We choose works that are relevant to small-town communities and perform them in venues important to the community’s historical narrative. We create reflective and transformative experiences for both performers and audiences by producing and performing high-quality, interactive theater at historical sites with local actors.
In the summer of 2011, Luverne Seifert and Darcey Engen brought Anton Chekhov's classic The Cherry Orchard to the historic John Lind House in New Ulm, Minnesota, Seifert's home town. With six professional theater artists from the Twin Cities, four New Ulm actors, and a local five-piece polka band, they held nine performances in one week. Every performance sold out before opening day and Seifert and Engen were hooked.
Since then, every Sod House show has lived by the following three principals:
Strive to provide high quality theater experiences through workshops and performances
Raise awareness of and appreciation for underutilized historical sites by working with local community theater companies
Inspire greater Minnesota residents to value theater as a vehicle for individual and communal reflection
The following summer, Seifert received a grant to take The Cherry Orchard to five more historic homes in five different Minnesota towns including Blue Earth, Kenyon, Little Falls, Taylors Falls and Worthington. Prior to the tour, Seifert and Engen visited each town and held workshops to find local actors and musicians they would work with along the way.
Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard was chosen because of the pertinence of it's story. A formerly well to-do family is in the process of losing their family home and cherry orchard, a scenario and predicament that many families and farms in Minnesota have had to face.
In the summer of 2013, Sod House brought Durenmott’s The Visit to Albert Lea, Blue Earth and East Grand Forks, Minnesota. Each of these towns is home to a "little village", an assemblage of historical buildings used to teach and preserve the history of their towns beginnings. The performances took place in and around these villages.
Durenmott’s The Visit is also a story that resonates with small town audiences. The Visit is a dark comedy that explores the values, choices and consequences of a small town struggling to survive as they are faced with the play’s prevailing question—How far will a town go to save itself?
Sod House has toured a show through the greater Minnesota area each summer since their initial conception. They have produced such shows as, The Cherry Orchard, The Visit, Peer Gynt, Urinetown, and Enemy of the People. This summer 2019, Sod House will remount Enemy of the People and tour it to Hastings and Crookston.
