Broadway in Portland: 'Girl From The North Country' reimagines Bob Dylan's music

(PORTLAND TRIBUNE) -- Folk icon Bob Dylan’s music touches a lot of people, even a 32-year-old actor from suburban Philadelphia.

“My parents listened to a smattering of Bob Dylan, but not too much, and my two older brothers did as well,” said Chiara Trentalange. “I knew about him, and in high school I had a Dylan phase with ‘Blood on the Tracks,’ I listened to it over and over again when I was 17. There are a lot of heartbreaking songs on that one that a 17-year-old girl can connect with. It was kismet in that way.”

Years later, Trentalange plays a character (Kate Draper) and serves as a fight and a dance captain — choreography, basically — in the touring Broadway show “Girl From The North Country.” It tells the tale of a Depression-era Duluth, Minnesota and a group of wayward travelers whose lives intersect in a guesthouse filled with music, life and hope — with 20 Bob Dylan songs reimagined as part of the musical.

It’s by Conor McPherson, with Tony Award-winning orchestrations by Simon Hale. It stages at Keller Auditorium, June 18-23.

The tour will end up being a year in length, and hundreds of shows, when finished in October.

The cast and ensemble are large, and it does take a lot of organization. Trentalange served as a “swing” and dance captain on Broadway, before going on tour. The “swing” has to know every song and be able to fill in.

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