Spamtown, USA through eyes of kids

Just a few miles down the road from Blooming Prairie, it became perhaps the most bitter labor strife in Minnesota’s history. I’m referring to the 1985-86 Hormel strike by 1,500 workers in Austin.
Hormel is the only Minnesota Fortune 500 company not based in the Twin Cities and employs 1,800 people. I came to the area several years after the strike, but I can still recall colleagues of mine at KAAL-TV talk about how difficult the strike was for them to cover. They were taunted, threatened and accused of being biased in their reporting. It was simply a horrific situation for anyone involved.
While it has been 35 years since the strike created deep divisions within the city, the Children’s Theatre in Minneapolis has unveiled a new production documenting the divisive moment through
the eyes of the community’s youth. The organization has expressed a desire to show the resilience and complexi- ty of young people’s lives.
“Spamtown USA” is a moving portrait of Austin during the strike and focuses on five young people who find their families on different sides of an increasingly com- plicated strike. As the dispute dragged on for 10 months, it divided management from employees and factions with- in the union that represented the employees.
While five kids dream of space camp, tennis teams and out-of-state college, they find their families and community suddenly divided by picket lines and opposing agendas. Spamtown is the story of having the strength to stand up for what you believe in, the challenge that comes in disagreeing with those you love and the humor that helps keep friendships alive.
The show contains scenes depicting tension between family members, friends and coworkers, resulting in harsh language, bullying and some instances of physical violence.
Playwright Phillip Daw- kins met with people while visiting Austin for the play. He interviewed people who were kids at the time of the strike. The intention was to look at the world through the lens of young people when there’s such a deep divide in history.
The play does not focus on depicting the “bad guys” or the “good guys,” because the strike is seen through the eyes of youngsters who are just trying to keep on track while their parents are arrested or a rock is hurled through their living room window.
In the play, characters struggle with whether  they can hang onto rela- tionships with neighbors  and family members as the strike places their economic needs at odds with each other and a boy named Jake says, “I never thought about my parents having friends until they started not having them.”
The theatre’s artistic director, Peter Brosius, indi- cated they knew the strike would be epic and complicated but what they could do brilliantly was show how it felt to children.
The play reportedly takes kids apart, but their care, their love, their will and their family bonds help them find their way back to each other.
Spamtown is on stage every day except Monday through April 5. For ticket information, call 612-874-0400 or childrenstheatre.org.
It’s great to see that an organization like the Children’s Theatre has gone in hot pursuit of sharing an important part of Minnesota’s  history that put Austin into the national spotlight.

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