As the nation celebrates its 250th anniversary of independence, a new musical at the Tower Theatre honors the women who served the country during World War II. The production, “Rosie the Riveter,” pays tribute to the estimated 6 million women who entered the workforce in the 1940s, taking over industrial jobs. Today, there are believed to be only a few hundred to a few thousand still alive.
Marilyn Magness of Bend wrote the play to celebrate her mother, Allys Goy Magness, who was a Rosie at the Douglas Aircraft Company in the 1940s in Long Beach, California, where they made the B-17 Flying Fortress. The play is about a 19-year-old waitress in Maryland who falls in love with a boy enlisting in the army. When she learns about the opportunity to work, she brings a bunch of girls with her to the plant and learns how to rivet.
“It’s a remembrance. It’s a great celebration of this time in our history where everybody was sharing a common purpose,” Magness says. “There are so many slogans about this time, but my favorite is, ‘Let’s do this together.’”
Three Rosies, all over 100-years-old, will be attending the musical. One of them, 102-year-old Riley Helmstetter, lives in Bend. She worked at the Alcoa Aluminum Plant in Spokane handling large sheets of aluminum which were used to make war planes. She then moved to Laurinburg-Maxton Army Air Base in North Carolina where she packed parachutes for pilots flying C-46 and C-47 troop carrier planes.
Magness also hopes veterans from any war will attend. “There is a big veteran salute in the middle of this,” she explains. Magness named one of the waitresses in the play Alyss and another one Goy as a nod to her mother who is no longer alive. It took Magness 20 years to write the musical, which Thoroughly Modern Productions is producing. After the run in Bend, the script will be available to other production companies nationwide.
Magness says the whole experience of attending the play will feel like stepping back in time with snacks in the lobby such as Peppermint Patties, invented in 1940, and drinks like Lime Rickeys. “You take people to an emotional place where they can relax and enjoy where they are and kind of disappear into the story,” she says.
The musical, which will have a live band led by Jim Tennant, will feature 22 songs from the era including those by Frank Sinatra, Glenn Miller and the Mills Brothers. “It’s wall-to-wall music. It’s ‘Two o’clock Saturday Night” to “In the Mood” to “This is the Army Mr. Jones” to the ‘whole town’s talking about the Jones boy,’” Magness sings.
Magness has an impressive background working as a creative director for Disney, Warner Brothers, and NBCUniversal Global Brand Entertainment. Among her many accomplishments, she’s overseen five Super Bowl half-time shows, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, national tours of “Sesame Street Live,” the Osmond Family Christmas Specials and entertainment events at Disney theme parks. After “Rosie the Riveter” wraps up, she will plan parades and shows for the Six Flags theme parks. She’s also working on her next idea for a play about the backstory of “Casey at the Bat.”
But at the present moment, she’s laser focused on her musical. “I thought, well, this is the right year to do this, to celebrate this commonality of purpose, which, apparently, we’re struggling to regain in this country, but there’s no political agenda here. This is simply just a remembrance of a time when we rose up against the enemy instead of ourselves, and that’s what the optimistic message is, that we can do that again if we remember where we came from, the time where everybody jumped in to do good together.”
Rosie the Riveter, The Musical
Thu-Sun June 18-21 2pm (weekend) & 7:30pm
Tower Theatre
835 NW Wall St, Bend
towertheatre.org/events/month
$38-$58
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