often said and did the most outrageous things that would erupt in audience laughter. I noticed that these unpredictable acts spawned from an interesting story and a fully fleshed atmosphere. In Barefoot In the Park, we feel the freezing weather seething into the couple’s New York City apartment and into their membranes as they banter and argue. In Angels In America, we experience the massive anxiety of the times through Prior Walter’s visions of a proselytizing angel who swoops down from the ceiling to visit him (I’ve never heard more laughter in a play than in Angels In America). In Long Day’s Journey Into Night, we empathize with James Tyrone’s anguish at never following through with his dreams of being a great Shakespearean actor which results in some of the most memorable scenes in Theatre as he confesses this regret to his ailing son in a seaside Connecticut home. I know some of these scenes sound far from a comedy, but perhaps that is what I’m getting at, to find this soft spot just between the truth and absurdity that can only translate in real time. Some of the biggest laughs, you will ever get from your writing are from scenes that were never meant to be funny in the first place! So with this discovery or ongoing speculation, I came to the conclusion that one had to just let the story and characters BE with no restraints in terms of shaping their words and personalities to a genre. If one wants to break out into song to stave off the anxiety of being on a boat, then so be it. At the heart of This Way Yonder is a Mother and Daughter bond that will be tested in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew and by the luring temptation of something new which lies beyond their lives in the southern swamps of South Florida. It’s beautiful, absurd, tragic, and just like Mother Nature herself…unpredictable.
