Par Ki Musicals I recollect

My Alma Mater, Park HS of Cottage Grove, recently put on the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat which I also did at Park and it made me think- is there a record of Park musicals since the move from the old building in St. Paul Park to one on 80th St in Cottage Grove in 1965? 

I tried in 2007 to create such a list. It is actually somewhere on this blog. Whew, almost 20 years ago!

Now I could dig through a bunch of yearbooks or South Washington County Bulletins that I have no easy access since I am out of the region now. So for now I will rely on my memory and what I can piece together on the net.

Accessing memory.....

Park High School originally occupied a building in St. Paul Park. By the 1960s the school outgrew the space so a new campus was built over in the neighboring city of Cottage Grove. The old campus ended up getting used as junior high for a time but then became apartments and community space. The new campus included a music 'complex' across the hall from the gymnasium which included 3 large rooms with tiered floors for band and choir rehearsals plus smaller practice/storage rooms and offices.  A modest proscenium theater that sat perhaps 300 to 400 separated the choir section from the band section. The band room was on the stage right side and choir the stage left side. There were a bunch of other closets on the choir side hall. Eventually one of the choir rooms ended up housing JR  ROTC beginning in the late 80s. Oh, and there was this loft in the rear choir room that could only be accessed by ladder (which there was on the wall). The loft held an assortment of costumes and random junk from theater productions. The adjacent choir room may have also had a similar loft but I never had business in that room. On the band side off the wings of the stage there was a back hall and stairs that lead up to 2 dressing rooms and the catwalk. The rear of the stage area was rather small by the standards of the my era- I am comparing it to the old Hastings High School and Woodbury High School stages. There might have been 20 feet back there from the rear curtain to the back wall. Performers would often go outside to cross over to other side of the stage because scenery would take up much of the backstage.

By the time I arrived at Park, the stage gained an apron of maybe 10-15 feet from the arch. I do not recall if seating was removed for that- but at one time there was a orchestra pit. I do not recollect if there was something stored under that portion of the stage but I do remember seeing pictures of a much shorter stage from old yearbooks I saw in the 1990s. In my era orchestra was often placed in the house- taking up a portion of seats on the stage left side. By 1991, the orchestra was backstage and mic'd.  

So that was a long digression to get to this detail- in the choir hall there was a utility closet that doubled as a paint storage room. On the walls of the closet were painted haphazardly the names of musicals performed at Park. But the one that was not haphazard and thus dully respected was a little rainbow next to text "Finian's."  I think that Finian's Rainbow was first musical staged in the theater in 1968. 

So here is the incomplete list that I hope to update as more information is discovered (some dates might be conjecture). Prior to 2007 the musicals were in the fall and usually ran the two weekends before Thanksgiving. Sometime after 1997 the second weekend was dropped. These days the musical is a spring event.

Finian's Rainbow 1968

1969

1970

1971

1972

1973

1974

1975

1976

1977

1978

1979

1980

1981

1982

1983

Man of  La Mancha  1984

The Sound of Music 1985

Wizard of Oz 1986

Bye Bye Birdie 1987 Fall

Lil Abner 1988 Fall

George M! 1989 Fall

42nd Street 1990 Fall

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat 1991 Fall

Cinderella 1992 Fall

Hello Dolly! 1993 Fall

Working 1994

You're a Good Man Charlie Brown 1995

Barnum 1996

Godspell 1997

Anything Goes 1998

Little Shop of Horrors 1999

The Mystery of Edwin Drood 2000

Into the Woods 2001

Oliver! 2002

Pippin 2003

Once Upon a Mattress 2004

Hello Dolly! 2005

Grease 2007

2008

Jesus Christ Superstar 2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

Legally Blonde The Musical 2014

Musical Comedy Murders of 1940s 2014 *

Cinderella 2015 Spring

Oklahoma 2016

The Addams Family 2017

James and the Giant Peach 2018

Little Shop of Horrors 2019

The Theory of Relativity 2021

Disney's The Little Mermaid 2022

Mamma Mia! 2023

The Prom 2024

EMMA 2025

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat 2026 Spring