Bitterroot: A Play Inspired by the Lewis & Clark Expedition

From 1804 to1806, Meriwether Lewis, along with William Clark and the Corps of Discovery, journeyed across three thousand miles of uncharted territory from the Missouri to the Pacific Ocean. Lewis was a Renaissance man: explorer, military commander, naturalist, geologist, astronomer, cartographer and writer. He embodied the best and the worst of Jeffersonian America. Lewis was at once idealistic, inquisitive, ingenious, confident, courageous, greedy, racist, and arrogant. On his return from the triumphant expedition, he became, at a young age, as famous as a modern day rock-star, but he died, a probable suicide, three years after the Lewis and Clark Expedition ended.

Bitterroot views Lewis' life and adventures through the filter of a troupe of actors, Payne's Players, who are forced to go on the road and perform a musical play on a patriotic subject after the assassination of Lincoln in 1864. The actors in the company are as colorful and diverse as the characters they portray. These characters include the young Shoshone woman, Sacagawea; her husband, the French Canadian trader, Charbonneau; and Clark's slave, York.

THE TALKING BAND

During the past twenty-seven years, The Talking Band has created and presented 30 theater productions, some of which have been recognized by the theatrical community with BESSIE and OBIE awards. For more information about The Talking Band log on to www.talkingband.org.