The original plan for our sojourn in Medora called for a night at liberty, but it didn't work out that way. We were scheduled to attend The Medora Musical on Thursday evening, but the weather forecast was for severe storms and possible tornadoes. Our intrepid tour leaders quickly secured reservations to the musical for Wednesday instead. It made for a long day, but was worth it.
Harold Schafer was a successful North Dakota entrepreneur and founder of the Gold Seal Company (not to be confused with Gold Medal Flour). He and his second wife, Sheila (pronounced SHAY-la), were committed to bringing Medora back from the brink. He purchased the Rough Riders hotel in 1962, created the Medora Musical in 1965, and never looked back.
The evening's entertainment started with supper at the venue. It overlooked the Little Missouri River valley and the North Dakota Badlands. We would see more of them the next day.
It sounds weird, but the specialty of the house is deep-fried rib-eye steaks. The steaks are impaled on pitchforks and then cooked in hot oil. I assume the pitchforks were never put to use pitching what pitchforks primarily pitch.
Although it was a challenge to get a rare steak, it was delicious.
Other entrees and many choices of sides were also available, but why go against the flow?
Plenty of pitchforks were at the ready.
After the meal we retired to the ampitheatre to await the show. We were early -- most of the seats were taken by the time the show started.
We were in for a charming experience!
When the show got going, the buildings in the backdrop moved aside and the bandstand moved forward. The entire stage, the building surrounding the stage, and the hills behind the stage were all used in the show.
The theme of the first act was "work."
The gentleman in the center is Joe Wiegand, who has made a career channeling Theodore Roosevelt. He did a great job. While on the bus traveling to Medora we watched videos of Wiegand's Teddy Roosevelt Show (Google it to find a video) as well as a documentary on Harold Schaefer and his resurrection of Medora.
There were many vignettes to the show.
2024's show introduced new mascot Prairie Rose, a prairie dog, to Sheriff Bear.
Wednesday night, it turns out, is "children attend free" night, so the place was awash with children. They were called up on stage for this segment.
All was going smoothly until one little girl took exception to Prairie Rose and scuttled screaming across the stage. One of the actors scooped her up before she went over the edge. Maybe she was afraid of plague.
Sheriff Bear traveled all over North Dakota searching for his new companion, and incidentally drumming up attention for Medora.
After the new mascot was introduced, the professional performers got the kids into the act big time. For my money this was the best part of the show. I don't remember what song they were singing, but they were enthusiastic participants.
I'm glad our tickets were switched to Wednesday!
The second part of the show was unabashedly patriotic. Horses were featured many times, but I only include this one image.
The final scene.
If you're in the neighborhood -- take in the musical. It's both inspiring and a lot of fun.
Go on kids' night.
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