BELLE FOURCHE—The Tri-State Performers took the audience on an eventful trip through history to a time when settlers were swarming to South Dakota for the gold rush. The influx of people created boomtowns like Deadwood. A mining camp near there called Diamond City was the setting for Dancin’ Daughters of Diamond City on April 24 and 25.
Kristi Thielen, playwright and director, wrote the play for the youth acting troupe, taking her experiences watching Westerns as a kid and the song “Oh, Dem Golden Slippers” always playing. “I love the fairy tale about the seven dancing princesses who go off at night and go someplace, and in the morning, their slippers are just worn from all the dancing that they did. So I thought, what if I put that in the Old West and use “Oh, Dem Golden Slippers” and a ghost town with a ghost saloon, and I came up with this play!”
The mom and primary character, Mineral Marge, played by Adalyn Savery, moved to the mining town of Diamond City with her daughters: Mildred, Katherine Fowler; Miriam, Abby Watson; Minnie, Madilyn Woxland; Minerva, Kinnley Ogaard; Mable, Melody Savery; and Zelda, Annabelle Coffelt. Marge ran the household while the daughters were sent out to mine for gold all day. Day after day, however, they slept rather than worked. Marge couldn’t figure out what was going on with her daughters and why they couldn’t find any gold. She offered a reward to find out what was happening at night. A variety of reward seekers came through trying to figure out what the daughters were up to. They were Cactus Clemmie, played by Moriah Jones; Palomino Polly, played by Elise Wood; Lemonade Lucy, played by Rebekah Jones; and MacKenzie Modulate, played by Anah Jones.
After a variety of antics, it turns out the girls were going to an abandoned mine shaft that housed a ghost saloon and danced all night. Ghosts were played by Echo, Allison Venter; Persephone, Natalie Venter; and Mrs. Specter, Francine Lipp.
The play was a full production with 14 roles. “Thank you so much for being here. These kids have worked very hard on this and it has a lot of technical aspects, the likes of which many of the Tri-State Performers have not dealt with before, so they really had to up their game to do this successfully,” shared Thielen.
The events center at the Tri-State Museum had a full house for both performances, with the Saturday afternoon performance being standing room only.
The crew included Kim Reausaw on sound and screen, Jean Maher was house manager and on lights, 3 Hats Theatre provided costumes and props, and the set pieces came from the Tri-State Museum.
The next performance of Tri-State Performers will be this summer during Hometown Thursdays. There will be a performance of Brave Little Tailor. Watch the Tri-State Museum Facebook page for more information and how to participate.
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