The Vermont Farm Project: A Farm-to-Stage Musical Credit: Courtesy (Self-released, CD, digital) Vermont’s hills are alive with the sound of musicals! In recent memory, original Green Mountain productions have included John Daly’s Spit’n Lyon, a historical account of 18th-century Vermont congressman Matthew Lyon’s opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798; Jim Thompson’s Halfway There, which took an empathetic look at people living in a central Vermont mental health facility; and a little show called Hadestown, which was born in 2006 at the Old Labor Hall in Barre before taking Broadway by storm in 2019. Earlier this year, Northern Stage debuted The Vermont Farm Project: A Farm-to-Stage Musical, with music and lyrics by Tommy Crawford and book by Jessica Kahkoska. Developed through extensive conversations with real Vermont farmers, the folk musical depicts a day in the life of agricultural workers trying desperately to persist in the face of obstacles personal, practical, bureaucratic and political. In October, the White River Junction theater released an original cast recording of the play. As Crawford pointed out by email, it’s almost unheard of for a small musical on a regional stage to produce a soundtrack album. In addition to singing their hearts out, cast members Raquel Chavez, Angel Lin, David M. Lutken, Emily Mikesell and Rob Morrison also play every instrument heard, which is rare in musical theater. When a character onstage picks up an instrument, the line between diegetic music and theater magic becomes wonderfully blurred. The Vermont Farm Project is most effective when it leans into its characters’ humanity. On the folksy waltz “Dos Años,” migrant worker Gabriela, played by Chavez, longs to reunite with her young son, who is growing up in Mexico without her. “What is he doing this very moment in time? / Do you hear his voice on the wind?” she ponders over tear-jerking fiddle. Later, on “How the Seed Grows,” she offers an empowering metaphor for human prosperity through descriptions of agricultural mettle. At times, the show is more lighthearted. Morrison’s heel-stomping “37 Ways to Cook Kohlrabi” has a zany, “Weird Al” Yankovic-level commitment to its titular premise. Elsewhere, the show strays a bit too far into farm-splaining, such as “Plastic Is a Pest,” which details how the omnipresent material is both a blessing and a curse. Such educational diversions raise the question: Is this show destined for a revival at Burlington’s Flynn for area schoolchildren on a Tuesday morning? Those kids would be lucky if it is. Overall, The Vermont Farm Project is a purehearted, impressive work that blends storytelling, current events and history to offer perspective on a disappearing way of life. It examines what we’ve lost and what we still have — and offers an inkling of how we might keep it. The Vermont Farm Project: A Farm-to-Stage Musical is available at northernstage.org and on major streaming services. The post Album Review: ‘The Vermont Farm Project: A Farm-to-Stage Musical’ appeared first on Seven Days. ...read more read less