Musical comedy highlights couple's 50-year marriage

Mary Puetz and Tim Pick toasted one another as Agnes and Michael in the musical "I Do! I Do!" during a rehearsal of the Le Mars Community Theatre production last Wednesday. Puetz and Pick, both veteran actors with the theater, make up the two-person cast of the musical. Performances begin Thursday and continue next week. [Click to enlarge]

Two veteran actors will bring laughter and music to the stage for the Le Mars Community Theatre's production of the musical "I Do! I Do!" starting this week.

Mary Puetz and Tim Pick will combine their vocal talent as the two-person cast with musical accompaniment by Carla Sue Jenness to tell the story of Agnes and Michael's 50-year marriage.

It's both exhausting and rewarding being part of two-person cast, Puetz said.

"You're on the stage almost the whole time. You have to stay really focused on the show," she said. "It's really rewarding because you know you have to really depend on each other."

Both Puetz, of Sioux Center, and Pick, of Le Mars, have acted in other productions put on by the Le Mars Community Theatre.

"Agnes is a strong independent woman in a very timeless sense in that she doesn't work outside of the home, but is kept very busy by the two children that I have during the first act and trying to balance my husband's budding career and all the social events that comes along with it," Puetz said of her character.

She sees Agnes and Michael have an old-fashioned relationship in that the man is in charge, with Agnes doing things the way Michael wants them done.

"She does try with humor to let him know he's being a little too demanding," Puetz added.

Pick, who is also producing the show, agreed that Michael thinks his feelings should be considered before Agnes'.

"He has a domineering personality who all through from when they're first married to his retirement he thinks he's first, until the realization that marriage is a 50-50 deal," Pick said.

Michael and Agnes' story starts with their wedding night jitters and continues through the years as they raise a family, negotiate mid-life crisis, quarrel, separate, reconcile and grow old together with songs.

Neither Pick, who plays a saxophone or Puetz who plays a violin in the show, have formal training on the instruments.

"That is something I'm working on learning,"Puetz said. "It has been a very unique challenge."

Pick said he used to play brass and someone taught him how to place his fingers on the keys.

"I can get the sounds out of the horn," he said.

"I Do! I Do!" was performed by the community theater 30 years ago by Dr. Wayne Mitchell and his wife Miriam. Wayne was a vocal instructor at Westmar College and also Pick's vocal teacher.

The Le Mars Community Theatre is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year and throughout the season has been re-producing some of its past highlight performances.

Originally, Pick said, theater producers hoped to do the musical "Monky Business," but finding people for the larger, mostly male cast proved difficult.

He said it's not just Le Mars that's facing that problem.

"You find that all over in community theater," Pick said. "People are more and more busy."

Performances are 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday this week with only a 2 p.m. matinee Sunday, July 20 at the Postal Playhouse. Next week 7:30 p.m. performances are July 22-25.

Evenings are filling quickly, but tickets are still available, Pick said.

People can call the box office Monday through Friday between 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at (712) 546-5788 or send an email to postalplayhouse@frontier.net.