It’s a new play by Mary Swander, “Map of My Kingdom.” Chicago actress Cora Vander Broek Brumlow will do the one-woman show in Orange City Saturday, Feb. 21, 2015, at the Northwestern College DeWitt Theatre. It’s a show commissioned by Practical Farmers of Iowa, whose president, Dan Wilson, lives in Paullina. According to the Des Moines Register, Iowa’s poet laureate Swander interviewed dozens of farm families, bankers and other stakeholders across the state before weaving their stories into a one-woman show. It’s told from the perspective of a lawyer (the Chicago actress Cora Brumlow) who mediates land disputes. “Some families have given thoughtful attention to the issue. Others have tried to push it from their minds,” Swander said. “When I began my research into the issue, I wondered where I would find the conflict for the show, but the conflict was everywhere I turned.” According to Dan Wilson, “the play is a good way at getting at a tremendous farmland transition that is about to take place in Iowa, as elderly landlords begin to pass on. Many farmers will lose farmland – their source of livelihood – during this transition, unless we tackle these issues.” Fifty-six percent of Iowa farmland is owned by people over the age of 65, according to a report by retired Iowa State University economist Mike Duffy. Thirty percent of Iowa farmland is owned by those more than 75 years old.
Actress Cora Vander Broek Brumlow, who graduated from MOC-Floyd Valley High and Northwestern College in Orange City, has received dozens of accolades for her acting in Chicago. Matt Foss, also a graduate of MOC-Floyd Valley High and Northwestern College, and formerly a colleague of Swander’s at Iowa State University, directed “Map of My Kingdom” prior to taking a new job at the University of Idaho.
LA Weekly: “It’s Vander Broek’s show; she’s damn good!”
Chicago Tribune: “Cora… improves every ensemble in which she finds herself.”
Time Out Chicago: “See it for Vander Broek.”
Ticket Prices
Purchase tickets at Dove Christian Bookstore or at the door.
