June 5, 11, 12, 1960
Walter Kerr's musical, Sing Out Sweet Land, is an anthology of American folk songs from the Puritans and on to the contemporary world. Originally on Broadway towards the end of the Second World War, the show includes such American traditional songs as "The Big Rock Candy Mountain", "Frankie and Johnny", "Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel" and "Casey Jones." Interestingly enough the choice of this show predated the 'Folk Revival' of the mid-1960s.
Barnaby Goodchild was condemned by Parson Killjoy to go through the ages singing and dancing: to colonial Virginia, the Illinois wilderness, along the Oregon Trail, to the deep South, to the broad Mississippi where gaudy steamboat gamblers ply their trade, singing at a Civil War camp fire in Texas, and with railroader Casey Jones' widow.
He goes through the Gay Nineties, into the Roaring Twenties—and on to our world of today. As director Kelly said, it was a good play to "get our feet wet" for the full-fledged musicals that followed.
Sing Out Sweet Land had a cast of 60 with an average of four costumes each. Costumers Betty Jensen (design) and Lynn Moen (construction) had the help of the cast and crew members. At the time Betty and Lynn each had a young baby. Betty's two-month-old David and Lynn's six-month-old Martha both grew up to become active Players.
To insure good weather for the play, Morris Moen asked a Native American friend to do a Cherokee "No-Rain Dance." The only problem; his friend is not a full-blooded Cherokee so the most he could guarantee was partly cloudy with occasional sun breaks.
About 2,200 saw the three performances.
