MISSOURI VALLEY VOICES

More Than a Performance — An Experience

Our visit to Goodrich Music Studio was absolutely wonderful from the moment we arrived.

Parking is set up in the green space as you enter the property, and from there, you make your way up the gravel drive. The walk itself becomes part of the experience. You are surrounded by beautiful Iowa countryside, and at first, you really have no idea what is waiting for you at the top.

As we approached, we were greeted by a wonderful group of people welcoming guests and handing out programs. But before I could fully take everything in, there was something else competing for my attention.

The smell.

Something smelled incredible. At that point, I didn’t know exactly what it was. I would find out soon enough. To the right, people had already settled into what had once been a large, open grassy area, now transformed into an outdoor performance space. Large speakers were positioned throughout the grounds, and at the front stood these incredible hand-built sets. There is something almost magical about the reveal. You walk up a gravel driveway surrounded by farmland and countryside and suddenly realize someone has created an entire little theatrical world out there. And the more I learned about how that world came together, the more impressive it became.

A Family Affair

The more I learned about what goes into a Goodrich Music Studio production, the more impressive it became. At the center of it all is Leana Goodrich, who founded Goodrich Music Studio with the support of her husband, Lynn Goodrich, and has directed all ten of its productions. What Leana created has also become very much a family affair, with each member taking on a distinct role while still pitching in wherever needed.

Leana and Lynn Goodrich work together on the overall set design, with Leana also painting the sets. Lynn Goodrich serves as a producer, stage designer, and constructor. He builds the sets for the studio’s productions. He also helps tackle the countless details behind the scenes, including the very real challenge of financing a production. After helping build the stage and the world around it, Lynn steps onto that stage himself.

Their daughter, Heidi Goodrich-Gutzmer takes on the enormous task of costume design and choreography. She and Leana work together on props and so many of the visual details that help transform performers into characters. Heidi performed as well, alongside her father and her husband. Evan Gutzmer assists Heidi with teaching choreography and also helps with many of the technical and practical pieces surrounding the production and wherever an extra set of hands is needed before he joins his wife and father-in-law on stage.

Then, of course, there is Leana Goodrich, who has her hands in everything. Founder. Teacher. Organizer. Mentor. Performer. Host. And, as I would soon discover, apparently a pretty incredible cook too.

Once you understand how much of this is created by the Goodrich family and the volunteers around them, the sets begin to look different. You are no longer simply looking at scenery. You are looking at someone’s evenings and weekends.

You are looking at lumber being hauled, sets being built and painted, costumes being sewn, choreography being practiced, lights and sound being set up, food being prepared, money being raised, and the hundred little problems that inevitably have to be solved before an audience ever takes a seat.

Then performance night arrives, and many of those same people walk onto the stage. They built it. They rehearsed it. They worked for it. And then they shared it with the community.

Then I Found the Stew

My friend Stephanie Blackford was sitting next to me that evening. Her husband, Don Blackford, was one of the performers in the show.

When I sat down beside Stephanie, I finally discovered the source of that incredible smell. Beef stew and biscuits she was just finishing. Milly’s Cafe and Concessions was serving homemade beef stew and biscuits, along with baked goods and other treats.

The stew and biscuits had been made by Leana Goodrich, and there was no question about it once I smelled them. I had to have some. We had four kids with us, ranging in age from 7 to 14. Naturally, all four of them assured me they did not want beef stew. So I got mine. As I sat there with my stew and biscuit, I began noticing them staring at me like ravenous little dogs.

I asked if they wanted to try it. They did. And, one by one, every child who absolutely did not need beef stew suddenly discovered that they did, in fact, need beef stew and biscuits. Then they noticed the cookies. Apparently, dessert was also necessary. The whole thing made me laugh because it was such a small, ordinary family moment in the middle of this wonderfully unusual evening.

Stephanie and I were also seated right beside a beautiful blackberry bush that had been carefully caged and was covered with these huge, gorgeous berries. It took everything I had not to reach over and pop one into my mouth. Those are the kinds of details I remember most. Not just what happened onstage, but everything surrounding it.

Community on the Stage

What happened once the performance began was an absolutely wonderful display of community. Every cast member volunteered their time. They spent their summer months outside learning lines, practicing songs, rehearsing dances, working on lifts and dedicating hundreds of hours to bringing this performance to life.

The cast was wonderfully diverse in age and background. Young students stood alongside adults of all ages and people from different walks of life, all working toward the same goal. My favorite part was that they did not seem to be reaching for perfection.

They were reaching for something genuine. The performance was true to its surroundings. Raw. Heartfelt. Joyful. Sincere.

There was no sense that the people onstage were trying to pretend they were somewhere else. Instead, they leaned into exactly what this production was: a group of people from a community who had worked incredibly hard together and were now sharing the result.

And that made it beautiful.

You could feel the effort behind it, but you could also feel the joy. The music was so fun and energetic that before long all of us were swaying along and getting completely caught up in it. And watching the performance through my children’s eyes may have been my favorite part of the entire evening. My 7-year-old was gasping, oohing and ahhing through the show. By the end, she had apparently fallen in love with one of the actors and very seriously informed us that he was so handsome.

At the opposite end of the spectrum is my 14-year-old son, who may be one of the harshest critics alive. And even he thoroughly enjoyed himself, what stood out to him was seeing people he knew from school up on that stage. These were kids he had played sports with. People he had seen in completely different settings. He had no idea they also did theater. I loved that observation.

There is something important about young people seeing their peers step outside the boxes we sometimes unintentionally put them in. The kid you know from a sports team can also sing. The person you see in the hallway can dance. Someone you thought you knew may have an entirely different talent you had never seen before. Suddenly theater isn’t something distant or reserved for a particular kind of person. It is something people you know can do. Maybe something you could do too.

What They’re Teaching Goes Beyond Theater

What impressed me just as much as the performance itself was what Leana Goodrich and the rest of the Goodrich family appear to be instilling in these performers beyond music, acting and dance. They are teaching them how to carry themselves. How to commit. How to work alongside other people. How to be gracious. How to be respectful. How to finish something difficult and take pride in what they accomplished.

The clearest example came at the end of the performance. By that point, these performers had to be exhausted. This was a high-cardio production filled with dancing, lifts and nearly continuous movement. Yet when the show ended, the entire cast lined up around the stage. The audience was invited forward. The performers stayed, shook hands, talked with guests, listened and smiled.

They engaged with people as though their evening had just begun. That moment stayed with me. You could see the pride on their faces. They had spent months working toward this. They had pushed themselves. They had accomplished something difficult together. And they knew they had created something worth being proud of. They absolutely beamed.

Seeing young people and adults standing together—tired, but still gracious and excited to greet the people who had come to support them—was beautiful.

More Than a Performance

That is why I don’t think of our night at Goodrich Music Studio as simply attending a performance. It was an experience. It started with the walk up the gravel driveway. The beautiful countryside, friendly faces handing out programs, the mystery smell drifting through the air, the homemade beef stew and biscuits that four children absolutely did not want until they tasted mine, cookies they suddenly needed afterward. And we can’t forget the blackberry bush beside my chair that spent the evening testing my self-control. The handmade sets, costumes, music. The dancing.The volunteers. The children watching people they knew transform into performers.

And finally, the cast standing together at the end of the night, proudly shaking hands with the people who had come to see what they had created.

Goodrich Music Studio certainly creates performances.

But it is also creating opportunities for children and adults to challenge themselves, discover new talents, connect across generations, contribute to something larger than themselves and experience the pride that comes from seeing a commitment all the way through.

And perhaps most importantly, it doesn’t feel like a production being presented to a community.

It feels like something being created with a community.

The Goodrich family may be at the heart of it, but they have created room around themselves for students, adults, families, volunteers and audience members to become part of something too.

We left entertained.

We left very well fed.

We left impressed.

But more than anything, we left grateful that something like this exists.

Goodrich Music Studio gave us an evening filled with music, family, hard work, laughter and community—and we absolutely loved it.

A Note From MVV:

Missouri Valley Voices was not paid for this review. We are, however, proud to be a Silver Sponsor of Goodrich Music Studio—and after experiencing the program firsthand, we are even more grateful to support it. We believe in what the Goodrich family and its volunteers are creating for this community, and we look forward to continuing to support their mission through our family’s attendance, continued sponsorship, and by helping share the incredible work they are doing.