As the year slips into autumn and the combines are out harvesting the wheat and barley and oats you can jump in the family car and head on out to Rosebud Theatre for a familiar tale about a tractor, a boy and a girl, and the troubles, hopes, and turmoil of a faltering marriage and the challenges of farming the land. Rosebud Theatre presents Dear Johnny Deere by Ken Cameron based on the music and lyrics of Fred Eaglesmith with additional music by David Archibald.
***
Dear Johnny Deere runs until October 24th. Tickets are available by calling the box office at 1-800-267-7553 or online at www.rosebudtheatre.com. Matinees run Wednesday to Saturday with the buffet running from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm and the show starting at 1:30 pm. Evening shows run Friday and Saturday with the buffet running from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm and the show starting at 7:30 pm. You can purchase tickets for the buffet and the show or just for the show itself.
***
Dear Johnny Deere is an entertaining two hours of live musical storytelling with an extremely talented and versatile group of actors and musicians. Devon Brayne as Johnny and Cassia Schmidt as Caroline are the focus of our tale. They got married young and now many years later both are feeling a sense of deep dissatisfaction about how their lives have turned out and the direction their lives are going.
Andrew Legg plays their neighbour McAllister who runs The Local Paper. He’s also the narrator of the story and is a bit of a guardian angel who’s always trying to watch over and help Johnny and Caroline as the story progresses. There is some mystery to McAllister’s background involving his brother but that’s apparently a story for another time we’re told.
Aaron Krogman plays Mike who turns up in town and not only threatens Johnny and Caroline’s marriage but he’s scheming to take advantage of Caroline and Johnny’s stressed financial situation and buy the farm. Mike is no stranger to the town having grown up and gone to high school with Caroline and now he has returned to his small-town roots ahead of the province’s plans to build a highway and bypass the local community.
Alixandra Cowman steps in where needed as auctioneer and along with Chris Pompetti rounds out the cast and musical ensemble that help bring the story to life. The story is expertly designed and directed by Morris Ertman, the former Artistic Director of Rosebud Theatre, who returns to direct and design what I hope will be many more Main Stage productions.
Devon Brayne is returning to Rosebud Theatre after his show An Evening with Johnny Cash packed the Opera House in the spring. Devon has an impressive list of credits including Million Dollar Quartet with Theatre Calgary, Forever Plaid with Stage West, and Jersey Boys at The Citadel. I sat down with Devon to talk with him about working in Rosebud as well as his thoughts about Dear Johnny Deere and discovering the music of Fred Eaglesmith.
JAMES HUTCHISON
You’ve got an amazing cast you’re working with on Dear Johnny Deere, including Cassia Schmidt, who plays your wife Caroline. And I’m wondering what it’s been like working with Cassia and the rest of the cast to bring this show to the stage.
DEVON BRAYNE
It’s been a true pleasure. I was pretty foreign to the Rosebud community prior to this production, but back in March I brought one of my Johnny Cash tribute shows to Rosebud and that opened some doors for me. Put me in the right room with the right people.
And Cassia is a tour de force. She’s obviously well respected in the Rosebud community and a veteran amongst the company having worked there for many years. Much can be said the same as for Aaron Krogman, who plays Mike Schmidt and Johnny’s father Hendrik. Again, just a very valuable player in the community of Rosebud and I think it’s a blessing for me to be able to work with so many talented people.
JAMES
You said you were in the room with the right people. How much of your career do you think has been the result of being in the right place at the right time? How much has luck played?
DEVON
I don’t know. It’s different for everyone. But I do owe a lot of people a lot of gratitude. I’ve had many blessings with many different people who have put me in the right room with the right people to kind of give me my next jump start.
Back in 2018 was my first time performing Johnny Cash down in Lethbridge, my hometown, and that production connected me with a person who got me a different, completely unrelated production that wasn’t Johnny Cash at all. And that opened the next door and now here we are almost a decade later still kind of doing the same thing. And I shouldn’t say it’s all luck. My wife Jocelyn would fight against me for selling myself short. Obviously, having talent helps. Selling yourself in the room and being approachable and doing your best to provide a good experience and a good atmosphere for the people that you’re working with obviously goes a long way.
JAMES
Dear Johnny Deere is a story about a troubled marriage, a farm on the brink of being lost as well as the trauma of living with grief and tragedy and yet the show never feels like it gives into despair. So, it feels like there’s a core message of perseverance and hope. How does Fred Eaglesmith’s music and Ken Cameron’s crafting of that music into a story create that impression and feeling?
DEVON
I was having this discussion with our brilliant director, Morris Ertman, and this show is unlike any other jukebox musical. A jukebox musical by definition is when you’re using existing songs from artists and throwing those over an overarching tale to kind of facilitate that music. This kind of naturally feels opposite. Ken derived and pulled this story from the poetry of Fred Eaglesmith’s music.
One of the musical through lines that we have in this show is Yellow Barley Straw, one of Fred’s brilliant little folk ensemble a capella tunes. And there’s a line in there that says he just keeps on believing. And so, it speaks heavily to farmers and the culture of agriculture. Farmers persevere. They are dealt sometimes a pretty rough hand from year to year, and you never necessarily know what the year is going to bring. It could be a prosperous one or a devastating one. And Yellow Barley Straw, which we pepper in a handful of times throughout the show is truly just that mantra of come what may, we will persevere.
JAMES
What is it that keeps your character persevering?
DEVON
It’s a challenging one because a lot of the time one of the things Johnny Deere grapples with is self-confidence. He tends to feel very small and for the last fifteen to twenty years he’s suffering in silence. He doesn’t communicate. He’s very introverted and introspective and doesn’t like to communicate with his wife or with his other interpersonal relationships. But over the course of the show, he discovers his support systems and the people that he has in his life who do genuinely care and love him. He has people in his corner. He doesn’t have to go through this alone and he learns it’s okay to be vulnerable. It’s okay to express yourself. It’s highly important and pivotal to communicate with your partner. So, it’s a real gritty, meaty, authentic, true telling of life in the prairies.
And I think Ken Cameron did a brilliant and beautiful job of changing the time frame to bring you on to Johnny’s side. Because if we just stayed in the present day, Johnny’s a rapscallion. And we need to endear him to the audience, and so, there’s some brilliant scenes that Ken has written and pulled from the lyrics of Fred’s songs that really show you the teddy bear under the gruff. And in a way, Johnny is the everyman. He has been ridden hard and put away wet, as I like to put it. He’s hard-edged, but he hasn’t always been that way. And so, through the show, we get to jump back and forth in time to Johnny’s life before Caroline and with Caroline and so you get a sense of why Johnny is the way he is.
JAMES
So, why should people make the journey and come out to Rosebud Theatre and see Dear Johnny Deere? What are you hoping audiences get out of the show?
DEVON
If you are unfamiliar with Fred Eaglesmith’s music ahead of time, you will leave a fan. That’s coming from someone who was unfamiliar with Fred Eaglesmith prior to attaching myself to the show. And now I greatly appreciate not only just the musicality, but the poetry and the meanings and sentiments that he has within it. And again, as I mentioned, Ken has really shaped and sculpted this show to highlight and showcase Fred’s poetry in that. I think it’s just a real honest show. It’s not a glitz and glam, jazz hands, chorus line, everyone down front kind of show. It is hard-hitting being both heartwarming and heart-wrenching at times, delightfully funny and often devastating. It kind of runs the gamut. You will laugh. You may cry. But you’ll leave warm and full.
Dear Johnny Deere is a story that focuses on the resilience of the human spirit and the perseverance it takes to survive another day and face the future. Yeah, life doesn’t always turn out like we hoped but that’s kind of par for the course. Who hasn’t had to resort to a Plan B or a Plan C? As for myself, I’m already up to plan V, which honestly just involves a lot of buying lottery tickets when the darkness of the future and the promise of millions overtakes my better judgement.
Of course, rather than buying lottery tickets you could spend time with family and friends. That’s not based on luck. That’s based on choice. You can choose to head on out to Rosebud so you can enjoy a meal and go to the theatre and see Dear Johnny Deere. And I think that’s a good way to spend your time. Theatre lets us enjoy a glimpse into life while giving us an opportunity to make rich and rewarding memories with those beside us. And when we think back on our life we can cherish those moments where we connected with someone and shared the joy of being part of a community experience. And music I think more than anything connects us. It’s deep and primal and reaches us in ways that crosses generations and time.
Catch Dear Johnny Deere at Rosebud Theatre until October 24th. Tickets are available by calling the box office at 1-800-267-7553 or online at www.rosebudtheatre.com.
