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About Us

Dorothy Cleveland + Kay Kirscht + Nan Montgomery + Ann Kilgore Reay + Sara Boyle Trautner

We are five women of that wonderful “certain age” when laughter comes easy and wisdom is treasured. We come to the arts – spoken word, poetry, storytelling, chalk art, pottery, painting – from earlier in life, later in life, and somewhere in between. We decided to pool our resources to produce My War, a World War II story of three generations of women told through letters, diaries and interviews.

It started with a trip to Lake Superior and a book published by a friend of Annie’s family. Christine C. Woods edited the book, My War: From Bismarck to Britain and Back. The book contained the letters of Ruth Register and the diary of Edith Christianson, the editor’s mother and grandmother. We passed the book around and by the end of the three-day vacation we had the beginnings of a script.

We told the first 20-minute version at Northstar Storytelling League’s Tellabration™ on Veteran’s Day in 2006 in Minneapolis. We were graced by the presence of three of Edith Christianson’s grandchildren, including Christine Woods and, most especially, of Ruth Register Coleman, whose letters are the heart of the story.

Next we prepared an hour-long version of the story for the Fringe of the 2007 Northlands Storytelling Network Conference in Madison, Wisconsin. We were gratified to see how this story touched our audience.

Now we are preparing for the Minnesota Fringe Festival – the largest festival of its kind in the United States and the biggest performing arts festival in the Midwest! We take our task seriously. We work hard – not only for the performance, but to honor “the greatest generation.” We are grateful to the Christianson and Coleman families who have been so generous in their support of our work.

We love this piece. It is a story of family, of friendship, and of working together – not unlike the Klatch itself. The work is immediate and genuine. We hope you will enjoy our first endeavor. If you like stories of WWII, of letters and diaries, of courageous women, or mother/daughter stories, you will truly enjoy this performance.