JOHNNY GRANT: A ROLLICKING ADVENTURE STORY

In September of 2007 Dave Mott and Daniel Martin embarked on a journey of discovery across the continent and into the past. Well, to Montana and Idaho. They were searching for Johnny Grant.

In March of 2009 Upintheair Theatre unveiled to the public a Rollicking Adventure Story of Mountain Men, Indian Braves, of Wars and Fortunes won and lost, of Rebellion, Betrayal, Love, Polygamy, and the Death and Birth of a Way of Life. And two guys in a 35 year old van crossing the Continental Divide. Again and again.

Daniel Martin's great-great-great grandfather Johnny Grant, the son of a Hudsons Bay Company trader and a Metis woman, was born in Edmonton in 1831, and raised by his grandmother in Trois Rivieres. In 1847, at the age of 16, he moved to Idaho to be with his father. Over the next twenty years he would become one of the foremost figures in the history of Montana and Idaho - living among the Shoshonee Indians, marrying seven women, fathering or adopting 25 children, and building a small fortune establishing the cattle industry in the region. In 1867, tired of the influx of gold prospectors and government officers into the Montana Territory, he sold his concerns and moved his family to Manitoba, where he would become a leading anti-Louis Riel voice in the Metis community and lose his fortune speculating in Metis land scrip. He passed away in 1907 in Edmonton, 100 yards from his place of birth.

Johnny Grant is an ambitous theatrical and historical undertaking, blending traditional theatrical forms, live video installation, unique puppetry, and robust physical performance. Upintheairs' new play takes the audience on a thrilling ride into the intersection of History, the Search for Ancestry, and Good Story.

Johnny Grant: A Rollicking Adventure Story premiered for Vancouver audiences as part of the 2009 See Seven Independant Theatre Series.