Merlin Players Holiday Show Featured on AM Minnesota

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the event that got the United States of America involved in World War II.

The Merlin Players professional theatre troupe is doing a performance this year of a totally original and totally local play for the holiday season titled "Wrapped in Love and Glory."

The show was written by Merlin Players founding member and Faribault native Michael Lambert and weaves together letters, history and music of the women working in the Faribault Woolen Mill to make blankets for the troops fighting overseas during the war.

The Merlin Players Artistic Director Juliana Skluzacek and Music Director Doug Madow will be in studio to visit with us, and we are hoping to have Lambert join us by phone from St. Paul where he lives. He might not be able to. We will find out together.

The project started when Skluzacek spoke with Lambert two years ago and suggested he write another holiday show. Six years ago Lambert wrote "Sun Valley Christmas."

They threw ideas at each other and Skluzacek says Lambert came up with the idea of writing a story highlighting the lives of the women who worked in the Faribault Woolen Mill during the war.

Lambert began interviewing various community members involved at the time and collected letters soldiers had written home during the war from family and friends. Those letters are part of the story.

The play includes 26 songs from the World War II era sung by three women in the style of the Andrews Sisters. "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boys of Company B," "Star Dust Memories" and "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree" are just a few of the songs performed by Faribault residents Lisa Quimby and Barb Piper along with former Owatonnan Gail Thompson.

The rest of the guest list includes bot veteran and new Merlin Players Paula Goebel, Heidi Nelson, April Spring, Kim Clausen, Deborah Clark, Noelle Miller, Kim Paczosa and Amber Holven.

"Wrapped in Love and Glory" runs December 9 and 10 at 7:30PM and December 11 at 2PM and then next Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7:30PM and 2PM Sunday, December 18, at the Paradise Center for the Arts in Faribault. There is an opening night reception.

For tickets call (507) 332-7372 during box office hours noon to 5PM Tuesday through Saturday. The box office is also open until 8PM on Thursday nights and one hour before each performance.

This production is sponsored by the Faribault Woolen Mill, Federated Personal Lines and Spectrum.

I hope you'll tune in at 9:30AM for the story of this totally local production just in time for the holidays. If you can't tune in then, go to www.youtube.com/user/KDHLRadio and watch the program.