Slogging Through Bohemia SJA Regulars Join in Theater Storytelling

Ah, the Bohemian. Endearing to some while frequently misunderstood by others. Some folks choose the familiar, the secure, the steady paycheck, the need to conform to mainstream ideals while others steadfastly commit to their own way of doing things by carving their own path, living on the fringes of society. SJA's leader of the band at Sunday services, accompanist Dan Chouinard(right) playfully defined the Bohemian as "A literary term from France to describe artists in cities with no regards to rules of genteel society, hygiene or career advancement who pursue arcane enlightenment. The opposite is the Philistine, a pejorative of the old testament, [someone] settled for convention."

Chouinard hosted Slogging Through Bohemia by Theater Latte Da March 7th in the Loring Playhouse. Tonight was Latte Dark Night, part of the theater's Monday night series of intimate storytelling and music. Featured were the prominent Bohemian musical performers Julie Madden, Prudence Johnson, Bradley Greenwald, Beth Gilleland, Dane Stauffer and Molly Sue McDonald.

With the sights of the set of Latte Da's successfully sold-out opera "La Boheme" in the background, opera and the bohemian remained a running theme for tonight's proceedings. Chouinard quipped, "We should make an opera called 'La Philistine,' portrait of an artist as a restless caterer finding a voice and a paycheck."

While a majority of the audience were artists themselves, Chouinard appropriately opened the show with a sing-a-long to Queen's 1976 rock hit "Bohemian Rhapsody," complete with word titles projected overhead on a screen. As Chouinard impeccably played note per note this brilliantly constructed and lengthy tune, the lively crowd did not hold back in singing along and since most could sing with some level of skill, the results were robustly impressive.

Each guest exchanged some anecdotes and a telling song about their life as a struggling bohemian. The first guest to chat with our host was comedic actor playwright Beth Gilleland, who in her past, would decide to move whenever rent was due. As an antidote to soothe her many struggles, she offered Julie Andrews' "Spoon Full of Sugar," while Chouinard accompanied on piano. A masterful dry wit, Gilleland calls herself a "melancholy optimist driven by fear." What motivates and sustains her remains the ability to always become a beginner and stay open to that process. She's developed a thick skin for surviving obstacles but says there are limits: "You can pay me poorly, you can treat me poorly, but you can't do both!"

Prudence Johnson, a favorite guest performer at St. Joan's, established herself as a Jazz singer in the Twin Cities but did not want to confine herself to one style of music. She believes, "A good tune is a good tune," and would often times mix Jazz with classical country or even Kurt Weill compositions. Conceiving a child in her teens, at 36 she became a grandmother and experienced a severe case of empty nest syndrome quite early in her life. Johnson decided to head to Nashville to seriously pursue a recording career but in the process discovered she wasn't the ambitious type that used her friends to advance her career. She also wasn't interested in conforming to the notions of what country music marketing often makes of female singers.

This wandering songbird returned to the Twin Cities, went to Hamline University, earned a BA degree and believed something stable like running a Bed & Breakfast in Taylors Falls would offer financial security. Well, music kept beckoning her back to the Twin Cites and the commute proved to be too much. Deciding to "cut the overhead and do what you love," she applied twice for the Mcknight Artists Fellowship, winning it the second time. She used the money to record an album of Hoagy Carmichael songs. Her rendition of his "Honky Kong Blues" from the 1944 Bogart/Bacall film To Have and Have Not, aptly reinforced the theme of returning to one's roots while Johnson finished with another Carmichael ditty "Lazy River."

For Twin Cities Opera Singer Bradley Greenwald, it was the "don'ts" in his life that charted a path towards a performing career. Being a generation X'er, this bohemian eschewed any job defined as "the expected" and every "don't" was actually an invitation to a better opportunity. "I knew I didn't want to do what I should do," he offered, which involved avoiding the appropriate operatic roles in favor of roles that far surpassed his ability. Through chutzpah and determination, he went from small roles in Minnesota Opera to leads in Theatre de la Jeune Lune's boundary pushing approach to staging operas: "The Magic Flute," "Cosi Fan Tutte," "Figaro," "Carmen" and presently, "Maria, de Buenos Aires." He brilliantly demonstrated his penchant for creating sublimely demented characters while singing "Don't Put Your Daughter On the Stage" where he started out as a quaint Englishman who gradually transpired into a histrionic, suffering critic.

Chanhassen Theater performing veteran Molly Sue McDonald wrote a letter to a contest for free tickets to a Joni Mitchell concert. This letter, she said, involved "my journey to the edge of desperation and my slog back to my real bohemian self." She read verbatim the actual letter she wrote chronicling her painful encounter with Hodgkin's disease. Having dropped out of her beloved career in musical theater to take on stable opportunity in the corporate world, she slowly discovered that the biggest thing that would help her heal from her illness was to get back to music. With guitar, she strummed and poignantly warbled Joni Mitchell's 1967 classic "Both Sides, Now," which articulates both her loss and discovery in being true to one self. She never won the tickets because the judges felt her letter wasn't dramatic enough.

Singer comedian actor Dane Stauffer who presently resides in San Diego doing a run of "Triple Espresso," performed a monologue about being misunderstood or "Do you want to be honest or do you want to work." He gamely joined Gilleland, with Chouinard on "new agey" piano accompaniment for a scene from their successful 1996 Brave New Workshop comedy Shedding Light Over My Black Skirt about a divorced couple catching up with each other.

The evening's final guest, our own irrepressible Peace & Justice Pastoral Minister Julie Madden, shed some of her own light on her life from theater actor to peace activist. Madden remains such a prominent public eye fixture in her work at St. Joan's that Chouinard mused "People mistake her for Joan of Arc on the street." True to her expressive personality, she sang a fabulous version of "I'm Just a Broadway Baby" from Stephen Sondheim's musical staple Follies. Always outspoken and compassionately committed, this multi-talented performer launched her career in San Francisco where she spouted a litany of "jobs I did to pay for my habit." She's of course referring to a series of day jobs she endured to support the non-paying theater work at night. When she moved to Los Angeles, her husband Michael Madden insisted she either get a job or a show—hint, one that paid. The choice was obvious—she would get on a game show. Turns out she won $2,000 and a year supply of Velamints.

Some temporary cash and fresh breath did little to alleviate that usual conundrum. The theater life placed her in a constantly uncertain position of extremes: the Relief— I'm finally in a show, to the Panic— What will be my next show be? So the Maddens relocated to Minneapolis and, by default, she stumbled into the position of something she was born to do: Spread social justice. She's now engaged in work "where community and creativity have coalesced into sense," she said with a sigh of relief. She still dips her toes in theater occasionally—Minneapolis Musical Theater, Actor's Theater of Minnesota, Theater Latte Da—but engages in a life calling where true self matters and is nurtured. She thoughtfully summarized what her various roles have made her become: "For a woman working in the Catholic Church, I'm a good actor. For a mother, I'm a good activist and peace maker."

Michael Reinbold, a continuing web reporter, freelances as a writer and banquet caterer. A passionate believer in SJA's mission of social justice and collaborative ministry, Michael is an SJA Choir member, mass reader, Team Oz AIDS rider and Grace House volunteer cook. With an extensive background in theater, photography and fundraising, he relishes all aspects of the arts, staying fit and inspiring and working with people.

Chouinard closed the evening singing a capella with the Old Methodist tune "Only Remembered" accompanied movingly by the audience on the verses "Only remembered. Only remembered. Only remembered for what we have done." With stirring emotion, he concluded, "What we have done is what we have loved."