Resounding Spring Program
June 25-28, 2026
Introduction: Inspired by the fundamental message behind Silent Spring, Montana InSite Theatre’s production of “Resounding Spring” will celebrate the sounds of our ecosystems, especially birds. Through music (instrumental and vocal), poetry, dance, and dramatic scenes, our performers showcase art that encourages us to live in greater harmony with our environment. Read to the bottom of the page to see pictures of the actors, read their bios and comments about each scene
Fancy Shawl Dance & Welcome
Absarokee Fancy Shawl dance by Lilian Doyle
Drumming & Singing by Shane Doyle
Lilian Doyle, a rising junior at Gallatin High School and an enrolled member of the Apsáalooke Nation, is passionate about learning and pursuing academic opportunities. As a youth plaintiff in Held v. State of Montana, she continues to advocate for clean air and water with the Children’s Trust. Family and friends ground her. She loves caring for children, collecting laughter, and dancing—Jazz, Lyrical, and Native American. She is grateful to share music and movement in this beautiful place among good friends and neighbors.
Dr. Shane Doyle (Apsaalooké) is a community and environmental advocate, Tribal historian and performing artist, who hails from Crow Agency, MT. Dr. Doyle currently serves as the North America Indigenous Right Relations Director for The Nature Conservancy, as well as the executive director of Yellowstone Peoples, an Indigenous nonprofit that supports and organizes an annual Intertribal Tipi Village event in Yellowstone Park. In his role for The Nature Conservancy, Shane works across the U.S. and Canada to support Tribal Bison Restoration on Native lands, as well as the revitalization of Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Land Back to Native communities. Shane lives in Bozeman with his wife Megkian, and their 5 children; Florence, Ruby, Lilian, Blake and Quanah.
“The tradition of making dance regalia has an ancient history with the Crow people and other native nations. The regalia I wear today illustrate the way we continue to create visual reminders of our natural world and our respect for the knowledge it shares with us. As Silent Spring also reminds us, our natural world is trying to talk to us, to teach us, and to gift us with with blessings for life. [My regalia] contains images of our landscape and art it has inspired, as well as elements of the flicker, mountain blue bird, and magpie. “ -Lilian Doyle
The Sea Around Us
Performers: Marc Beaudin & Aaron Schuerr
Marc Beaudin is a poet and theatre artist in Livingston. He is the author of These Creatures of a Day, Life List, and Vagabond Song. His albums of poetry and jazz, From Coltrane to Coal Train and The Sky Too Is Concrete, feature members of the bands Morphine and The Northwoods Improvisers. Locally, he has performed in several MIST productions and directed for Bozeman Actors Theatre and the Blue Slipper.
Livingston artist Aaron Schuerr (www.aaronschuerr.com) spends most of his time alone looking at mountains and rivers. On good days those outings result in paintings that don’t embarrass him. Occasionally he comes in to see what people do. Sometimes he’ll listen to their stories. Other times he tells his own. People and rivers and mountains have fascinating stories to tell. You need only lean in to hear them.
Rachel Carson became a highly respected science writer when she published her first book, The Sea Around Us, an in depth look at the natural world of the sea. Here we are in Montana, hundreds of miles from the sea, but yet, we can find familiarity in her words by contemplating the “sea of grass” that surround us. There are many similarities between sea life and land life; Carson used this to help us understand our relationship to animals - including humans. In this section, Marc has written original poetry and Schuerr paints original plein air paintings of our land and sea, both inspired by Carson.
Silent Spring begins
Performer: Kateena Bell
Kateena Bell is a Missoula-based actor and musician who discovered a passion for the stage after appearing in community productions of Rent, Rocky Horror, and Ragtime. These formative experiences ignited a deep love for performance and storytelling. Drawing on a musical background and a drive for creative risk-taking, Kateena is approaching each new opportunity with genuine excitement to collaborate and an eagerness to grow.
Kateena Bell introduces us to Rachel Carson and especially her book Silent Spring in this book. Carson understood the perils that unregulated use of pesticides posed for animals, (including humans), and wanted someone to write about this and wake our world up. When Carson received a letter from an anonymous person who talked about the dead and dying birds, she realized she would have to be the one who wrote this book. This scene introduces us to the reason why Silent Spring came about.
The Nightly News
Performers: John Hosking and Riley O’Toole
John Hosking graduated from Montana State and was a member of the Hillberry Graduate Repertory Theater at Wayne State University, then worked professionally for three years with ACT in Seattle. He performed at the Virginia City Opera House in the 1970s and in 1981 John co-founded Vigilante Theatre Co., where he was an actor and director and toured Montana and the region for 33 years. You may have seen John at the Black Box as Pickering in My Fair Lady, as Willy Lohman in Death of a Salesman, in the title role of King Lear for MSIP in 2022, or as Scrooge at The Ellen in 2021 & '23.
Riley O’Toole is thrilled to be returning to collaboration with MIST, after appearing as Apemantus in Timon of Anaconda in 2019. Riley serves as the Associate Artistic Director of Montana Shakespeare in the Parks, and has recently worked with Opera MT, the MT Ballet, Bozeman Symphony, Verge Theater and Montana Arts Council.
After Silent Spring proved to be a successful book governments and politicians world-wide took notice and started serious discussions a bout regulating chemicals, especially DDT, as this common chemical had proven to be a primary cause of bird die-offs. Fighting back, giant chemical companies reacted by insinuating false claims about Carson and her abilities as a scientist. This scene portrays two newscasters, contemporaries of Carson, reporting on the impact of Silent Spring.
Friendship
Performers: Kate Britton & Steph Burda
Kate Britton has spent over twenty years acting professionally. Favorite roles include: Hannah in BAT’s production of Arcadia, Mary in The Blue Slipper's production of Late, A Cowboy Song, Aimee in the Verge production of The Humans, Marie Antoinette in The Revolutionists, Phoebe in HBO’s Spring/Fall, and a string of strong women fighting robots and jellyfish monsters in Sci-fi films you will never see. She is the Co-Founder of the Livingston Fringe Festival, Co-Founder and instructor at The Collective, and Development Director at the Shane Lalani Center for the Arts
Stephanie Burda is a professional writer now, but was probably a semi-professional writer as a baby. Advertising creative by day, Steph is also a performer and multi-disciplinary artist, with credits including: RAGTIME (Evelyn Nesbit), ONCE (Music Director/Girl), THE LAST FIVE YEARS (Cathy), BONNIE & CLYDE (Bonnie), and the self-produced IASB I & II: 30 ORIGINAL PLAYS IN 60 MINUTES. She is the shortest member of local alt-pop band The Sleepless Elite.
Rachel Carson had a very close friend, Dorothy Freeman. The two of them met in person only seven times, but they exchanged many letters, revealing the deep friendship between these two. This scene portrays their shared love of birds, nature, music, and poetry.
Ode to Silent Spring
Performers: Jodi Allison-Burnell (viola), Luke Minton (violin), Carrie Krause (violin)
Music composed by Eric Funk
Jodi Allison-Bunnell, violist, is a member of the Bozeman Symphony and performs with Opera Montana and other groups in Bozeman. For over twenty years, she performed with the Missoula Symphony. When she is not enjoying her active performing life, she is the head of Archives and Special Collections at the Montana State University Library where, among other things, she stewards the papers of regional creatives that include Eric Funk, Ivan Doig, Opera Montana, and others.
Luke Minton is a musician, actor, and student at Bozeman High School. He has studied violin with Carrie Krause for six years and participates as a section leader/concertmaster in his school’s Kamerata and Philharmonic Orchestras. Whenever not found at school or playing violin, Luke enjoys spending time climbing Montana mountains, exploring nature, reading, and writing. He is delighted to join Montana InSite Theatre again this year for Resounding Spring.
Carrie Krause, violin, is concertmaster of the Bozeman Symphony and founder of the series Baroque Music Montana, which has released two albums and performs 50 concerts per year across the region. Carrie performs with ensembles across the country and on international series including the BBC Proms, Tanglewood, and most recently at St. Martin’s in the Field. Carrie has degrees from Carnegie Mellon, Cleveland Institute of Music, and The Juilliard School.
Eric Funk , a composer, television host and retired MSU music professor, studied composition with Krzysztof Penderecki, Sandor Veress, and Tomas Svoboda, and has written 10 symphonies, four operas, six ballet scores, and numerous works for chamber ensembles, solo instruments, and vocal works, including “Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, Op 71 which won the 2018 Global Music Award “Gold Medal Best of Show” honors. Funk works with Montana PBS on the Emmy award-winning program “11th and Grant,” showcasing performances by Montana artists.
Music greatly soothed Rachel Carson. Songs such as Mendolsohn’s Concerto held special meaning for Carson and her friend Dorothy Freeman. Nature itself and the story of Rachel Carson greatly inspired composer Eric Funk to write a series of short pieces, which this trio plays for you. Listen for the smooth relaxing melodies of nature.
The Other Road
Performers: Erik Pearson and Katherine Fried
Erik Pearson is a Minnesota native who has been active in theater, musical theater, opera, Shakespeare, concert music and educational theater for the past 20 years. In between gigs, he spends his time composing works for voice, strings, and various chamber ensembles, along with hiking, skiing, and working in our National Parks.
Katherine Fried a musician/composer, performing artist, and arts educator based in Minneapolis and Philadelphia. She focuses particularly on themes of nature, investigations of the female experience, and mental health in her creations. Katherine has performed with MassMOCA, Guthrie Theater, Arden Theatre Company, Fulton Opera, Virginia Rep, ISF, and MSIP among others. MCAOM Instructor of voice/piano. Dialect coach. Training: UMN/Guthrie BFA Program. Barrymore Award Nominee, Virginia Circle Critics Award Nominee. YoungArts Award.
What will we do with this information? Every day it seems more and more of our safety net and environmental rules that work to safeguard our world’s water, air, and soil are being stripped away.
The Guides
Performers: Lauren Chavez, Gretchen Minton, Kevin Brustuen
Lauren Chavez is a writer fascinated by languages and vocabularies that emerge from the landscapes she encounters. A lover of poetry, music, and nature, Lauren is at her happiest when these three loves coalesce.
Gretchen Minton is the Artistic Director of Montana InSite Theatre. She is a Shakespearean, author of award-winning books and a published playwright.
Kevin Brustuen is production manager for Montana Insite Theatre.
Guides accompany each group of audience members from scene to scene. They “set the stage” for each group of actors, and in some cases become part of the acting scene itself. Our hope is these guides can help our audience members get more out of the production and be available to answer any questions that may arise.
Montana InSite Theatre strives to keep our performances free.; we write and produce our own plays, seldom use props or built scenery, and - since our performances are usually outside- charges for venue rental are almost non-existent. We do believe that it is only right, however, to pay our actors,, so we do need to raise money to pay them stipends. If you are so inclined, we appreciate your donations. You can donate either online on our secure “Support Us” page, or send a check to:
Montana InSite Theatre
1315 South Montana
Bozeman, MT 59715
If you have questions about this show please feel free to contact Montana InSite Theatre at montanainsitetheatre@gmail.com
