MARQUETTE, Mich. (WZMQ) – The nationally recognized musical that in 1995 was one of only five University productions selected to perform at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Haywire is the creation of retired NMU professor, Dr Shelley Russell.
“It’s just a lot of fun. It’s about a young man who comes from Ohio to a very rough place, and kind of like I did when I arrived in the up in ’83 and said, This is the most beautiful place I’ve ever been,” said Russell..
Tonight’s performance was a reunion of sorts, and a retrospective look back on the original musical. Many of the inaugural cast members perform tonight, including Rusty Bowers
“When you’re doing theater. Normally, when you do a show, when it’s done, it’s done, never done again. But then you come back and work with other people, and then when you get to revisit a show, it’s it just feels great. You can fall right back into it,” said Bowers.
The musical is set in an 1880s logging camp somewhere in the UP. It follows the exploits of Danny, a young lumberjack on his first foray into the North Woods. Russell recalls how well it was received wherever they performed.
“It’s a fun show, but to say it’s about logging. Yes, that’s the environment, but most of all, it’s about a group that becomes friends, working extremely hard in a hard environment, and surviving all that together,” said Dr. Russell.
Dr Russell may be biased, but her time at NMU, watching the NMU theater department evolve as it has, is among her fondest memories
“To be such an impressive theater training ground. I don’t know of a place in the country that would compete with it,” said Dr. Russell.
