“I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar”

September 19

Saturday, Sept 19, 2020, 2:00 matinee

This was the final show of Theatre L’Homme Dieu’s COVID-shortened 2020 season. And executive director Nicole Mulder outdid herself with this blockbuster finale. So, buckle your seat belts, we’re about to begin . . .

Featuring: Patty Peterson, Lori Dokken, Debbie Duncan, Judi Vinar, Rachel Holder

Lori Dokken Presents: I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar
FEAT: Lori Dokken – Piano and Vocals, Patty Peterson – Vocals, Debbie Duncan – Vocals, Rachel Holder – Vocals, Judi Vinar – Vocals

Location: TLHD Outdoor Stage Watch from the comfort of your car or reserve a spot in our designated seating area.

The Music • The Show Join us for an afternoon celebrating some of the greatest women singers and songwriters ever! With Lori Dokken at the piano and vocals and Twin Cities’ vocalists Judi Vinar, Debbie Duncan, Patty Peterson and Rachel Holder turn the Theatre L’Homme Dieu’s outdoor stage into a celebration of some of the matriarchs of music.
Sit back and enjoy the vibrant vocal harmonies these musicians put to tunes made famous by such divas as: Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Annie Lennox, Carole King, Tina Turner, Judy Garland, Christina Aguilera and many more.
It promises to be a fantastic afternoon of hearing these women “roar” as only they can!

The set up: Crooners

[Why yes, it was going to be an RBG kinda day!]

[Still a couple days from autumn, a little color along the road to the theatre . . . ]

Life is very busy now. I find that in today’s cities, the public is very tired after working the whole day. When concerts start at eight o’clock, the wife pushes the husband to go to the concert, where some promptly fall asleep! ~ Vladimir Horowitz

[Our route to the theatre is a designated scenic highway. And then we turned into the campus . . . ]

[We were so shocked to see the Boy Tenor (a/k/a, the Emperor of TLHD) directing traffic that I didn’t have the camera ready . . . ]

[So, a couple tree shots in the driveway . . . ]

To me, in life, if there’s, like, a rule, and I think it’s ridiculous, then of course I’ll circumvent that but also point out how ridiculous the rule is. Other than that, if I go to a concert, and my seat is Row G, Seat 12, I’m sitting in Row G, Seat 12. I don’t care if I’m with five other friends, I’m supposed to be in Seat 12, that’s my seat. ~ Wanda Sykes

[Janet and Jan ran a season first adult beverage stand – we partook of a bottle of cab . . . ]

[We were greeted at the entrance by Joe, as usual. But this time he was ably assisted by the Empress of TLHD . . . ]

[At our designated rows and seats, everyone began stripping. The surrounding woods protected us from the wind making it almost too hot . . . ]

[People were still arriving when I pitoned onto the stage for the panorama shot . . . ]

My first concert makes me sound like a real old man. My very first concert was Jackie Wilson. ~ Eddie Murphy

[A non-fat member of the Fat Boys Walking Club, Ken sitting with Jean on the left. In the center distance, our hosts for the afternoon, Nicole and John Mulder . . . ]

I have stage fright every single concert I’ve ever done. I have at least four or five minutes of it. It’s absolute living hell. ~ Brian Wilson

[The performers take the stage . . . ]

[From our vantage – later photos will show the advantage of the 400mm lens . . . ]

[Nicole readies for the welcoming introductions . . . ]

[Whatta crowd, whatta crowd!!]

[Behind her, l-r: Lori, Patty, Debbie, Rachel, and Judi . . . ]

[A breath . . . ]

[Major kudos to Nicole for pulling off what season we had . . . ]

[It was emotional, to come up with anything in the year of the pandemic was amazing . . . ]

[She was a trendsetter. Similar venues later adopted the outdoor approach. I’m sure it was a major relief for her, for the theatre, to make it through this season . . . ]

[Nicole came up with this stage from a business in Brainerd. We used it all summer. And as she noted, the crew that erected it were 66% women. So what an ending theme . . . ]

[And away we go with Judi taking the early lead . . . ]

[The panoramic view from our seats . . . ]

[Patty and Debbie . . . ]

[Patty . . . ]

[I found an individual YouTube for each of the performers. But it created issues, so I beg your indulgence – and support? WordPress recently changed its whole format on how to create and post a blog. Any change at my age throws me for a loop. Absent any understanding of their explanations on how to use the new format, I mostly figured it out by trial and error (mostly error). But the video posting I still can’t figure out. As you will notice with each one, they bleed into the following photo? It does not show that way in either the edit or preview stages, only in the final?]

Patty ~

To wear a floral shirt is an experience. ~ Brian Wilson

[Lori and Patty . . . ]

In my career I have never felt that my being a woman was an obstacle or an advantage. I guess I’ve been oblivious. ~ Carole King

[Lori (from Benson, where it swings) reminds me of Megan Rapinoe, the look and the demeanor – loved it . . . ]

Lori, at the piano ~

[She was a hoot – Benson soul . . . ]

[Rachel joins in with Patty and Debbie . . . ]

[They each had leads, and solos, sometime in groups of 2 or 3, sometime all 5 . . . ]

[It was all quite perfect . . . ]

[With all due deference to the telephoto lens . . . ]

Debbie ~

My life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue, an everlasting vision of the ever changing view. ~ Carole King

[Rachel and Judi . . . ]

It should be a firmly established part of the curriculum that children should visit theatres and concert halls. ~ Philip Pullman

I love pulling people into concert halls who might not otherwise go and getting their ears tuned. ~ David Ogden Stiers

My audience are the same people who bought my albums years ago. These people are now married, with their own homes, their own families. If I’m in concert, I get people now who bring their kids. ~ Helen Reddy

Something in the way you move. ~ Ellie Goulding

To achieve style, begin by affecting none. ~ E.B. White

[I think it’s so nice that in this day and age a mother can take her twin retired-doctor daughters out for an afternoon of entertainment . . . ]

God, I’m just a fat bald guy, 60 years old, singing the blues, you know? ~ Joe Cocker

[For Rachel’s big song, her fellow performers moved to the rear of the stage . . . ]

[It was a powerful song, her voice showing more range than Byron Buxton . . . ]

Rachel ~

[And it is extremely unfortunate that her video cuts off the top half of her body in the following photo?]

[And then Judi took off – all of them had great individual voices . . . ]

[The problem was that from my angle I could not avoid the stage support for her photos . . . ]

Judi ~

My idols are Janis Joplin and Annie Lennox, who are neither of them from the typical pop culture. ~ Natalie Cole

[We didn’t want it to end . . . ]

It’s such a rush doing a concert and seeing people actually mouthing the lyrics. ~ Carnie Wilson

[Everybody was having fun . . . ]

[Bringing it on home . . . ]

To come to a concert and hear a lot of songs from a female perspective should not make men say, ‘Oh well, that’s for women’. ~ Holly Near [Editor’s note: I saw Holly Near in concert on Okinawa in 1970.]

We have pink hair and purple hair. We have tattoos and dreadlocks. We’ve got white girls and black girls, and everything in between. Straight girls and gay girls. ~ Megan Rapinoe

I don’t want to be the next big anything. I just want to play for people and that’s it. ~ Norah Jones

[It was a way too fast 90 minutes . . . ]

[And then, a much deserved standing ovation from the assembled masses . . . ]

[And then they were gone . . . ]

I have no idea why a guy would bring a jar of peanut butter to a concert. ~ Iggy Pop [Editor’s note: I have no idea who Iggy Pop is?]

Up Next: I thought it was going to be girls basketball – and then the gale winds began . . .

Editor’s note: I subsequently discovered that if you click on “AMP” on the upper left side it relieves the image problem created by the videos. 🙂