2024 - 2025 Season Announced!
During our opening night of "Much Ado About Nothing" we announced our 2024 - 2025 season:
This October we will present, “The Explorers Club” by Nell Benjamin: London, 1879. The prestigious Explorers Club is in crisis: their acting president wants to admit a woman, and their bartender is terrible. True, this female candidate is brilliant, beautiful, and has discovered a legendary Lost City, but the decision to let in a woman could shake the very foundation of the British Empire, and how do you make such a decision without a decent drink? Grab your safety goggles for some very mad science involving deadly cobras, irate Irishmen and the occasional airship. Auditions will be held August 22 and 24 here at the history center with performances in Mid-October. Tom Nelson will direct. THE EXPLORERS CLUB is presented through special arrangement with Dramatist Play Service.
For our holiday show we will present, “Forever Plaid” by Stuart Ross. Once upon a time, there were four guys (Sparky, Smudge, Jinx and Frankie) who discovered that they shared a love for music and then got together to become their idols – The Four Freshman, The Hi-Lo's and The Crew Cuts. Rehearsing in the basement of Smudge's family's plumbing supply company, they became "Forever Plaid". On the way to their first big gig, the "Plaids" are broadsided by a school bus and killed instantly. It is at the moment when their careers and lives end that the story of Forever Plaid begins.... Performances will be in December. Randy Wilson will direct. FOREVER PLAID is presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International (MTI). All authorized performance materials are also supplied by MTI. www.mtishows.com
For our winter production and our 2025 AACT Entry we will be reviving “Finishing School” by Elaine Liner. This comedy about life’s second act finds older gents Al and Wizzer meeting on a park bench every morning to read and mock newspaper obits. Their daily rituals—shooting the bull about sports, women loved and lost and the many annoyances of aging—are suddenly shaken up by the appearance of a friendly young woman and her flirty mom. Wizzer pep-talks lonely widower Al to convince him to break out of his self-imposed “quantum of solace” and maybe find love again, while also dealing with his own fear of ending up in the memory care unit at their assisted living facility. Punctuated with true-to-life moments familiar to anyone with an aging parent or spouse, the play takes an upbeat attitude toward life after 60, 70 and beyond. Performances will be in February. Linda Metcalf will direct. FINISHING SCHOOL is presented through special arrangement with The Dramatic Publishing Company of Woodstock, Illinois
For summer 2025 we will produce a musical at the DC Performing Arts Center. We are still waiting to announce this as rights are being secured but please keep a close eye on our social media pages and monthly newsletter for all information pertaining to what is sure to be another fun filled theatre summer! Performances will be in July 2025.
Inaugural Student Scholarships Awarded
Caroline Cronk and Mya Lynk receive their scholarships from Board member Kevin Wilson
The FungusAmognus Board of Directors were happy to award two $500 student scholarships at the final performance of "Much Ado About Nothing". Caroline Cronk and Mya Lynk have both been active participants in past Fungus shows and showed great academic achievements. Congratulations Caroline and Mya!
Started during the 2023 - 2024 season the funds that are raised during our intermissions from freewill donations for treats go into a fund to support a Student Scholarship which may be awarded annually based on applicants. It is open to graduating seniors and or students already attending a post secondary education that have participated in FungusAmongus productions. Applications for the 2025 scholarship will open on January 1, 2025 and be due in April of 2025.
Auditions for "The Explorers Club" this Month!
Auditions for The Explorers Club by Nell Benjamin will be held at the Dassel History Center at 6:30 PM Thursday, August 22 and 10:00 AM on Saturday, August 24
Auditions will be cold readings from the script. Please bring your schedules for known conflicts through the performance dates.
Performances at the Dassel History Center
October 11,12, 17, 18, 19 at 7:00 PM
October 13 & 20 at 2:00 PM
London, 1879. The prestigious Explorers Club is in crisis: their acting president wants to admit a woman, and their bartender is terrible. True, this female candidate is brilliant, beautiful, and has discovered a legendary Lost City, but the decision to let in a woman could shake the very foundation of the British Empire, and how do you make such a decision without a decent drink? Grab your safety goggles for some very mad science involving deadly cobras, irate Irishmen and the occasional airship.
Farewell to “Much Ado About Nothing”!
The curtain call at one of the performances. Photo by Stacey Neuhaus.
The curtain has closed on "Much Ado About Nothing" following 7 successful performances, four outdoors and three indoors! A special thank you to the cast and crew for all their hard work to bring Shakespeare to rural audiences, to the various venues that hosted the production, and to the audiences who attended and generously gave toward the freewill donation.
FungusAmongus to Present at FastFest 2024
The FungusAmongus Players will be bringing a show to Fast*Fest 2024 held in Cloquet MN on August 17. "Death Knocks" by Woody Allen will be presented to "liven" things up. Both David Metcalf and Ron Hungerford will be reprising their roles from when this one act was performed during our evening of short plays in March of 2023. This along with 14 other shows from across MN will be presented. More information below regarding FastFest from our friends at the Minnesota Association of Community Theaters:
How does seeing 15 shows in one day sound to you? If that sounds exciting, you don’t want to miss Fast*Fest on August 16 & 17 in Cloquet. Registration is now open for our biennial festival of 20-minute (max) plays.
Join us Friday evening, August 15, from 7 – 9 pm for a welcome open house at the Encore Performing Arts center. This is a chance for the presenting theatres to view the stage and facility and gather with other festival participants. Beverages (wine & sodas) will be available to purchase from the theatre.
Then come back at 9 am, Saturday morning, August 17, for the first performance session featuring shows from Penny Pinchin’ Productions, County Seat Theater Company, Ole Olson Onstage, Classics Lost ‘N’ Found Theatre Company and Thorn Productions.
At 1:30 pm, Saturday afternoon will be performance session 2. Mindless Mirth Productions, NKB Productions, Rhubarb Jam, Zenith City Players and Marshall Area Stage Company will be presenting shows in this session.
New this festival is a dinner at the theatre between the afternoon and evening performance sessions. The dinner is included in full packages only. It cannot be purchased a la carte. The menu (subject to change) will include pulled pork sandwiches, a veggie/pasta salad, chips, other fixin’s, cookies and water.
The performances wind up at 6:30 that evening with performance session 3. This session will include shows from Seat of Your Pants Players, Open Heart Theatre, Pargeter Players, Applause Community Theatre and FungusAmongus Players. Some shows in this session may contain language or situations that may not be suitable for all ages.
After the final performance Saturday night, we will again gather at the theatre for light snacks and socializing. Beverages (wine and sodas) will be available for purchase.
A full package is only $50 and includes the Friday and Saturday night socials, all three performance sessions and the Saturday evening dinner.
Tickets for individual performance sessions are available for $20 per performance session. (The Saturday evening dinner is NOT available for a la carte purchase – it is only available as part of the full package.)
David Metcalf and Ron Hungerford rehearsing "Death Knocks" March 2023.
FungusAmongus to Participate in Corn Carnival and Red Rooster Parades
Calling all Fungus alumni! FungusAmongus will be marching in the Cokato Corn Carnival Parade on Monday, August 12 at 6PM and at the Dassel Red Rooster Days Grand Parade Saturday, August 31 at 2PM. All volunteers are welcome to join us as we hand out our new season bookmarks and candy. Wear a past production t-shirt! Message us via social media or email if interested in participating.
So many ways to have fun with FungusAmongus!
You don't need to be on stage to have fun with FungusAmongus. For example, we're always looking for:
AV Club members - learn to run sound or light for our shows!
Stage Managing / Crew Members. Do you want to help behind the scenes with the magic that goes on during the show? Help manage the stage and with set during our productions!
Treat wranglers. Could you bake some yummy bars for us to serve at intermission? Could you serve those treats and coffee at our shows?
Stud sensors. Can you drive a nail, or paint a wall, or perhaps work some interior design magic? Our set-building crew is looking for you.
Get started by contacting us through our website or social media channels.