NAPPANEE - “Love Comes Softly,” a popular book by Janette Oke, will be making a world premier as a musical, composed by Christy Stutzman, on Aug. 15 at The Round Barn Theatre at The Barns at Amish Acres, Nappanee.
Stutzman previously composed another of Oke’s books, “When Comes the Heart,” into a musical that, after running at The Round Barn, is now running at The Blue Gate in Shipshewana and across the country.
Stutzman shared how this production came about, saying she bought the stage rights to this book and the next in the series three years ago and took two years to write the musical. She said this series, like “When Calls the Heart,” are “very beloved and well known because Hallmark made series or movies based on the books and people love her writing. She lived in this area when she wrote these stories and still has family here.”
Stutzman said Oke’s writing is “very poetic and as a lyricist when I’m reading them, I’m marking parts that I think would make good songs; it flows naturally. She talks about the human experience — even the hard stuff and she handles it well; she’s not afraid to address difficult issues that I’ve seen mishandled in our culture and she does it in a wonderful way. There are a lot of Christian influences, and she took that perspective of being salt and light, being community and showing kindness and unconditional love.”
“Love Comes Softly” starts with a terrible tragedy and is the story of Marty and Clark, pioneers out west who marry out of a sense of necessity for both. But Stutzman said the story really has three parallels of different phases of love — the main leads who marry out of necessity but slowly open to the possibility of love; Ben and Lomasi Graham who are both in second marriages after losing their first spouses and they act as mentors to Marty and Clark; and Lomasi’s daughter Sally Ann and Jason who are in the first throes of love and their story brings in levity and humor generally found in musical theatre.
Stutzman said it took two years to write because she wanted to “take a deep dive into how our American culture treats loss and grief” and she found out we really don’t have one way to handle it, and we tend to want to rush the process. She wanted to examine how we could handle it better and studied how other cultures handle grief and she found that Asian and Native American cultures understand loss must be given time and space.

    Female characters in the upcoming “Love Comes Softly” production - Molly Hill Fuller, who plays Marty Claridge, and Megan Grace, who plays Lomasi Graham - practice a dance move with choreographer Cat Tron at a recent practice. The show opens Aug.15 and runs through September at The Round Barn Theatre in Nappanee. Photo by Denise Fedorow
  

Therefore, although it differs from the book, she chose to have the character of Mrs. Graham be of Cherokee background. (Stutzman’s family is of Chickasaw heritage). Stutzman said she wants to facilitate a conversation with the audience in a way that “gives food for thought in the present day — these are universal themes — someone you know has gone through loss or you have and how do we better support people?”
She said the other challenge was “musical theatre doesn’t lend itself well to tragedy so when is it OK to smile and laugh again?”
She said, like in the movie, she made the character who was a baby in the book be 8-9 years old and said children tend to break the ice.
Stutzman said the musical style “is like Golden Age Broadway mixed with some modern twists and with songs inspired from old Westerns so it has a big west feel with a couple of Shirley Temple type dance tunes — there’s a lot of variety.”
The cast is from all over but she’s excited that the leads are local - Molly Hill Fuller, who plays Marty, is a Goshen native and Andrew Bower, who plays Clark, is from Fort Wayne.
Director & Cast
Director Steven Wood, from Indiana Wesleyan, and a couple of cast members shared their thoughts about the production.
Wood said, “I’m excited Round Barn is featuring a second work by Ms. Oke and The Barns are now on the cultural radar of doing original works. I think the audience will gravitate to the story about families and blended families. It’s possible this looks more like the U.S. than any other show as it’s an eclectic community. We really tackle grief directly and how to start over again.”
He said the characters are in “very unusual circumstances by today’s standards — it was the turn of the century, and they were surviving and thriving in the west and having a life of meaning and of purpose.”
Wood said the script is “funnier than I expected. The daughter is a mix of Pippi Longstocking and Annie meets Laura Ingalls, and she has some zingers!”
He said the cast is “amazing. We have Round Barn staples who know their way around how The Barns works — you need some continuity — and we have new people coming from all over — including a few from Texas, New Jersey and Kentucky.”
Bower said this is his seventh or eighth production at Round Barn Theatre.
When asked what he liked about his character he said, “He’s definitely more of a grounded character — I usually play a lot of comedic roles, so the difference is neat. The amount of life he’s lived is crazy! I also love that it’s a western — I did ‘Oklahoma!’ last year and it was a blast.”
Bower said he loves the challenge of playing a character like this and trying to figure out what he can draw from his own life to relate to the character and the level of grief he’s dealing with as well as being a father.
He also likes that the songs are in his vocal range, “as a true baritone,” which Christy said was intentional.
“Clark’s character leant itself to a deeper sound,” she said.
“I’m really looking forward to the challenge and I feel blessed, honored and grateful to be here at The Barns — it’s like my second home the last year and a half,” he said.
Bower also said he was looking forward to working with Fuller as his romantic interest lead, saying she directed him in his first show at The Barns and said he was “very honored and thrilled to be working with her in this way.”
Cory Evans plays Jason Stein, the “comedic young love” male. This is Evan’s Round Barn debut.
Evans said, “New works are my favorite thing to do because you’re creating something from nothing and I’m very excited to play the comedic lead and bringing some light-hearted themes to this romantic and dramatic story.”
He said his character is a go-getter and a charmer, and as someone from a small-town in Kentucky, he’s loving getting to know the people in the cast and how he was welcomed into Nappanee on his first day in town.
Evans is also the “prop master” and said he wants to have a lot of natural props and landscapes as well as meaningful memorabilia for the characters.
Fuller has been with the Round Barn Theatre off and on since 2020 but also did shows as a child, with her first appearance in “Fiddler on the Roof.”
“That was one reason I really got into musical theatre,” she said.
Since 2020 she’s acted, choreographed, directed and led youth camps at the Round Barn Theatre and last year she earned her Masters in Music and Musical Theatre Vocal Pedagogy at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wis. When she’s involved in productions at the Round Barn Theatre, she and her husband, Ethan, travel back and forth and she stays with her parents in Goshen.
“This was one project that stood out that I really thought it would be neat to work on,” Fuller said.
When asked what attracted her to this role, she responded, “I’ve always been interested in any way I can connect my faith to what I do. Marty is a very complicated character, but complicated in a way that’s very human and very relatable as she experiences loss and finds love.”
She said she thinks the story shows that “two things can be true at the same time, too — and we all experience that where we can be really excited and really worried at the same time.”
Since they knew ahead of time that she’d be playing the part of Marty, Stutzman was able to write the songs that really fit her voice well. “I really enjoy the challenge of seeing what my voice can do and how I can express what my character is going through,” Fuller said.
"It’s also neat to be the first ones to do a production as others will look at us for the framework,” she said.
Even though at the start of the show her character is not really a person of faith, “In an understated and realistic way she observes that they pray before meals, read the Christmas story and talk about faith. She’s never experienced that before. And I think the story helps answer the question, ‘If God exists, why do bad things happen?’”
Molly said she hopes the audience is “able to relate to someone in the story or in something they experience and I hope by the end that have a better understanding of their own lives, their own faith, own loss and love and I hope they feel inspired and understood when they leave.”
“Love Comes Softly” runs from Aug. 15 to Sept. 21. Stutzman said, “It’s a family-oriented show with something for everybody — you’ll laugh and cray and there’s never a dull moment — it’ll keep the interest of children.”
“‘When Calls the Heart’ is licensed across the country and I hope to do the same with ‘Love Comes Softly’ –we want to present it in a way that’s entertaining, but also opens up conversation,” she said.
For more information and tickets, call 574-773-4188 or visit the website at https://thebarnsatnappanee.com.