The Bartender’s Tale, the Play by Hamilton Players

The Bartender’s Tale, the Play by Hamilton Players Friday and Saturday from 8:00 pm to 10:15 pm and Sunday matinee from 2:00 pm to 4:15 pm.

WORLD PREMIERE
The Bartender’s Tale, the Play is an original adaptation by Gay Smith of the Ivan Doig novel by the same name. Ivan Doig (1939-2015), a beloved and nationally acclaimed western author, specialized in small-town, rural Montana novels. After his death, his estate donated a massive collection of personal and professional notes, diaries, photos, notebooks, memorabilia, and writing tools to Montana State University, which now hosts the official “Ivan Doig Archive,” which can be accessed both in situ and online. Ivan and his widow, Carol’s love of small-town Montana made it possible for a long-time family friend and professional writer/professor emeritus of Wesleyan University, Gay Smith, to obtain the Doig Estate’s blessing to adapt The Bartender’s Tale into a play. The primary caveat was that Carol wanted the production to be premiered by a Montana college or community theater, making this adaptation a genuinely unique and significant event for our community.

The play is set in Montana’s Rocky Mountain front in 1960. The action revolves around Tom Harry, Montana’s most famous bartender and proprietor of the Wolf Lodge Bar, and his 12-year-old son, Rusty. Tension arises from conflict between Tom’s desire not to raise Rusty in a bar and his own Rule Number One: “You’ve got to play the hand you’re dealt.” In this case, the hand includes the presence of Zoe, a feisty girl Rusty’s age who helps to fuel his ambitions; Proxy, a scheming character from a past that Tom has tried to keep hidden; and Francine, Proxy’s precocious daughter – a would-be bartender herself.

It is a PG-13 coming-of-age story, a tale of two parents trying to shape the lives of their offspring for better or for worse, and a tribute to a specific time and place in Montana history that was dear to Doig.

Sponsored by:
The UPS Store
Chapter One Book Store

Supported with grants from:
Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation
Annie Maclay Leffingwell Foundation

Featuring:
Doug Dupuy
Mara Luther
Sasha Brooks
Nathan Heckeroth
Lindy Hardman
Russ Lawrence
Kellan Bourgeois
Mia Mendenall

Crew:
April Barnings – Director
Russ Lawrence – Assistant Director
Ellen Nichol – Costumer
Mike Hirsch – Light Design
Steve Fullerton – Sound Design
Courtney Hartelius – Props Design
Jennifer Floch – Stage Manager
Jorja Aspel – Lightboard operator
Becka Sampson – Soundboard operator

Set Crew: Gregory Bartlett, Nolan Gardner, Kent Myers, Ty Capelle, Russ Lawrence