Past Productions
Sonnets in the Snow, Again
January 2022
On January 22 and 23, 2022 (Saturday and Sunday), MIST once again presented Sonnets in the Snow with eleven actors skiing, snowshoeing and simply hiking the mountain trails of the Blackmore loop trails up Hyalite Canyon. Sonneteers once again wore green sashes signifying themselves as Sonneteers. We had a great audience turnout on the two beautiful sunny days, joining the actors on the trails and hearing sonnets and poetry echoing across the mountain side.
Coming very soon: a short video of Sonnets 2022.
Shakespeare for the Birds
On June 12 and 13, 2021, MIST presented Shakespeare for the Birds, a walking production through Story Mill Park in Bozeman. Actors, strategically placed along walking paths in the bird sanctuary, performed scenes and sang songs from Shakespeare related to birds. Audience members enjoyed the sounds and sights of birds while listening to 400-year-old thoughts from Shakespeare about these species.
Watch this nine minute video to hear Shakespeare talk about birds.
Sonnets in the Snow
In February 2021 we presented recitations of sonnets from the time of Shakespeare to the modern day.
Between 1:00 and 3:00, people of all ages and abilities skied, snowshoed, or walked the Hyalite Canyon trails finding performers along the way who delivered sonnets upon request. Check in stations at History Rock and Blackmore trailheads gave maps, directions, and hints about where to find the performers.
Watch this six-minute video to get a sense of the beauty and wonder of this great day.
The Waste Land
October 2020
The Waste Land is a modernist poem by T.S. Eliot. The poem gives a sweeping look at the wreckage of modern civilization, as its stanzas echo with the voices of the past and the present. Eliot mixed together classical mythology, Dante, Shakespeare, Wagner, The Upanishads, 19th-century French poetry, contemporary music, and much more in this attempt to understand how the fragments of the past could be used to prevent the ruin of the present. Prufrock is Eliot’s first major published poem, a work that is a study of an eloquent, but neurotic, prototype modern man.
Oguta Island
September 2020
Every year on 25 March, the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade offers the opportunity to honor and remember those who suffered and died at the hands of the brutal slavery system. Remembrance Day also aims to raise awareness about the dangers of racism and prejudice today.
Oguta Island is a short 19 minute film based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest. This adaptation examines the parallel exploitation of humans and natural resources in Nigeria.
Shakespeare’s Walking Story
June 2020
This ambulatory production featured a guided walk along Story Mill Park trails for small, socially distanced groups. At various places along the route actors were strategically placed where they performed speeches from Shakespeare’s plays around a theme of “prisons”. It was the perfect opportunity to immerse oneself in the beauty of nature and poetry while considering what both can teach us about dealing with difficult times.
Timon of Anaconda
September 2019
Timon of Anaconda is our adaptation of Shakespeare and Middleton’s Timon of Athens, set in Butte, Montana in the 1960s and ’70s. It tells the story of a mining mogul who loses everything and is abandoned by his friends. He then attempts to retreat to the wilderness, only to find that there is no place that does not have the mark of human activity. This 75-minute adaptation uses a 400-year-old text to explore our own culpability in environmental degradation, but also to consider what our next steps can be.
Interested in Participating
Please contact us if you have ideas for an artistic work that you would like to bring to a site-specific location in Montana.