sam knutson

After ten years running and writing for a pub rock band called Shame Train I literally stumbled into a job doing product placement for feature films. That paid me enough to take a year off which I used to become a better stage and sound tech, better at seeing a bigger picture, and to write songs to perform without a band. That led me to take closer look at the small live-performance theaters all over the mid-west called Opera Houses built alongside passenger rail lines around the turn of the last century. Iowa had tons of passenger rail, so there are tons of small town Opera Houses. For a little over a year I have been developing programming, booking, doing community outreach and PR, public speaking, fundraising and performing as part of the folk music series The Iowa Opera House Project.

We have received equipment sponsorships, donations national press, in-state magazine and television coverage and spent almost no money on advertising. It's a good story. It's good for the state and being able to present world class talent that is home grown and picked to apply to a particular, mostly acoustic aesthetic befitting these pre-electricity performance halls has lent credence to the cause, and the Opera Houses.

Once a forgotten part of the history of the mid-west, The Iowa Opera House Project seeks to bring the Opera Houses back to their rightful place as the centers of community entertainment tailored to their towns or as destination venues by presenting entertainment, and gaining media coverage locally/show and on a larger scale covering the Project.