The Purple Rose Theatre company launched the 1997-98 season with an encore production of Escanaba in da Moonlight, a comedy written by Jeff Daniels that first played to sold-out audiences in the fall of 1995. This production was originally scheduled for a ten-week engagement but was extended to fourteen weeks to satisfy the popular demand for tickets.

Set in a deer hunting camp in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Escanaba in da Moonlight tracks the Soady family on their annual pilgrimage to bag a prize-winning buck.

Family patriarch Albert Soady and youngest son Remnar have always been excellent hunters; however, Reuben Soady has never shared their good fortune. In fact, Reuben is known around Escanaba as being the "Buckless Yooper." The Soady men hope this season will be different, but mystical powers and strange events seem to have invaded their camp.

The subsequent results provide a legendary tale which will live forever in the lore of deer hunting camps found north of the mighty Mackinac Bridge.

Leading the Escanaba in da Moonlight cast were Joseph Albright and Phil Powers as Remnar and Reuben Soady, with Jim Porterfield as their father, Albert Soady, and Sandra Birch as Reuben's Native American wife, Wolf Moon Dance Soady. The remaining members of the Escanaba in da Moonlight cast included Randall Godwin as an Officer of the Department of Natural Resources and Wayne David Parker as Jimmer Negamanee, a legendary Yooper whose life was changed after he was abducted by alien spacecraft.

This production was directed by Guy Sanville, and moved to Lansing's BoarsHead Theatre for an additional 4 weeks of performances subsequent to its closing in Chelsea.

Photos by Danna Segrest