Production History...

Venture Theatre has been staging engaging, challenging contemporary theatre for adults and families and providing a wide range of education and performance opportunities for area youth since 1992.

A brief production history of the theatre follows. Follow linked titles for details about each production, if available.

Do you have old programs from past Venture Theatre productions that are not detailed below? Please help us complete a comprehensive record of past productions by sending a photocopy of your program to our mailing address:

Venture Theatre
PO Box 112
Billings, MT 59103.

2009 - 2010

Ramona Quimby

15th Annual One-Act Play Festival
Funky Bunch Reunion

Willy Wonka

The Beauty Queen of Leenane

Anon(ymous)

Full Monty

RENT: School Edition

2008 - 2009

Evil Dead: the Musical

Cabaret

The Outsiders

A Little Princess

2nd Annual Wet Ink Play Festival

The Clean House

A Feast for the Hunger Moon 2009

P.O.V. Teen 2009

BUG

The Castaways

14th Annual One-Act Play Festival

Funky Bunch Reunion

Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol

Velveteen Rabbit

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Reefer Madness

Stone Soup

West Side Story

2007 - 2008

Always, Patsy Cline

Bebop With Aesop

Ruthless

Lockers

Funny Money

Porridgegate
1st Annual Wet Ink Play Festival

Boy Gets Girl

P.O.V. Teen 2008

Voices of Venture

A Feast for the Hunger Moon 2008

13th Annual One-Act Play Festival

Funky Bunch Reunion

The Santaland Diaries

All These Minor Variants

Holly and the Ivy League

Assignment:  Earth

The Rocky Horror Show

2006 - 2007

The Typographer's Dream

FAME

Oliver Twist

Fiction

Last of the Boys

Lonely Planet

Still Life with Iris

Little Women

The Shame of Tombstone

To Each His Own

Tom Sawyer

P.O.V. Teen 2007

12th Annual One-Act Play Festival

Funky Bunch Reunion

The Facades Project

Rocket Man

Show Me What's On

Honk!

Painting it Red

2005 - 2006

The Widow of Abraham

Julius Caesar

Krazy Kamp

Urinetown

Joined at the Head

Nickel and Dimed

P.O.V. Teen 2006

Oh, Promise Me

The Adventures of Lewis and Clark

Cannibal! The Musical

11th Annual One-Act Play Festival

Funky Bunch Reunion

Paper Candles

Stones in His Pockets

P.O.V. Teen 2005 - Fall

Footloose

I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change

2004 - 2005

Much Ado About Nothing

Eleemosynary

Venture Comedy Weekend

Same Differerence

Treasure Island

6 Women With Brain Death

The Revenge of the Broadway Cabaret

The Trial of the Big Bad Wolf

Venture Improv - 10 Year Anniversary Show

About Saturday

House and Garden

P.O.V. Teen 2005

The Jr. Cabaret: Animation Outtakes

10th Annual One-Act Play Festival

Funky Bunch Reunion

The Magic of Christmas Time

The Odd Couple (Male and Female versions)

The Stand Up Showcase

The Mystery of Irma Vep

Theseus and the Minotaur

Seussical, the Musical

Venture Unplugged: Like a Muv

2003 - 2004

Apocalypso!

Tape

Romeo and Juliet

Angry Housewives

The Gotta Have it Gals Live at the Rock Bottom Hotel

Batboy

Project Peace

The Broadway Cabaret

Dear Abby

P.O.V. Teen 2004

Stop Kiss

9th Annual One-Act Play Festival

Funky Bunch Reunion

The Return of the Glass Slipper

Christmas Extravaganza

Christmas Around The World

Woyzeck

Wait Until Dark

When I Grow Up

Always . . . Patsy Cline

2002 - 2003

The Tempest

Angry Housewives

The Strike Show

I Need a Vacation

Radium Girls

P.O.V. Teen 2003

Dig It!

Venture Improv Team Challenge

8th Annual Venture One-Act Play Festival

Funky Bunch Reunion

Reckless

The Nerd

The Castaways

Always . . . Patsy Cline

2001 - 2002

Bye, Bye Birdie

#11 (Blue & White)

MacBeth

Venture Stripped

Schoolhouse Rock

Sweet Nothing

Art

P.O.V. Teen

Sex, Drugs, Rock 'n Roll

The Big Funk

7th Annual One-Act Play Festival

Surfin' Santa

A Gingerbread Christmas

Tales of the Lost Formicans

Episode 26

Venture Unplugged: A Hazy Shade of Venture

2000 - 2001

Grease

Y2K

Taming of the Shrew

The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek

Venture Wired: What Time Is It?

X

Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You

'dentity Crisis

Our Country's Good

Why Mosquitos Buzz / The Elephant's Child

6th Annual One-Act Play Festival

Schoolhouse Rock

Ruby Cat and Mister Dog

The Heidi Chronicles

Ten Little Indians

Venture Unplugged: Irrelevance and Irreverance

Picasso at the Lapin Agile

1999 - 2000

The Zoo Story / Howl

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Venture Wired: Don't Blink

An Endangered Species: Waking Up

Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde

5th Annual One-Act Play Festival

Parallel Lives

Venture Unplugged: Love

1998 -1999

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)

In the Middle of Grand Central Station

Venture Wired

4th Annual One-Act Play Festival

Venture Unplugged: Sole Searching

1997 - 1998

Heaven Can Wait

Crash Commercialism

3rd Annual One-Act Play Festival

Rush Limbaugh in Night School

Venture Unplugged: Except, Accept, Access

1996 - 1997

Class Dismissed

Assassins

Red Scare on Sunset

2nd Annual One-Act Play Festival

The Baltimore Waltz

Venture: Unplugged, Unhinged, and Underpaid

1995 - 1996

Strangers on Earth

Time After Time

God's Country

Reverse Psychology

1st Annual One-Act Play Festival

Miss Julia

Picasso at the Lapine Agile

1994 - 1995

True West
The Curious Savage

Mastergate 

Boy's Life

1993 - 1994

Italian American Reconciliation

The Truth about Cinderella

Lonely Planet

1992 - 1993

Hamlet

Godspell

The Wiz

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Venture Highlights:

July 1992 -- The Wiz, Venture's first production

July 1993 -- Second Summer Season with Godspell and Hamlet

March 1994 -- Lonely Planet is produced, first Venture play during the traditional theatre season. It is also a fund-raiser for a charitable organization focusing on AIDS victims.

July 1994 -- Third Summer Season featuring The Truth About Cinderella and Italian American Reconciliation

September 1994 -- Venture begins to produces plays year round.

February 1995 -- Venture establishes the Venture Improv Troupe at the Lamplighter Lounge.  This troupe would go on to become Montana's longest running show, running continuously for over 10 years.

July 1995 -- Fourth Summer Season The Curious Savage and True West (Curious Savage is the first non-musical produced for our high school actors)

September 1995 -- Venture announces its first season of plays

November 1995 -- Venture produces the first annual one-act play festival. Venture becomes the only theatre in the region to explore the form of the one-act play as part of its aesthetic. 

May 1996 -- Venture produces God's Country, a play about militias and white supremacists in the Rocky Mountain West.  This play is produced while the Freemen are standing off against the Federal government in Jordan, MT.

September 1996 -- Venture produces a "musical comedy cabaret" called Unplugged, Unhinged and Underpaid.  Venture would pick up where Calamity Janes left off with a the new generation of social satire and cutting edge comedy.  The script was written by Todd Yeager, founder of the Calamity Jane Players.

December 1996 -- 2nd Annual One-Act Play Festival.  Venture commits to the only festival of its kind in the region that produces only original works from primarily Montana writers.

September 1997 -- Venture Theatre is designated a not-for-profit organization under IRS code 501-c-3.  All savings and supplies generated by previous productions is donated to the not-for-profit corporation.

July 1998 -- Venture produces its final show on the campus of MSU-Billings, Heaven Can Wait.  Steve Langlas of Langlas and Associates is introduced to Venture programming at this production.  He would become instrumental to the construction of the final home of Venture Theatre.

May 1999 -- Venture begins to produce exclusively at the Billings Hotel and Convention Center.

November 1999 -- Venture moves into the Montana Moon Cookie Company and produces Parallel Lives and the 5th Annual Venture-One Act Play Festival.

March 2000 -- Venture opens its doors at 1410 Central.  Gross Indecency:  The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde is the first production.  

April 2000 -- Venture Youth Board is created to advise on issues concerning high school programming.  Venture Youth Board is composed of two students from each Billings public high school and one student from all other area high schools.  This group chooses to produce A Midsummer Night's Dream with only high school students.

May 2000 -- Venture opens its doors to youth rock bands as a venue to play their music.  No rental is charged and bands are allowed access anytime they can be accommodated.  Proceeds from concerts are donated to Venture programming.

May 2000 -- Venture Youth Board produces first play during the school year at Venture.  The play is Endangered Species.

July 2000 -- Venture pilots a 1/2 day summer theatre camp with only 10 students.

August 2000 -- Second production of Picasso at the Lapine Agile, staged at the Club Carlin.  Venture Theatre meets Mike Schaer.

September 2000 -- Venture Youth Board decides to produce shows throughout the year for high school students.

November 2000 -- Venture Theatre produces the World Premiere of Ruby Cat and Mister Dog by Jim Peterson.  

February 2001 -- Venture introduces the Independent Artist Series, an opportunity for members of the artistic community to produce their own work.  Sister Mary Ignatius Explains it All for You is produces by Pam Strait and Sondra Baker, followed by The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek produced by Vint Lavinder.

March 2001 -- Venture Theatre performs Ruby Cat and Mister Dog in Lynchburg, Virginia.

April 2001 -- Venture produces first children's show, Schoolhouse Rock.  For the first time, children under high school age are allowed to perform at Venture.  

May 2001 -- Venture commissions a play to be written for the high school actors.  The play, entitled X, is the first full-length original play written for youth at Venture.  Each spring since has seen the production of a newly commission play for youth.

July 2001 -- Venture opens its doors to summer theatre school in downtown Billings.  Approximately 45 3rd-12th graders attend.

September 2001 -- Venture begins offering after school classes for kids 3rd grade through 12th grade.

September 2001 -- Venture partners with the Downtown Billings Association to produce Grease at the Alberta Bair Theatre.  Over 3000 people see the show in its three performances.

October 2001 -- Venture creates the Funky Bunch, a youth improv comedy troupe for high school actors.

February 2002 -- Venture produces P.O.V. Teen, the first show written entirely by high school actors.  Venture continues to encourage students to express themselves though writing and performing.

May 2002 -- Venture works with high school students at Crossroads Alternative High School on theatre project.

July 2002 -- Approximately 80 students attend Venture Summer Theatre School.

May 2003 -- Venture works for a second year with high school students at Crossroads Alternative High School on theatre project.

July 2003 -- Over 120 students attend Venture Summer Theatre School.  Faculty are brought in from all over the country.

October 2003 -- Venture opens its doors on the new facility at 2317 Montana Avenue

July 2004 -- Over 180 students attend Venture Summer Theatre School.

August 2004 -- Dina Atwood is named Venture's first managing director.

September 2004 -- Venture collaborates with the Billings Education Foundation to produce Seussical the Musical.  A portion of the proceeds are donated to School District #2 for renovations and improvements on Billings' high school theatres.

January 2005 -- Venture celebrates the 10th anniversary of the Venture One-Act Play Festival

March 2005 -- Venture celebrates the 10th anniversary of the Venture Improv.

July 2005 -- Sarah Butts hired as Youth Outreach Educator to take over the Venture Into Schools program, sponsored by the Junior League of Billings to serve Billings area elementary schools.

July 2005 -- Over 240 students attend Venture Summer Theatre School.

May 2006 -- Venture Into Schools doubles the number of elementary schools served annually.

May 2007 -- Venture Into School realizes the Junior League's vision, completing its first season as a self-sustaining program.

May 2007 -- Co-founder Mace Archer retires from Venture Theatre to pursue an acting career on the road.  Dina Atwood is named Executive Director.  Co-founder Lysa Fox hired as the new Artistic Director.  Sarah Butts is promoted to Youth Education Director.

July 2007 -- Patrick Wilson is hired as the new Youth Outreach Educator for the Venture Into Schools Program.

January 2008 -- Co-founder Lysa Fox retires from Venture Theatre to pursue graduate studies toward her MFA at Cal State, Long Beach.

June 2008 -- Robert Brian Wood is hired as Producing Artistic Director.