The Story

The Cast

The Credits

The Company

Keep the Faith is an original music theater production based on the flood disaster in the Red River Valley in 1997. In April of that year, more than 60,000 people in Grand Forks and East Grand Forks were evacuated from their homes due to the rising water. Grand Forks was also struck with a fire in the heart of downtown. The rivers and the fire left the citites in ruin, homes destroyed, memories erased.

The spirit of community held strong as the citizens began to take back control of their lives, cleaning and rebuilding. Keep the Faith was conceived and written as a celebration of that spirit of community. Now the people of Grand Forks and East Grand Forks stand as "one community seperated by a river," rebuilding and continuing the process of becoming stronger, more beautiful and more prosperous than ever before.

Keep the Faith was the most demanding production in the 10 year history of the Summer Performing Arts group. The challenges were many: working with more than 200 students in the same production; coordinating the efforts of multiple directors, choreographers, composers and technicians; and living with the aftermath of the disaster while trying to turn their experiences into art.