“CHANCE” invites you to take a walk in the woods with the words of John Muir. A musical landscape surrounds you, excites you to follow around the next bend, and delivers you to a deep appreciation for one of our country’s most influential naturalists. Celebrate the man in this, the centennial year of his passing.  Remember to call to reserve for this special event.

This from their website:
“Composer/Performers CHERYL LEAH & ED WILLETT aka CHANCE) have been collaborating with actor/musician Thomas Clyde Mitchell since 1994. From ’94 to 2011 the three were an integral part of the summer music festival and touring company, Lake Superior Big Top Chautauqua, a company that specializes in the wedding of music, history, and theater. In their time with the festival they played pivotal roles in the production of 5 albums, 3 PBS specials, and over 300 performances. In 2011 they joined forces with bassist Jane Aleckson who immediately became the heart, funk, and soul of the group, and with her in the engine room, continue to blaze their own trail bringing an incredible breadth of musical insight and experience to their offering to John Muir.

With Muir’s own writings providing the unifying thread, their transformative production embraces the long standing tradition of bringing the inspiration of the natural world to the concert hall.

In “University of the Wilderness”, Muir’s words are celebrated, reflected upon, and reinforced by an accompanying score of nature-forged new music. The score is the creation of Leah and Willett and is deftly performed by the “Chance” quartet which is comprised of cello, voice, bass and percussion. They describe the show’s musical landscape as a place where contemporary, classical, and celtic music beautifully collide.

Actor Thomas Clyde Mitchell, the production’s purveyor of Muir’s words, takes us on a journey from Muir’s childhood in Scotland to his young life in Wisconsin and finally to his profound and influential experiences in the great Sierra Nevada Mountains. What is revealed are the undercurrents and influences that helped create one of the world’s great naturalists and forged his legacy that lives on in his Sierra Club, and in his role in history as the father of our national park system.

In creating the program, we kept as our guide the goal of reflecting the multi-dimensional nature of Muir, his indomitable spirit, his daring and adventurous nature, the beauty and the humor of the man. We determined that we would do this in accordance with our own “off the trail” philosophy that has guided us throughout our careers and tell this story by means of the “road less traveled”. This is not a historical account, but rather a performance that portrays a philosophical landscape aimed at inspiring all of us to revivify that part in ourselves that shares a kinship with Muir.
When many of us read his works we feel that he is articulating (in a manner more beautiful than we can) the very love we feel for the natural world. He was and is a charismatic figure who inspires us to try as best we can to live up to his example. I know from experience that this show leaves the audience with a desire to rekindle their relationship with his words and to resume (or continue or begin for the first time) following in his footsteps.