Little Lake presents “A Very Little Lake Holiday”

It was Thanksgiving in 1969 or 1970, and the mother of Johnna Pro bought a bird to cook for that day’s meal.
Before popping it in the oven, she made an unsettling discovery.
“She realized she hadn’t bought a turkey, she bought a duck,” Pro recalled.
So, rather than throw up her hands and suggest Chinese takeout or some other alternative, Pro’s mother whipped out the Betty Crocker cookbook, and started figuring out how to cook a duck.
“And we had duck that Thanksgiving,” said Pro, who is the regional director of the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development.
Pro’s story of her mother’s resourcefulness on that long ago Thanksgiving is one of 16 that will be included in “A Very Little Lake Holiday,” a video project being pulled together by Little Lake Theatre in North Strabane Township. It is one of several virtual productions Little Lake has assembled this fall, since in-person performances have been shelved because of the coronavirus pandemic. “A Very Little Lake Holiday” can be seen online tonight at 7 p.m.
Little Lake asked patrons and individuals who had taken classes or been involved with productions to submit stories for the presentation. The directors of each segment have wide latitude on how they will be presented, according to Jena Oberg, Little Lake’s artistic director. Some will just be read as stories, while others could be acted out in the form of a one-act play.
Tim Graettinger, a Chartiers Township resident, contributed a story about a wild drive back to his hometown in Illinois from the University of Iowa for Christmas in 1983. He and a couple of buddies piled into his Volkswagen Beetle, which did not have functioning brakes. In order to get the car to stop, Graettinger had to use the emergency brake. The journey home also involved laundry that Graettinger and his friends had accumulated flying all over the road.
“It was just dumb,” Graettinger remembered. “It wasn’t doing anybody any good. As soon as my mom found out, she put a stop to that. She gave me some money and we got it fixed.”
For information about or tickets to “A Very Little Lake Holiday,” visit littlelake.org.