Upstart Crow Theatreworks

The idea for Upstart Crow Theatreworks was hatched in the fall of 2002 after staging a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream with a cast of Decorah-area children. Now in its 12th year, Upstart Crow Theatreworks makes its home at ArtHaus, and continues to offer productions, classes and workshops for children and adults. Collaborations between Upstart Crow and Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum have resulted in ten original theatre pieces inspired by exhibits at the Museum. Adaptations of Lewis Carroll, Rudyard Kipling, and Dickens, Moliere’s The Learned Ladies, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Comedy of Errors, As You Like It, Taming of the Shrew, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice, and The Winter’s Tale, as well as three Cemetery Walks in beautiful Phelps Cemetery are among our productions.

Scripts for Upstart Crow productions are chosen with an eye and ear tuned to good literature, “language” plays that are accessible yet challenging and interesting to performers and audiences of all ages. We are also interested in theatre pieces which give life to the past, learning from the experiences of those who lived before us.

Upstart Crow productions and classes have as their foundation a respect for the creative impulse within each of us, and an understanding that the skills practiced in theatre are the same as those useful in life: good listening, an understanding of ourselves, compassion for others, and a healthy sense of play.

Meet the Director

Kristen Underwood, Director of Upstart Crow Theatreworks

Kristen Underwood has been a theatre professional for the past twenty-five years. She earned her BFA from the University of Colorado/Boulder, and her MFA from San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theatre. As an actor and director, Kristen has been involved in well over one hundred professional productions for companies around the country, in addition to teaching theatre for CU/Boulder and Luther College, among others. After ten years as an actor, director, and managing Core Artist/Education Director for the Commonweal Theatre, Kristen founded Upstart Crow Theatreworks in 2002 and ArtHaus in 2008.

Past Productions

• The Winter’s Tale by Wm. Shakespeare
• The Merchant of Venice by Wm. Shakespeare
• The Learned Ladies by Moliere
• Twelfth Night by Wm. Shakespeare
• Lessons from Cancer College by Nancy Barry
• Women and Fiction: Virginia Woolf Speaks adapted from Virginia Woolf by Kristen Underwood
• Driftless Dreams by Robert Wolf
• A Child’s Christmas in Wales adapted from Dylan Thomas by Kristen Underwood
• David Copperfield adapted from Charles Dickens by Kristen Underwood
• Taming of the Shrew by Wm. Shakespeare
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Wm. Shakespeare
• Comedy of Errors by Wm. Shakespeare
• As You Like It by Wm. Shakespeare
• Two Gentlemen of Verona by Wm. Shakespeare
• Just So Stories adapted from Rudyard Kipling by Gayle Cornelison
• Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast adapted from Lewis Carroll by M. Lee Potts and Marilyn Hetzel

Original Scripts, in collaboration with Vesterheim Norwegian American Museum

• Sigvald: A Sculptor’s Life
• Where All Directions Face North: Journey to the South Pole
• The Secret Life of Trolls
• Land of the Midnight Sun
• Ordinary People, Extraordinary Art
• The Empty Chair
• The Crossing
• Painting Portraits
• The Primstav Play
• For Our Land

Site Specific Projects

• The History Walk (celebrating 150 years of Luther College)
• The River Walk (inspired by Oneota Flow by David Faldet)
• The Cemetery Walk (2005, 2007 & 2009)
• The Elisabeth Koren Project