Where the Deer and the Antelope Play

Back on the road, a bittersweet moment. It's great to get back to work, but a little daunting to leave the company of friends and family for another few months. This past week we spent time in a little Montana town called Roy. And by little, I mean it may have been the smallest town I've ever been in. The school we were working at has 69 children enrolled in grades K-12. The graduating class this year is comprised of 2 students, that's about 1/180th of my high school class. The school is small and the town ain't much bigger. Roy sits at the edge of a small range called the Judith Mountains, the last gasping breath of the Rockies before the vastness of the Great Plains suffocates the landscape. Besides the school, there's a small grocery, a couple of bars, a post office, a auto shop that sometimes has gas (fresh out when we stopped), and maybe a church (I couldn't tell). It's a town whose need for existence is painfully obvious.

While the physical town of Roy may not be anything to gloat about, the people are hard working, down to earth, simple folk who were nothing but delighted to have us for the week. We stayed with the superintendent (and principal, math teacher, bus driver, and basketball coach), Mr. Sturm and his family. They live in a beautiful hand-built log home with expansive views of the nearby mountains and plains. Deer and pronghorn antelope cover the landscape like white on rice, to not have see any on the five mile drive into town would have been a bonified miracle. When not in rehearsal, Mallory and I spent the days walking or running with their dog, T, watching the entire first season of House, visiting with their horses and mules, reading, and generally trying to stave off boredom in such an isolated place. We did take a field trip to a wildlife refuge to elk watch. Dozens of elk gather along the Missouri river to graze, spar, and bugle their eerie songs. Definitely the biggest attraction for miles--we actually had to deal with a lot of traffic!

For me, the isolation is not something I love, but I have a much higher tolerance than Mallory does. And I've been to similar places. Being from the east coast, she isn't quite used to seeing so much nothing. And if eastern Montana has an abundance of anything, it's nothing.

Production wise, this was our smallest cast so far. Twenty-nine kids, about half of what we usually have. We had to cut an entire character group, but in the end it still turned out to be a good production, made evident by the delight guffaws of the audience.

We're now in Turner, about a dozen miles south of the Saskatchewan border in north central Montana. It's about the same size as Roy, maybe a shade bigger. We'll see how things go this week.