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LOVE IS IN THE STARS FOR COUPLE IN HIT PACKER MUSICAL
When “Packer Fans From Outer Space” comes to the spectacular Meyer Theatre in downtown Green Bay this fall, audiences will see a couple of love stories onstage.
But they may not know that a real-life love story is playing out behind the scenes.
Actors Jon Hegge and Laurie Flanigan are both cast members in American Folklore Theatre’s hit musical. They are also newlyweds.
The pair met three years ago through AFT. Then this Memorial Day, the happy couple were married in Door County and toasted in the same lodge where AFT holds rehearsals for its summer season.
"It’s our favorite place on Earth,” Flanigan said of the lovely Bjorklunden estate where the reception was held.
It’s also the home of Door Shakespeare, the troupe that first brought Hegge to Door County.
“I got a crush on him when I saw him play Petruchio in ‘Taming of the Shrew,’” Flanigan recalls.
Flanigan was in the midst of co-writing “Loose Lips Sink Ships,” a musical about Wisconsin women shipbuilders in World War II. Soon Hegge was playing sailor Eddie Hillstrom in a workshop production of the piece. “We were going to cast somebody else, but as soon as we saw his work, it was obvious he was Eddie,” Flanigan recalls.
By the time the show hit AFT’s summer stage in 2001, the pair was in love. The show went on to break AFT box office records.
Now the duo is teamed up again in “Packer Fans From Outer Space.”
Hegge plays 39, a Galactic Packer clad in a fluorescent green-and-gold uniform. Flanigan plays Marge Kiester, a Bears fan originally from Chicago now married to the world’s biggest Packer fan.
In one of the show’s funniest scenes, Hegge must dance around the stage to avoid contact with Flanigan. His character fears that her touch will cause his head to explode.
“We feel a little guilty keeping these newlyweds apart,” quipped “Packer Fans” co-author Lee Becker.
Hegge, a native of Whitehall, WI, grew up wearing a Bart Starr jersey.
But he moved to Viking territory to earn his MFA in acting at the University of Minnesota.
Last year, Hegge was in the national tour of Neil Simon’s “The Sunshine Boys,” featuring Frank Gorshin and Dick Van Patten. More recently, he’s toured with the Guthrie Theatre’s educational outreach department. This winter he has a role in the Guthrie’s “Christmas Carol.”
Flanigan, who plays the only Bears fan in “Packer Fans,” is also the only member of the company from the Chicago area.
To play Marge, Flanigan says she is “rediscovering her inner Bear.”
A graduate of the University of Illinois, Flanigan first came to Door County to perform after being spotted by AFT co-founder Doc Heide at a Madison audition in 1989.
Though suffering from the flu that day, Flanigan was still head and shoulders above most of the competition, says Heide.
“Laurie glows both on stage and off,” Heide remarked.
“Packer Fans” co-authors Heide and Becker are thrilled to have the couple in their show.
“They’re not only gifted actors,” Becker said. “They’re like our family.”
And he added, “In a show titled ‘Packer Fans From Outer Space,’ it’s wonderful to have a couple who are over the moon for each other.”
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