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Late one night, a stranger knocks at the door of the Clementine residence (and laboratory…).  Industriously sending eggs into outer space, sharpening knives, and engaging in higher mathematics, Mr. and Mrs. Clementine are suddenly called to live up to their vow: “We will harbor any fugitive, and ask questions later.”

When later finally arrives, these questions may include: ‘Will Mr. Clementine retire?’; ‘When did Mrs. Clementine know she would never play sports professionally?’; And most importantly:  ‘Is the fortune-cookie delivery-woman at the door really who she seems?’

The Missoula Oblongata is an experimental theater company dedicated to creating and touring original work that defies the conventions and constrictions of conventional contemporary theatre. The company’s DIY approach to lighting, sound, and set creation combines refined performances with artfully assembled “found” design schemes which, in the words of The Edmonton Sun, “…transform the stage into a place of magic.”

This summer, The Missoula Oblongata premieres ‘The Last Hurrah of the Clementines’, an original play by Madeline ffitch and Donna Sellinger, with a live musical score by Travis Sehorn of the band Pebblelight.

‘The Last Hurrah of the Clementines’  will tour to the Berkshire Fringe Festival, Bedlam Theater in Minneapolis, Puppet Uprising in Philadelphia, and Baltimore’s Whartscape and Artscape, before making its way west!

–The City Pages, Minneapolis

It is estimated that 10,000 grizzly bears once roamed the Golden State. But in just 30 short years, the California Grizzly was on the brink of extinction, and in 1908, the last wild grizzly was recorded to have been shot. The call of Manifest Destiny for westward expansion sealed the great Grizzly Bear’s Fate…and with it, an eternal mythologizing of its past.

Historical figures like Grizzly Adams and William Randolph Hearst directly shaped our views of the grizzly bear, and so did the “inevitable” expansion of the United States. Monarch, a grizzly bear captured by Hearst sat in in captivity for 22 years. Shortly after Monarch’s demise as the last known living grizzly in California, Ishi, the last member of the Yahi tribe, was discovered in Oroville. The destiny of both intersected in Golden Gate Park, where their own extinction was witnessed and recorded…foreshadowing modern man’s future collision course with his manufactured landscape.

“Grizzly Road” is a feature documentary exploring the California Grizzly’s unfortunate fate with Manifest Destiny. By exploring the historical treatment of the bear, our own subsequent landscape of the future is revealed.

Directed by Sabrina Alonso, “Grizzly Road” is a visual essay using the landscape of California with archival photographs, and paintings and film footage from the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The music is originally scored by Lauren Wooley as well as additional music from Corner Tour and the Darklings.