Beloved theater couple returns to stage “Life should be a musical comedy, where the bad guy gets it in the end, the good guy gets the girl, and you sing songs in-between,” says Neal Lewing, co-owner of the Port Polson Players. “That’s what our life is,” he adds with a grin. In real life, Neal and Karen Lewing’s romance began on stage during a production of “Oklahoma!” at the Fort Peck Summer Theatre. Neal was the show’s musical director and put in an appearance as Ali Hakim, the Persian peddler, enamored with the flirtatious Ado Annie (played by Karen) – “a girl who cain’t say no.” From stage kiss to marriage took just three months. The couple landed in Polson where Neal had a summer job with the Port Polson Players, founded by Larry Barsness, who also launched the Virginia City Players. After touring for over two years with the Missoula Children’s Theatre (they were the first married couple to work together as touring actors), they took over the Port Polson Players in 1983. The busy young couple also ran a theatre troupe in Deer Lodge from 1989-2001, which performed in the Old Montana Prison. Most of the Players’ productions are staged in a 1938 WPA log building on the Polson Golf Course – dubbed the Theatre on the Lake for its proximity to Flathead Lake. The Lewings helped found the nonprofit Mission Valley Friends of the Arts to oversee the historic 12
M O N TA N A S U M M E R
N E A L A N D K A R E N L E W I N G F O R “ T H E L AST ROM A N C E”
structure’s renovation and maintenance. During a typical season, they stage 8-10 shows, including comedies, musicals, dramas, mysteries and children’s theatre. In honor of their contributions to the community and performing arts in Montana, the Lewings shared a Governor’s Arts Award in 2016. But due to the pandemic, the Mission Valley’s homegrown theatre company has not staged a play since their Christmas production in 2019 and a children’s play in early 2020. It was not the vacation they expected, nor sought. “We were kind of digging it there for a while, although it’s not like retirement because you can see retirement coming and prepare for it,” says Neal. “But literally, on March 14, one minute you’re working and the next you’re
not, and you don’t know when you’re coming back.” When COVID-19 dimmed lights for theatre companies everywhere last March, the Players were revving up for summer. They spent the next two months wondering whether or not they’d have a season. So they plucked away at house chores, built a deer-proof fence around their garden and waited for the verdict. In June, with three shows ready to go, the Mission Valley Friends of the Arts, the Players’ nonprofit umbrella, officially pulled the plug. “They unanimously said ‘we can’t do it,’” recalls Karen. Since most of the theatre’s patrons are over 50 and therefore more vulnerable to the virus, she said it made sense to cancel. “We didn’t want people thinking they caught COVID at our beautiful theatre.”
No Coward’s Epitaph So the Lewings refocused on the other aspect of their business, playwriting. The pandemic offered an opportunity to transform Neal’s one-man show about Montana’s first territorial governor, Thomas Francis Meagher, into a full-length musical, slated to premiere in Polson this fall. Titled “No Coward’s Epitaph,” the two-hour play tells the riveting story of the Irish rebel, sentenced to death in England, then sent to a penal colony in Tasmania, Australia. He escaped and made his way to New York City, where he eventually served as general of the famed Irish Brigade – the Fighting 69th – and confidante of President Lincoln during the Civil War. In 1865, President Andrew Johnson sent him to Montana Territory to lay the groundwork for statehood.
