They have painted walls, cleaned floors, sanded wood, driven nails and even cut drywall.
The road company of “Little House on the Prairie: The Musical” has been helping build houses across the country in a first-of-it’s kind partnership with Habitat for Humanity International…
When the producers of “Little House on the Prairie, the Musical” offered Melissa Gilbert the part of Ma Ingalls, she did not do Half-Pint cartwheels in the grass.
Gilbert, who played Laura Ingalls (aka Half-Pint) on the television series “Little House on the Prairie” from 1974-83, was incredulous.
“I thought my manager had lost his mind,” Gilbert said recently from Denver, where the show ran two weeks. “I don’t sing, or at least I didn’t think I did at that time. And I didn’t see how you could turn that show, or those stories, into a musical without it being ‘Waiting for Guffman’-esque.”
“Waiting for Guffman,” a movie spoof of small-town historical pageants, is a textbook of bad theater…
By Bob Fischbach
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
When the producers of “Little House on the Prairie, the Musical” offered Melissa Gilbert the part of Ma Ingalls, she did not do Half-Pint cartwheels in the grass.
Gilbert, who played Laura Ingalls (aka Half-Pint) on the television series “Little House on the Prairie” from 1974-83, was incredulous.
“I thought my manager had lost his mind,” Gilbert said recently from Denver, where the show ran two weeks. “I don’t sing, or at least I didn’t think I did at that time. And I didn’t see how you could turn that show, or those stories, into a musical without it being ‘Waiting for Guffman’-esque.”
“Waiting for Guffman,” a movie spoof of small-town historical pageants, is a textbook of bad theater.
But Gilbert calmed down long enough to read the script about pioneer life on the prairie and to listen to the music by Oscar winner Rachel Portman (“Emma”).
“I was so moved by it, it was so extraordinarily beautiful,” she said. “I knew this was worth going out on a limb for, and it’s paid off.”
In the 2½ years since she accepted the part, she has taken countless vocal lessons, reread the books by Laura Ingalls Wilder on which the show is based and immersed herself in the part.
“I had a really great time coming back to this material,” she said. “It felt like coming home, although in a really scary environment — doing a musical. It’s been amazing.”
Director Francesca Zambello (“The Little Mermaid”) said Gilbert was onboard from the first public readings of the script and worked incredibly hard to fine-tune her new role.
“She had never been in a musical, and she was nervous about the singing,” Zambello said from her office on 52nd Street in New York City. “Plus she had to turn her head around to think of the story from Ma’s perspective instead of Laura’s. But she’s grown beautifully into the role. What’s wonderful is she’s given so much to Kara Lindsay, who’s playing Laura. There’s a wonderful energy between the two of them as mother and daughter.”
Gilbert said it’s impossible to compare how she played Laura with Lindsay’s interpretation.
Unlike the TV show, the musical sticks closely to the later books in the series when Laura is a young woman becoming a teacher and discovering love.
“I wouldn’t even consider offering (Lindsay) advice, she’s so brilliant in this role,” Gilbert said. “I was a child when I played Laura, a 9-year-old with no process to building a character — just calico and pigtails.”
Lindsay finished a theater degree just before “Little House,” which premiered to sellout crowds in summer 2008 at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis before being fine-tuned to go on tour.
Laura’s character inspired Zambello to help create the show.
“Laura is an incredible, unconventional protagonist,” Zambello said. “She’s an independent, free-spirited woman who takes responsibility for others in a way far beyond her age. That selfless thinking and connection to the family and the land is what initially got me. This is not just a coming-of-age story. It’s a love story. And that passion for the land, it’s a connection we’ve lost on the coasts. But the inner part of the country relates to that.”
Gilbert said the hard times the Ingalls family faced fit the current hard economic times.
“These are timeless stories of home, family, the importance of community, people working together to create something,” she said. “It’s good to remember we once started with nothing. If we could do it then, we can certainly do it now.”
Zambello’s research took her to DeSmet, S.D., where the musical takes place. She found the vast grasslands and the settlers’ simple, direct lives both moving and illuminating. The homesteader paintings by South Dakota artist Harvey Dunn inspired the look of the show.
“This is very simple, visually,” she said.
Gilbert said the musical “Little House” captures the spirit of the books, as well as the warm family stories embraced by the television show’s creator, the late Michael Landon, who played her father for nearly a decade. Her son Michael, named after Landon, plays Willie Oleson on the tour, a role her brother played on the TV series.
Does she ever feel like Landon’s looking over her shoulder on this tour?
“Every day,” she said without hesitation. “He’s there with me all the time.”
he beloved books of the ’30s, known as a popular TV series of the ’70s, leaps to the stage with Little House on the Prairie, the Musical.
Laura Ingalls Wilder’s series of “Little House” books has been a beloved part of American culture for more than 75 years. Written in the 1930s and ’40s, the novels follow the thinly fictionalized experiences and adventures of the Ingalls family on the Midwestern frontier, providing a vivid depiction of pioneer life in the latter part of the 19th century. The spirit of the books was famously captured by the popular television series “Little House on the Prairie,” which ran from 1974 to 1983 and starred Michael Landon as Charles Ingalls and Melissa Gilbert as his daughter Laura…
Laura Ingalls Gunn gets asked a question about her famous name about once a week, or whenever she shows her credit card or writes a check.
Gunn, 41, of Avondale, is the fourth cousin of famous author Laura Ingalls Wilder of the “Little House on the Prairie” books, which spawned the television series and musical…
teve Blanchard and the cast of the national tour of “Little House on the Prairie: The Musical” have their own pioneer moment in every city they visit.
The cast will build a Habitat for Humanity house in every community during the run of “Little House,” which stops Tuesday at Arizona State University’s Gammage Auditorium. They’ll help erect a home in a south Phoenix neighborhood while they’re in town…
Cancer takes a toll on families. Not only emotionally, but financially too. The average course of treatment runs six to seven weeks and the bills can quickly add up. Here in Phoenix, there’s a place for patients and their families to call home – and it doesn’t cost a thing…
‘Little House on the Prairie’ opened to a full house at ASU Gammage! And among the attractions of this classic story, the role of ma,’ played by melissa Gilbert. We talked with the woman who played Laura Engals to find out about the musical…
In the 1970s Melissa Gilbert rose to fame quickly on “Little House on the Prairie.” This week she continues her legacy on stage right here in the Valley…
Last night, I was given the opportunity to review the new production of Little House on the Prairie The Musical on its opening night in Detroit, MI. I was excited to see Melissa Gilbert, who played Laura Ingalls on the TV series, playing the role of “Ma”. Not to mention, I was intrigued to see how this story would be put to a musical score.
At the raising of the curtain, I was immediately drawn into the melody and movement of the great move “out west”. I felt the excitement of the Ingalls family as they packed their belongings and headed out on their wagon. It was neat to see how the cast was able to make me feel like I was traveling with them while they rocked with the movement of the “wagons”…
