25 years of Leinies, laughs, ice fishing and real life: Northern Sky holds anniversary run of 'Guys on Ice'

FISH CREEK - Twenty-five years ago, a small but ambitious Door County theater company produced a small musical comedy (three actors) in a village hall in a small community of about 250 residents at the time.

Did it in the fall, too, after the height of the Door County summer tourist season.

It's a small story, too. Ice fishermen sitting in their shanty on the ice taking about their lives, their problems and Leinenkugel's beer. And their love of ice fishing, a niche subject that most likely never before was the center of a musical.

But 25 years later, "Guys on Ice" has become one of Northern Sky Theater's most iconic shows and arguably its most successful in terms of its reach and possibly its box office, playing to hundred of thousands of people not just in Door County but all across Wisconsin, including Milwaukee and Madison, and as far away as New York, Texas, California and the West Coast. A 2014 live performance was recorded for a Wisconsin Public Television special and it's still broadcast by the network during pledge drives. Fans also can get the DVD of that performance, as well as an original cast CD of the songs.

Northern Sky hasn't produced "Guys on Ice" since 2014, but the company brings it back for a 25th anniversary run this summer in its indoor Gould Theater, starting July 5. It's the 12th time the show will hit the Northern Sky stage, this year with Doug Mancheski and Steve Koehler returning to their longstanding roles as fishing buddies Marvin and Lloyd and Dan Klarer taking the part of Ernie da Moocher.

So, yeah, it's been quite an amazing run for a three-person musical comedy from a Door County company.

"It's amazing, this little show that started at Ephraim Village Hall, this notion that it could be seen all over the country is kinda extraordinary," said Northern Sky artistic director Jeff Herbst, who's directed every production the company has staged, as well as productions at the Milwaukee Repertory and Madison Repertory theaters, and is directing this summer's run. "I think it's fair to say it's the company's most successful show on just about every level."

And not just for fans of Northern Sky or musicals in general, said James Kaplan, who wrote the music to Fred Alley's book and lyrics for "Guys on Ice" and has penned the music for 13 Northern Sky shows.

"I would never have guessed 25 years later how much interest there would still be in the show," Kaplan said. "So many people tell me they don't love musicals, but they love 'Guys.'"

How did the show happen?

"Guys on Ice" wasn't the first collaboration between Kaplan and Alley, one of the company's co-founders and a rising star in the theater world (he co-wrote with James Valcq the award-winning "The Spitfire Grill") before his sudden death at age 38 in 2001. Kaplan and Alley had collaborated on the hit shows "Lumberjacks in Love" and "Fishing for the Moon," the latter having a 30th anniversary run with Northern Sky last season.

Kaplan said Alley excelled at coming up with ideas for the plays and shows he wrote, but the impetus for "Guys" came from the state of Wisconsin.

The state was celebrating its 150th anniversary in 1998 and providing grants to various organizations for special sesquicentennial events and projects. Among those was a play that touched on Wisconsin culture.

"Previous to ('Guys'), everything I wrote with Fred, the ideas were from Fred or were sort of organic," Kaplan said. "This was the first one that had sort of an outside element, which was the Wisconsin sesquicentennial."

Kaplan said the state first approached Milwaukee Rep to create such a show, but he said the Rep didn't have anything like a new works development program at that time. It did have a working relationship with Alley, however, so it asked Alley to step in. Kaplan said Alley and fellow company co-founder and playwright Fred "Doc" Heide were already tossing around the idea of a musical based around ice fishing, so everything came together for "Guys."

Herbst, who's been Northern Sky's artistic director since 1993, said "Guys" built on the works Alley and Kaplan had previously created for the company.

"For me, in some ways, it feels like this gradual climb up this promontory that gets you to this vista where all of these voices come together," Herbst said. "It felt like Fred's reach was getting more extensive. Certainly 'Guys' couldn't have happened without 'Lumberjacks,' 'Fishing for the Moon' and others. 'Guys' stood atop those."

Who knew?

Naturally, Kaplan, Alley and Herbst hoped "Guys on Ice" would be a hit while working on it before its premiere in September and October 1998 at Ephraim Village Hall, where it was produced jointly by American Folklore Theatre (the previous name of Northern Sky) and Milwaukee Rep, before moving on to play immediately afterward at the Rep.

But Herbst said no one truly believed it would become the show that spread the company's name across the country for the past 25 years. After all, no matter how great the writers and producers think the show is, they can't be 1,000% sure how well it'll connect with an audience.

"Oh, no, I don't know that anybody knew it was going to do exactly what it did," Herbst said. "One hoped, and I think Fred had some sort of vision this could happen. But I don't think anybody thought, yeah, this will be the one that did it."

Mancheski, who's played Marvin more than 1,000 times, not just in every Northern Sky production but countless others across the state and Midwest, had a lot less faith in the show before its premiere.

"No, not by a long shot," Mancheski said. "When I was doing (rehearsals), I really didn't think the show was going to fly, to tell the truth, because nothing was happening on stage. It's like 'Waiting for Godot,' just two people talking. I thought it was going to flop."

That changed for Mancheski during the premiere.

"As soon as I first opened my mouth, people laughed," he said. "I knew within 10 seconds it was going to be popular. I just didn't know it would be this popular."

Kaplan said it didn't take long to realize "Guys" was a special show, one with a different vibe that possibly could lend itself to becoming a mainstay of the musical theater scene, at least in Wisconsin.

"I do remember when it opened, it was different in terms of form," Kaplan said. "Shows tended to be five or six people with a more specific outline of a story. This was more intimate, with two guys digging into their lives."

He and Mancheski said that first two-month run in Ephraim convinced him they had something special on their hands.

"One show doesn't tell you much, but you build momentum," Kaplan said. "We started adding shows in Village Hall where we had a hole to fill in the schedule, the audience is loving it more and more, and you're saying, 'Wow, the show is really taking off.' By the end of the initial run, you're kinda like, 'Oh my God.'"

"That first fall in Ephraim Village Hall, people were just going nuts," Mancheski said. "Then we went right from Ephraim to Milwaukee Rep, and they were going nuts, too."

What makes it special?

What's especially fascinating about the enduring popularity across the country of "Guys on Ice" is that, well, it's about guys on ice. One wouldn't think a musical comedy that's centered around ice fishing would play to sold-out houses in places like Texas and California.

But it has, and those involved said it's because the show isn't directly about ice fishing but instead is about the people doing it and the problems they face in their relationships and their regular outside-the-ice-shanty, small-town lives. Much like that idea that the best science fiction books aren't about the science, nor are the best sports books about the sport, but rather they're about the people immersed in the science or the sport.

"People always say, how can a show about ice fishing play outside Wisconsin?" Herbst said. "That's the genius of Fred's writing. … Fred wrote about the human condition, and that's what makes it work. Fred loved these guys, believed in these guys.

"It's not throwaway stuff, it's real stuff. These are guys dealing with the possible breakup of a marriage. We're not just telling jokes – it's about what it means to be real. … It feels like these guys could be in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s or 60s and still have the same issues."

It's still a musical comedy, with jokes aplenty and musical numbers including dances in snowmobile suits. But Kaplan and Mancheski said the jokes come from a place from which people can relate and understand.

"There's this goal with a lot of classic AFT/Northern Sky shows, which is funny, funny, funny," Kaplan said. "Most people take away the humor (from 'Guys'), two guys dancing in snowmobile suits.

"But there has to be something that resonates with an audience. Looking at the way these guys open up to each other, the way they open up about their romantic entanglements, that's bringing in some real life that people can relate to. It seems like anybody knows somebody who relates to Doug's character."

"Fred had this unique way of writing a joke that was anchored in humanity," Mancheski said. "The jokes aren't in the forefront. The story is, the humanity is.

"People love it who aren't from Wisconsin. They're from all over the world. In that respect, it cuts to the chase on what the story is really about – friendship and love. And we all want that. … It has a universal theme, a sharing of friendship and looking out for each other. It's not the jokes per se but how they're telling them to each other."

The small-town aspect matters, too, which Mancheski said helps audiences relate to the show and especially the characters.

"I think people either are these people, or know these people, or are related to these people," Mancheski said. "People feel like they're my friend after an hour and 45 minutes. They want to have a beer with me," he said with a laugh. "And that's what I love. I've never been in a show like that."

The Guys

Mancheski has a "serious" theater background – he's done Shakespeare and appeared in several dramas with other Door County companies. But he's probably best known in Door County theater for his work in Northern Sky musical comedies, especially his Marvin in "Guys on Ice," the only Marvin Door County audiences have seen.

If the part seems to fit Mancheski like a glove, that might be because Alley wrote a bit of Mancheski into the part. Mancheski said he would chat with Alley while the show was being worked on, then later find his words worked into the script.

"Fred really wanted to write this for Doug," Kaplan said.

Koehler also has had a long run as Marvin's friend Lloyd, taking the role for the company's 2002 run (Alley had played the part until his death) and holding it ever since not just for Northern Sky but in almost annual productions across the state. Mancheski said that experience of working with Koehler so many times over the past 20 years shows in their ease on stage, almost like when athletes say they are "in the zone."

"There's a lot of silent interplay between us. When we know each other so well, we have that comfortability with each other, that makes it so easy," Mancheski said.

"I think a big part of (the show's popularity) is Doug and Steve," Kaplan said. "The two of them have really been so much fun to watch."

Joining them as interloper Ernie da Moocher for this production is Klarer, who's been on stage and in a variety of backstage roles with Northern Sky since 2006 as well as with almost every theater company on the Peninsula.

"I knew he'd not only be the perfect fit for Ernie but bring his own style to it," Herbst said.

Those three actors also are starring in another hit Northern Sky three-actor musical, "Guys and Does," which the company is staging at the Gould Mondays, Tuesday and Saturdays this summer, sandwiched around show days for "Guys on Ice." Herbst said it gives fans the chance to see them perform as quite different characters on back-to-back nights.

"I always thought it'd be possible to cast exactly the same three guys in those shows, but I'd never done it before," Herbst said. "They're going to be in very different roles from what they play in 'Ice.'"

Fans of all ages, all types

Certainly, "Guys on Ice" has fans who've seen it multiple times. Mancheski said he knows of some people who've attended at least six or seven performances, and there likely are some who've seen it more.

But he said he's surprised to see how many younger theater goers attend "Guys" around the state.

"Every time I think we've exhausted our audience, there's a new crop coming," he said. "I think they must've been 3 years old when we first staged it, and they love it just as much."

And as Kaplan noted above, he's heard from people who aren't normally theater or musical fans who become fans of "Guys." He cited a show in Madison where about eight men attended, dressed not in the usual dress for going to the theater but instead in flannel shirts and floppy hats.

To Kaplan, that demonstrates how the show has appealed not just to theater buffs but to, well, just about anybody for 25 years and continues to do so.

"To me, it's a joyous celebration of Fred Alley and his take on small-town life," Kaplan said. "I always think, man, Fred must really be loving this, that enduring appeal."

Contact Christopher Clough at 920-562-8900 or cclough@doorcountyadvocate.com.

FYI

Northern Sky Theater presents its 25th anniversary production of "Guys on Ice" at 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays, July 5 through Sept. 1, at the company's indoor Gould Theater at the Northern Sky Creative Center, 9058 County A, Fish Creek. Tickets are $37 for adults, $23 for students, $18 ages 12 and younger, and reservations are highly recommended. For tickets or more information, call 920-854-6117 or visit northernskytheater.com.

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This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: 'Guys on Ice' musical gets a 25th anniversary run in Door County