Bob Dylan musical ‘Girl from the North Country’ to open national tour at Orpheum Theatre

“Girl from the North Country,” the Tony-nominated musical that uses Bob Dylan’s songs, will hit the road for a North American tour that opens in fall 2023 at Minneapolis’ Orpheum Theatre. The Orpheum will also be home to the production’s technical rehearsals. Show dates will be announced later.

“It’s quite an honor for Hennepin Theatre Trust to launch the national tour given Minnesota’s love of Bob Dylan and what he has meant to the state and the Orpheum Theatre,” said Mark Nerenhausen, Hennepin Theatre Trust president and CEO, in a news release. “Dylan owned the Orpheum during the 1970s and 1980s, making this a full-circle moment of celebration of his iconic music and storytelling.”

Irish playwright Conor McPherson wrote the book for the musical and was its director when it opened in London in 2017. Set in Dylan’s birthplace of Duluth, the story follows a family struggling to stay alive during the Great Depression. It uses 19 Dylan songs, including “Forever Young,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” “Make You Feel My Love” and “Idiot Wind.”

After a three-month Off-Broadway run in late 2018, the show found a home on Broadway and opened just a week before the pandemic shutdown. It resumed performances in October and has earned seven Tony nominations, including best musical, best book of a musical and best actress for Mare Winningham.

“Girl from the North Country” earned glowing reviews from critics as well as Dylan himself, who told the New York Times: “Sure, I’ve seen it, and it affected me. I saw it as an anonymous spectator, not as someone who had anything to do with it. I just let it happen. The play had me crying at the end. I can’t even say why. When the curtain came down, I was stunned. I really was.”

After it opens in Minneapolis, the tour is scheduled to hit Baltimore, Buffalo, Dallas, Greenville, Las Vegas, Seattle, Tulsa and Washington, D.C.