John Rasmussen
Topics: History, Immigration Experience, Readers Theater, South Dakota
Community: Sisseton
Program Types: Speakers Bureau
johnrasmuss@gmail.com | 605-880-7172
The Stavig Letters: The Story of a Norwegian Immigrant
(Note: This is a combined presentation with fellow Humanities scholars Curtis Dahl and Jane Rasmussen.)
The immigrant experience comes to life in this three-person readers’ theater program created by Dr. Wayne Knutson. Content comes directly from an extensive collection of letters written over a fifty-year period between two brothers, one who emigrated to Dakota Territory and one who stayed in Norway. The readers theatre, performed more than 75 times in the United States and Scandinavia, led to an Emmy-award winning documentary and a published book. In Norway, the collection of Stavig letters was accepted into UNESCO’s Memory of the World Registry.