Dancing Cast
The cast of "West Side Story" dances in a scene from the popular musical at Fireside Dinner Theatre in Fort Atkinson, WI. (Courtesy Photo)
Special to United Methodist Insight | March 25, 2025
I have been waking up with Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story tunes playing in my head. My wife Jo and I went with friends to see the classic musical at the Fireside Dinner Theatre in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin.
Stephen Sondheim’s wonderful lyrics to “Somewhere there’s a place for us” rumble through my mind as I dance around a pile of laundry on the way to the bathroom. The words, “I feel pretty, oh so pretty” flash through my brain as I gaze sadly at my old man face in the mirror. I find myself whistling “One Hand, One Heart” and remembering when that was the theme song at almost every wedding back in the sixties. I burst out singing “I just kissed a girl named Maria” and “Everything free in America” while driving the car.
Like The Tommy Bartlett Water Ski Show in Wisconsin Dells was for many years, The Fireside is one of Wisconsin’s top destinations. Tour busses come from all over the country to the Klopcic family’s 800 seat restaurant and 650 seat theatre in the round.
Founder
4) Richard “Dick” Klopcic (1928-2010). From the time he built The Fireside in 1964 to his retirement in 1998, Klopcic helped put Fort Atkinson on the map. Two generations of the Klopcic’s family have succeeded Dick in the dinner theater, which now auditions more than 1,000 professional actors and actresses annually for 60 to 75 roles in Broadway-level productions. (Courtesy Photo)
The theatre was the pioneering vision of the late Dick Klopcic who built the Fireside in 1964. According to Dick’s son, Rick, the current President of the Fireside, his father “truly believed and instilled in every member of his staff that people will come to where they have been invited and will return to where they have been made to feel welcome.” Two generations of the Klopcic’s family have succeeded Dick in the dinner theater, which now auditions more than 1,000 professional actors and actresses annually for 60 to 75 roles in Broadway-level productions.
The welcome was indeed warm, and the coconut chicken and pork tenderloin were delicious, but the music is what we came for and it did not disappoint. We, along with 483 other guests at the matinee performance that day, were transported from the moment Tony began to sing,
“Something’s coming, something good,
If I can wait!
Something’s coming,
I don’t know what it is,
But it is gonna be great.”
The song set the stage for all that follows in the retelling of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Love is coming. Tony is going to meet Maria. His destiny is coming. Anticipation fills the air. And foreboding too: death is coming.
In John’s Gospel, when the leading man tells his followers that he is going to die they are overcome with sorrow. Jesus says to them, “Let not your hearts be troubled…In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you I go and prepare a place for you?”
“Something’s coming, something good, If you can wait!”
Tony’s song foreshadows the pivotal dream sequence in West Side Story, when the world seems to stop as we see Tony and Maria dancing in each other’s arms to that hauntingly beautiful Bernstein tune:
“There’s a place for us,
Somewhere a place for us.
Peace and quiet and open air
Waits for us, Somewhere.”
"Flame of Friendship" Sculpture
The Fireside’s theater’s iconic “flame of friendship,” a 35-foot tall, fiery-red steel sculpture that was dedicated in 1970 by Wisconsin Gov. Warren P. Knowles, stands at its entrance. It was designed by Fort Atkinson artist Robert Hase and engineered and constructed by Ferdinand and Barry Kutz. (Courtesy Photo)
This is what we all long for; to know that we belong somewhere, that there will always be a place for us. It is our deepest fear that we might never get it, that we might be left out with no one to cherish us and no place to call home.
Jesus reassures his disciples, “…when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”
These are the words we all long to hear, that we all want to believe deep down in the depths of our being, because we know from bitter experience that there is not always a place for us in this world.
There is not one of us who has not known the pain of rejection, the shrinking, aching feeling in the pit of the stomach when we have heard the words:
“There is no place for you here.”
“Your services are no longer required!”
“Thank you for applying, but the position has been filled!”
“You didn’t make the team!”
“The building has been sold; you need to be out by the end of the month!”
“Your loan application has been denied!”
“Here is your ring back; I’m breaking off the engagement.”
“You can’t love Him/Her, He/She’s Woke, MAGA, Red Neck, Drag, Fascist, Socialist, Evangelical, Progressive, Gay, Straight, Misogynist, Feminist, Pro-choice, Pro- life, Illegal Immigrant, I.C.E., Trans, Proud boy.”
Like Tony and Maria we long for a place where “We'll find a new way of living, We'll find a way of forgiving.” Like them we sing this yearning prayer:
“There's a place for us,
A time and place for us.
Hold my hand and we're halfway there.
Hold my hand and I'll take you there
Somehow, Some day, Somewhere!”
Unique Design
The Fireside’s unique theatre in-the-round seats 650 people. The stage is 20’ X 20’ with a 12’ diameter circle on a hydraulic lift that was added around 1993. (Courtesy Photo)
John Sumwalt 2024
The Rev. John Sumwalt is a retired United Methodist pastor and the author of “Vision Stories: True Accounts of Visions, Angels, And Healing Miracles.” He will be telling stories March 30, 11:00 a.m. at Rosedale Presbyterian Church, W3495 State Rd 33, Cambria, WI.