- For half a century, the Fremont County story hour players headquartered at the Lander Library have provided important community culture and entertainment.

This year, they also won one of the Governor's Arts Awards.

I'm Steve Peck of Wyoming PBS.

This is Wyoming Chronicle.

In Lander, a devoted troop of amateur stage performers has taken the concept of story time a step further.

Several steps, in fact.

Lander's story hour players have been staging clever, amusing plays at the Fremont County Library there for decades, typically some in the spring, and others around Halloween.

She hasn't been there from the very beginning, but the director of the Storyhour Players, Becky Larson, is about to mark her 40th year with the organization.

And that hasn't gone unnoticed by some important people in Wyoming.

This year, Becky Larsen won a Governor's Arts Award.

The Story Hour Players, how long has that been active in Lander?

Well, - We think it's gone on since the 70s, but I've been involved since 88.

- So you, nearly 40 years, the program may be 50 years quite possibly.

- Oh yeah.

Yeah.

- That's a long time.

That's a couple of human generations.

Yeah.

Tell me, what's your description of it?

What is the story?

Who are the story hour players?

- It's a group of people, mostly women.

Sometimes we have men and children, but mostly women that get together and learn lines and find costumes and put little plays together for the school children.

Yeah, - Perform plays.

So it takes the traditional basic story hour concept, which by the way is fantastic.

I'm talking about - Reading a book.

Grownups reading a book to an audience of kids, which many libraries still do, hope they do, and which is a great thing to do.

Kids love it.

But this goes a little beyond that.

Why do you do it here?

- It's a way to get the kids in the library, because they come with their classes.

So it kind of exposes them to the library, maybe for a first time or a second time, if they're not regular readers or whatever.

But they come to the library and they see adults being silly with plays that were books or could be books.

- That are sort of geared toward them.

For example, we're here in, it has to be the first day of October.

And so the plays that you're getting ready to begin rehearsing have a Halloween theme.

- Yes.

- Has that always been true in your time with story hour players?

- They always do Halloween themed in October and then in the spring we do more of a plays geared to younger children like Jack and the Beanstalk and Peter Rabbit and those kind of things.

- You say plays, so you're doing more than one.

- We're doing two.

They're short.

- And so they're not quite as tiny little kid oriented.

So they're a little bit funnier or spookier or... - We don't really do a lot of spooky stuff, but they're funnier and I think the little kids would get it just as much as the big kids, but they just kind of have arranged it so that the older grades come for Halloween and the younger ones come for spring.

So - You're talking in terms of school children, older grades.

So this is something that students could get out of school to come to do?

- The classes come on buses.

They - Do.

I was thinking about libraries and we're at the great old Carnegie building at the Fremont County Library in Lander.

Good crowds turn out, fills up the room pretty well?

- Yeah.

We probably during the course of play like the Halloween plays, we'll have maybe 800 to 1,000 kids come.

- No kidding.

- Yeah.

Wow.

- Well, that's far more than I was thinking.

I thought you get 40, 50 kids.

Hundreds.

- Because we do the play like 11 or 12 times, so that just kind of accumulates.

- Longstanding practice then with the school district, the expectation is we're going to come to see the plays.

Are that lines there rehearsing?

Yeah.

The first of the two plays is a raucous comedy and a full volume read through backstage demonstrates the enthusiasm of the cast to the point that the friendly Wyoming Chronicle host stepped away for a moment to ask the actors to adjust their volume downward slightly.

I think I'm going to go just invite them to just be a little quieter.

I am loving hearing this enthusiasm.

A tiny little bit quieter maybe.

Enthusiastic cast.

Library branch manager Rachel Arnold says the award proves what Fremont County has known for many years.

The story hour players are indispensable community builders.

It's - Just a wonderful thing because the kids, a lot of times they'll interact with the children and they'll ask them questions or what do you think is going to happen?

Or just they interact with the kids and they bring them in and just envelop them into the play.

- When I've read the children, there's an expectation.

You want them to be interested, but there's also sort of an expectation that they'll sit quietly and more or less sit still and listen.

Here, they don't have to do that quite as much.

No, - They don't.

No, they don't.

And I think Becky and Becky does a really good job of getting the players to interact with the kids and bring them out and include them in the play in some way.

- Story Our Players under Becky's name got this Governor's Parts Award.

- That's - Right.

I look at it as, of course, due recognition for what she's done now for decades.

- Absolutely.

- But for the program in general.

Absolutely.

It flex well in the library too.

Pleased with that, are we?

- We enjoy it.

We look forward to these two times of the year.

- What are the two plays you're doing this year?

- Well, we're doing The Case of the Giggling Goblin and the Halloween Ball, which is kind of a witches version of Cinderella.

- In the early stages of rehearsal, about three weeks before performances begin, Becky Larson guides her cast through a scene from the Halloween Ball, a spoof on the Cinderella story, featuring a young woman who worries that she's not ugly enough to meet the requirements of the repulsive and most definitely not handsome or charming prince.

In this scene from the Halloween ball, the two mean stepsisters named Evelina and Horabella argue about which of them is uglier, based partly on which of them has fewer teeth.

No wonder you weren't - Invited to the ball.

Yeah, only the ugliest and scariest but you were invited to the ball.

I know.

I'll catch the warmup princess eyes.

- You will not even, you know, I am 10 times uglier than you can ever even dream.

- Oh yeah?

Well, how many teeth are you missing?

Well, let me think.

Six.

I only have one left, see.

Oh, I have seven moles, 14 scabs, and my hair hasn't been brushed in 22 years.

- I make the worst faces in three counties.

- Oh, you'll never impress anyone with that face, Horabella.

- I will too.

You will.

- Don't you girls.

What got you interested in this?

You said you've been doing it now since the 80s.

Before then you weren't.

How'd you get started with it?

- Becky Packer actually invited me to come and join when we've lived here for several years, I guess.

So I started and I was hooked.

I came on as a player, not as a director.

- And now you are the director.

Are you a player as well still?

You are.

- If I need to.

If I have to.

If I don't have enough people.

- You've continued with it for a long time.

Why have you stuck with it for as long as you have?

You're enjoying it obviously.

- I do.

I do love it.

Yeah, it's fun.

- It's the big reason.

How many cast members would you have typically?

Viewers might hear a little bit of rehearsal going on behind us.

How many are in your cast this year?

- I think we have about a dozen.

- Dozen?

All playing more than one role sometimes?

Yes.

- I think we've got one that's doing three.

- That's the sort of standard community theater kind of thing.

Makes it more fun.

I know when I was a child watching something like this, I would take great interest in noting that it's the same person who's come out wearing a different costume or a big pair of glasses or something.

- A little change.

- Where did the plays come from?

- There's a little magazine that the library's gotten for since the 70s, I think, maybe even longer than that.

It's called Plays and it just has lots of little scripts in it.

- That's what it's intended to be.

Here's something you could do at your library.

So it's a small, but real theatrical performance.

- Real.

Yeah.

Real.

I mean, we're real people doing it, but we're not professionals by any means.

Well, - Of course.

You're the director.

How long has that been going on?

I - Don't know.

I think about 20 years, but I'm not sure.

I can't remember when we took - It.

Doing this every year for 20 years directing a play or two, almost a professional, I'd say.

Well... As rehearsal continues, the evil, cruel stepmother again chastises Ella for simply having too many good qualities to impress the awful prince.

- Do you think I want the prince to know that I have such a pretty thing as you living in my house?

But - I - Thought everyone was invited to the Halloween ball.

- Everyone but you.

You're certainly a poor excuse for a witch.

You're sweet and good and pretty.

You whistle while you work.

You hate little birds.

- But I could try to be uglier if only Eveline or Horbella would let me wear one of their hats or dresses.

- More get it.

Face backs Ella.

You'll never be ugly.

You're lucky I give you a place to live and scraps to eat.

Come on girls.

Let's get ready for the ball.

Ella, clean up this mess.

- What do you look for in what makes a story our player's Halloween play, for example, a success?

What does it need to be?

- We have great players that give their all and that always helps if they're really invested in their parts.

I do like the plays because they're funny.

Well, we hope they're funny.

- Intended to be funny.

- They're not scary and gory.

So that's the fun part of Halloween.

- A lot of kids, when you ask what's your favorite holiday, and when I've asked it of children I've known, Halloween hasn't even crossed my mind.

But to them - - They love - It.

Huge thing.

And I can sort of see why.

It's got costumes for them and activities outside the house and for them to do and it has a little bit of - And - Candy.

- Candy, of course, for them.

So that's part of the thing you're tapping into here.

Do you do the greatest hits year after year after year or have you done these before?

- We haven't done Halloween ball, so I've got some new props I need to make, but we've done the giggling goblin and we try and rotate them about every four years because we've got about four grades of kids that come.

So we don't want to have them have to see the same one.

- But over time, of course, you've encountered older siblings and probably even parents by now who've seen, who remember a play that they saw and oh good, they're doing that again this - Year.

Well, and our teachers, of - Course.

- They see them over and over again.

- But then that forms a tradition and that's the part of the element of many holidays that this now does tap into, which is tradition.

We want to hear the same Christmas carols, for example.

So we're glad even it's a few years later to see the Halloween play again.

- And we have favorites that we like to use.

- Rachel Arnold, the librarian, says the story hour players and other story hour activities have never been more popular, including for the youngest library patrons.

- Story times for this year have been really amazing this year.

We've had upwards of 40 kids and 40 people with parents and children coming.

A lot of babies are coming this time, this school year, but we have preschool story times also.

We're having to split them right now because there's so many people and it's a really good thing.

You get those babies in here reading and they'll stay.

- They won't have known a day in their lives without the library.

Right, - Exactly.

- This is a place to go to do something fun and something interesting.

Place for us.

- Yes.

- You said you had to make some props, so you've hinted now at something else that you do as the person in charge.

How elaborate does your settings and costumes get?

- I mean, I don't spend a lot of money doing it.

It's just kind of whatever you've got around the house to make something.

I'll have a pumpkin coach for this one, so I'm just going to do a cardboard, big cardboard pumpkin and somehow attach it to a wagon that we pull on and off.

- Somehow attach it.

You'll find a way.

- Yeah.

So that remains to be seen what that looks like, but- - But you'll pull it off.

- We'll figure something - Out.

And haven't you noticed as well that in the sort of community theater setting, the audience is very, very forgiving.

- Oh yes.

- In fact, that's sort of the fun of it.

There's no illusion about what we are and aren't going to see.

And in fact, I wonder how Becky got that pumpkin out of the wagon.

I mean, it's all part of the show.

- Yeah.

Let's use their imagination a little bit too.

Yeah.

We don't have special effects and all that stuff.

Yes.

- No harsh judgments in story hour players, I hope.

Jumping back to the rehearsal stage, Becky shows both the dedication and versatility that helped her earn the Governor's Arts Award.

As she adds a bit of acting to her directing duties in this scene in which pretty Della finally begins looking ugly the way she's sure the prince would want.

Full costumes, including a wig come later.

- Just the thing this outfit needs.

And last of all, this can't be beat.

Ugly slippers for your feet.

Oh, that looks so awful.

- You perform here around Fremont County as commonly known as the Carnegie Room.

There are numerous other Carnegie Library facilities around the state.

What do you like about this big old room we're in now?

- Well, it's beautiful for one thing.

The chandelier's not original, but it still adds a lot of class to the room, I think.

And it has a good feeling in this room and I just love it.

We adapt to the... Sometimes we'll use the door, sometimes we'll use this door or that door.

So we just kind of adapt to whatever we've got here and just feel the history that this library's been around a long time.

- It sure has.

And of course it's been amended and expanded and enlarged a couple times as well and to great effect, but sort of the headquarters here.

Have you always been in the Carnegie room or other... - When we first started, we actually did the plays up in the children's library.

They had a little stage up there, but then they did some remodeling and this eventually worked better.

So we had a little stage and it didn't fit as many people in the audience.

- You're bringing essentially every elementary school student in Lander here.

It helps to have the bigger room.

- When you look up those big brown eyes, does your cow ever let out a big belt and go?

- Because of your efforts and of course the efforts of the group at large, you were recognized by the governor's office of annual program that his office sponsors called the Governor's Arts Awards.

- It was a total surprise.

I didn't know it was happening until I got a call from the governor and - - Really?

He calls you himself personally.

- Yeah.

But quite an honor really.

- Sure.

Yeah.

So this is art is what you're doing.

- I've never categorized it as art.

This is play, this is fun.

It's goofiness and - Silliness.

But it's in the larger context of the dramatic arts, the theater arts.

I - Suppose, yeah.

- In an interview recorded by the Wyoming Arts Council to coincide with the Governor's Arts Award banquet earlier this year, Becky talked about her work joined by Fremont County Library System Director, Anita Marple.

- I think the thing I love most about it is the story our players themselves and the community that we have, the friendships that we build.

- You're inspiring generations and encouraging people.

And I think that's an amazing thing about the arts and what your contribution has been to the arts is I know it's satisfying for you.

It's a creative outlet, but you're sharing it with others in a way that's inspiring and fun and is just building into the children of our community for generations now.

Not to make you feel old.

- I am - Old.

And I'm okay with that.

I - Think everybody to have a fulfilling life needs a little culture.

And what we do with the kids is pretty amateur.

It's not fancy, but it does serve a purpose, I think.

I think anytime we're exposed to culture, whatever it is, it benefits us, makes our lives better.

So it's been really fun, really fun.

So a lot of good memories.

- So this is not a... I wouldn't call it a shoestring operation, or maybe you would.

Some mostly volunteers, this falls within the library.

Does library have a budget for what you do?

- No.

- It's whatever you come up with, not you personally, but you and your group.

- We get a little bit of money from the friends group.

- Yeah, friends of the library.

But it's - - But it's mostly just us.

- The message is, "You're welcome to do this.

You figure out how."

- Yeah.

And we've got such a vast supply of props and things and we just cardboard.

It's like Judy Garland and what's his name there?

- Mickey Rooney?

- Yeah.

- Let's put on a show.

- Let's put on a play.

- At this point, you're not worried about money, in other words.

- Oh, no.

I mean, if we need something, it's usually not that much, so we just do it.

- Weekly rehearsals will continue until the day of the performances with final adjustments and polishing under Becky Larson's watchful direction.

Here, as this rehearsal nears its end, the awful prince who adores all things ugly realizes Ella, despite her beauty, is his ideal princess after all.

- You're cut, sir.

But I know I can never really beat your Halloween queen.

I'm not.

I'm too pretty.

- That doesn't matter.

Your inner ugliness shines through.

- Oh, Hubert, really?

- Oh, absolutely.

To me, you're the hideous.

What is your name?

Ella.

Ella, my Halloween queen.

- I'm not sure how many other libraries have a live performance sort of aspect to their story hour.

I think virtually every library has story hour.

If we wanted to get started with something like this, you as the librarian, someone came to you and said, "How would I get started with a performance?"

- Right, an idea.

- How would you get them started?

- Well, we've got a lot of community partnerships that we've been developing over the last few years, and I would probably seek out some partners that would help them and get their idea going.

We'd open up the space if we could, do whatever we could to help them.

- What have you learned about it that might make it easier to get started?

- Well, you have to have really good people to help you.

The props and all the costumes have just accumulated over the decades, so that is just an ongoing thing.

And of course, if you use the playbook, the magazine, then that's an easy way to get started with something to perform.

- Admission, of course, is free.

- Free, yes.

- If I don't have a school child, I can still come and see you.

- You bet.

Yeah.

We have plays all through the day of the week that we're doing it, and then we usually do an evening performance too.

- Been doing it for a while now.

Enthusiasm's still high.

Look forward to it every fall?

- Mostly.

- Mostly.

Plan on continuing to do it for a while?

- I think maybe for at least two years.

- Your spouse is a member of the state legislature.

Yes.

And been in that for a long time as well.

Library supporter, I presume.

Yes.

Although that's mostly at the county level rather than the state, I think, but a good person to have on your side.

Community life, public life sort of that you find yourself in.

Pretty important to small communities, isn't it?

To find involvement where you can and... - Not only for the community, but for the person.

Yeah.

It's always good to serve and volunteer and do what you can.

- It's made your life better, you're saying?

- Of course.

It does everybody.

- Good.

- Yeah.

Service helps everybody.

- Thank you for this particular service.

I hope people say that to you once in a while and recognize the effort that gets made.

It doesn't just happen.

Becky, I congratulate you for the award.

- Thank you.

- And came to you in your name, I believe.

That's how I learned about it, but it's for everybody here, for all the years you've done, all the plays, all the props, all the cardboard pumpkins on the wagon.

So way to go.

I hope you'll keep doing it and that it will - - I hope it goes on.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

So many community activities, you don't need me to tell you this, but it's important that they outlast the person, the individual who's carried it for so long.

I think your program's in good hands for 10 years from now.

- I hope so.

I'm looking desperately for someone to be the next director.

- Do what you do.

Yeah.

I think the people who've observed it, at least get a pretty good idea, need to find that good supply of cardboard.

- Yes, that's right.

- Step number one.

Now, two more quick notes about Wyoming Chronicle and the Governor's Arts Awards.

The guests we just met, Becky Larson, won a Governor's Arts Award this year.

Now, two previous Wyoming Chronicle guests have been nominated for Governor's Arts Awards to be presented next year.

The first is Gene Gagliano, Wyoming's former poet laureate, who earned distinction in that position by gearing most of his work toward children, the only state poet laureate to concentrate in that genre.

We interviewed him in Buffalo for a show that aired originally in November 2022.

And Jack Meese, the man we nicknamed Master of the Miniature, also is up for a Governor's Arts Award next year.

Our show with Jack first aired early in 2024, and it remains by at least one viewing standard, the most watched installment of Wyoming Chronicle we've ever produced.

We remember both those shows fondly, and we wish the best to both Gene Galliano and Jack Meese as the next group of Governor's Arts Award recipients is considered.

That's it for Wyoming Chronicle this week.

You're watching Wyoming PBS.