Montana in Manhattan

Roughly 2,125 miles east of Havre, MT, four stories up from the horns and hubbub of West 36th Street, on a set built and driven across country, eight actors from Montana Actor's Theater (MAT) will make their Off-Broadway debut at the Chain Theatre in mid-town Manhattan, NYC.

Beginning November 6th and running for three weeks, Pam Veis, TC Knutson, Grant Olson, Brian Gregoire, Tylyn Turner, Chad Zuelke, Aylan Pratt, and Samantha Pollington will be performing The Harvest, a play written and directed by Jason Pyette, founder and executive director of MAT.

Seen from a historical standpoint and in grave contrast to the flagrantly romanticized and grossly misleading Montana seen in the television series Yellowstone, Pyette's The Harvest is a true-to-life account of a contemporary farm family on the northern plains as it reunites to grapple with their father's imminent death. Revolving around universal themes of family and community, audiences don't need to have grown up in the Carthage household in order to see themselves and their families mirrored in Pyette's authentic dialogue and fierce loyalty to Montana's windswept and hardscrabble plains.

This is not Pyette's or MAT's first venture outside of the state. In 2003 MAT took Pyette's The Dead of Winter to London, performing at the Union Theatre to excellent reviews. Pyette, who was born and raised in Chinook, graduated with a Master's in Theatre Arts with a concentration in Shakespeare from the University of Oregon in Eugene and taught English and theater for 19 years at Havre High School. Under Pyette's tenure, MAT, begun in 1992 and incorporated as a 501(c)3 in 2003, has put on over 240 shows with more than 1,400 individual performances while annually casting over 100 community members and racking up what might well be 100,000 volunteer hours. Given MAT's success and longstanding popularity, the company is rightly known as the cultural linchpin of the Hi-Line.

As the cliché goes, you write what you know. Which is exactly what Pyette did. "We lived right on the edge of town," Pyette says, "but of course agriculture is the main industry and I spent so much of my time on farms I just felt like there was a really good, authentic story to tell, so it's a blend of fiction and nonfiction between my own life growing up in a small agricultural community and the families that I grew up with."

The Harvest was first performed in Havre in 2023 at the MSUN Theater with many of the same cast members who will go to New York. Last year both the Anaconda Ensemble Theater and the Rooted Theater Company in Missoula put it on.

That said, New York will be a whole different ball game.

Pyette's script first caught the eye of a group in Manhattan called the Manhattan Repertory Theatre (MRP). When they contacted him, the idea was to have a New York cast and crew do the show, but as the idea evolved and conversations continued, it became clear that having MAT actors and an MAT set was the logical course.

"MRP are a producing agent," says Pyette, "but we'll bring an authenticity to the show that they're not going to be able to achieve."

The timing couldn't be better, "There's a renewed interest in rural America right now," Pyette says, "Montana has cachet." This is in part due to the shows like Yellowstone, which despite its glamorized, unrealistic view of the West, have people interested in and thinking about Montana. "I think people will be really interested to see a real depiction of Montana as I've written it," Pyette says.

But taking a show to New York won't be without its hurdles.

For starters, the Chain Theater is on the fourth floor, and the set, which will be built in Havre, will need to come apart in pieces that can fit onto an elevator. Of course, it would be far easier to have the set built in New York, but Ken Wolf from MRP is all in favor MAT taking charge because in his words, "the set is like another character."

"When that audience walks in and they see an authentic farmhouse," Pyette says, "It will make a difference. Ken knows that MRP wouldn't, even if they researched, have the ability to achieve anything like what we're going to create because we all grew up in that house."

Pyette admits that the script, originally written for a Montana audience, needed a few tweaks in order to make sense in New York. In the original screenplay there's a fire on a nearby Hutterite colony. But audiences in New York aren't going to know what a Hutterite colony is, or the dynamics surrounding it. To get around this, Pyette changed the colony to a "big Ag" outfit, the kind that have been gobbling up small family farms across Montana and the U.S.

Grant Olson is the artistic director for MAT and playing Alan, the second-eldest brother in the Carthage family. Born and raised in Havre, Olson holds a PHD in Theatre Arts from the Royal Academy of Art & King's College, London. Thinking about taking The Harvest to NYC he admits there are risks.

"One thing that I think is really important is that we put ourselves out there and take risks," Olson says, "because you only make good art if you're taking risks. And this is a risk."

"We know our audiences around here like us," Olson says, "and we know that we're producing something that's spectacular, but we don't want it to just be just spectacular for northern Montana. We want to produce shows that are viable around the country. So putting ourselves out there is good for us. It challenges us and keeps us on our toes. I think if nothing else, this is pushing us to make sure we've upped our game, we're doing the things we need to do that we're still engaging and making sure that our quality is as good as we possibly can. Plus it's just going to be a lot of fun."

Pam Veis, a veteran MAT actor, echoes both Pyette and Olson. Veis plays the part of Anna, the mother and glue of the family, and is no stranger to the issues surrounding northern Montana and farm families. Veis grew up on horseback and in the seat of a tractor in the small agricultural town of Sunburst, just a few miles shy of the Canadian border north of Shelby. "When I read the script," she says, "I just thought it was a really important story to tell."

"Anna really spoke to me," Veis says, "She knows what her role is as farmwife and mother, and as the story unfolds the unraveling of that role is what I find interesting. There's a lot of dysfunction in the family, a lot of conflict, and she put her whole life into that farm and into the family and the fact that it's crumbling is a really interesting part of portraying her."

As far as taking The Harvest to New York? "It's huge," she says, "It's fantastic, I'm really excited. And I'm really happy for Jay. This is a really big deal for him so I think that it's important for all of us in the cast to remember that this is his story and to do the very best we can to tell it authentically."

"Hopefully this will put MAT on the map a bit more," Pyette says, "plus it's a great opportunity for all the actors, and then the script itself, of course, if the script moves up, and that's obviously my desire, publishing will absolutely be a big step. That's what I'm really hoping for."

For those who can't make the show in New York, MAT will be performing The Harvest October 23, 24 & 25 at the MSUN theatre in Havre. Tickets available now at https://mtactors.com/shows-events or on the MAT website: www.mtactors.com.