Young actors, dancers, singers and more take to the stage at Trollwood

Nancy Edmonds Hanson
Light up your summer!
That’s the promise of the Trollwood Performing Arts School in its 2025 season at Moorhead’s Bluestem Amphitheater. The hit musical “Mamma Mia” takes the main stage July 22-26 and July 29-Aug. 2. – is only the latest chapter in the saga. The love, laughter and lasting friendship of ABBA’s famed pop musical is expected to draw some 15,000 fans to the park’s newly refurbished outdoor amphitheater, situated on the east bank of the Red River south of the two cities.
But that’s only part of the Fargo Public Schools-based arts immersion program for talented children from kindergarten through senior high school, drawn from throughout the Fargo-Moorhead area. Centered at Moorhead’s Bluestem Center for the Arts, the program for youth with dreams of music, dancing and theater learn, practice and perform throughout 38 natural acres surrounding the iconic Bluestem Amphitheater, the Schlossman Pavilion and an indoor facility known as Marcil Commons.
“Trollwood is part of my heart,” reflects executive director Kathy Anderson. “When I saw ‘The Sound of Music’ back in 1989, I was hooked. It’s been part of my life ever since.”
Thousands of others can say the same. The summer program has been drawing young people to the performing arts since 1978, when Fargo Public Schools’ theater department staged “The Wizard of Oz” at what was then known as Trollwood Park – nearly as far north of the metro area as Bluestem is to its south, and on the opposite side of the Red.
In an unexpected twist, Trollwood set out to cross the river two decades ago … maintaining its much-loved main-stage musicals, by then a staple of Fargo-Moorhead summers drawing tens of thousands, but in a new site, new city, new state. Supported by a Minnesota bond issue and an equal amount of private donations, the academy for young performers built an $11 million amphitheater on 50th Avenue South in Moorhead. The Bluestem Center for the Arts – with Fargo-based Trollwood as its tenant — has been a mecca for teen actors, singers, musicians and technical specialists ever since its first production, “The Wiz,” in 2009.
Over the past 16 years, Anderson has guided and shaped the program that has become a beacon of once-unexpected collaboration between very different entities. The city of Moorhead owns Bluestem. Kathy manages and operates the Bluestem facilities in addition to the Fargo School District’s program. A private promoter, Jade Presents, rocks the venue with concerts by big-name entertainers – Clint Black! ZZ Top! Kansas! — during early and late summer, when the grounds would be otherwise quiet. As for the rest of the year, a procession of private events takes place in the picturesque setting, the Commons and the Pavilion, from weddings to corporate affairs.
Unexpected, yes. But it works, and works well.
“It’s a delicate balance,” Anderson acknowledges. “Fargo Public Schools operates 12 youth art programs in June and July, some here, others at area schools. We have more than 500 students of all ages and around 100 instructors and staff at various times. We’ll offer 40 classes in production, music, art, dance and drama in June and July, plus 75 students working on every aspect of our main-stage musical.” She adds, “Balancing all that with concerts and events is always an interesting experience.”
Though its annual main-stage musicals grab the headlines, she says, Trollwood is far more than those glittering nights of youthful talent. From ArtSpark, five week-long workshops for kids from kindergarten through fifth grade, to the month-long Totally Trollwood Academy, younger students’ passions for performing are ignited by professional music, dance and acting instructors.
Bluestem hosts 40 classes in production and the performing arts are offered in June under the banner of the Trollwood Academy, open to students in grades eight through 12. Among them: musical theater, acting, dance, improv, film and technical theater. Other young people take part in a student leadership program through internships focused on both the artistic and administrative sides of the industry. Finally, older students who are serious about taking their skills to the next level get intensive mentoring in the Trollwood Conservatory.
Anderson stepped into this world in 1990, when the MSUM music industry major scored her first internship there. She was back again for two more seasons, then went full-time in 1993. She did “a little bit of everything,” she says, dovetailing nicely with her studies.
She stepped away in 1997 for four years as Bonanzaville’s executive director. Then, Trollwood needed extra help in 2001, and she returned for the summer. Meanwhile, her career path swerved in a different direction. For the next four years, she worked at Microsoft as the technical lead for its accounting support team.
In 2005, Trollwood called her back, now as director of administration. She was serving as technical director when her mentor, Vicki Chepulis, departed in 2009. She became interim director, then the permanent head of the program in 2010. She also oversees all of the Fargo school district’s technical theater departments during the school year.
While Trollwood is operated by the Fargo school system, Anderson emphasizes that it’s open to young people from all over the community. Her daughter Jessica took part in everything it offers as she was growing up, gravitating toward the marketing side of operations. Like so many Trollwood alumni, it opened the doors to her career. (Today the 2021 MSUM graduate is the media strategist for the YMCA of the Rockies in Estes, Colorado.)
“We have a good number of kids from out of town, too,” she says. That includes a sizable contingent for whom Trollwood runs in the family. “Our alums live all over the country now, but some send their children home to hang with Grandma and Grandpa for the summer.”
Anderson says she cannot imagine her life without Trollwood. “The rewards are so amazing. Getting to watch what Trollwood does for these kids for 35 years – seeing it change the lives of so many students, including my own baby – it has been just phenomenal.
“It makes every single day special.”