Saturday, February 24, 2024 Doors Open: 5:30PM Show: 7:00PM

Tickets: $26/Half-Price Youth 17 & Under

Sponsored by: Apostle Islands Booksellers

The Backstage's 2024 season is sponsored in part by Jim Bryan & Dee Johnson. 

Michael Perry, the New York Times bestselling author of over 20 books including Population 485; Truck, and Forty Acres Deep (and subject of three PBS specials) has been writing songs since the late 1990s. “First show I ever did, I ain’t sayin’ I was nervous, but I ripped out a sixty-minute set in thirty-two minutes flat,” says Perry. He and his band the Long Beds have toured steadily ever since.  Mary Cutrufello played her first Long Beds show in the dust of a county fair horse pull, showed up for the next gig anyway, and has held down the lead slot for years now. A Connecticut-raised Ivy Leaguer who earned her first record deal after scorching a trail through the Texas roadhouse scene armed with a yellow Telecaster, a truckful of originals, and gutsy vocals, she has gone on to become equally well-known for her fiery Midwestern roots rock and powerhouse acoustic performances.  As a duo, Perry and Cutrufello are as at ease with the audience as they are with each other. The songs hit directly and cleanly, the harmonies contrast like worn leather and rough-cut lumber, and the stage banter plays like a conversation between two longtime road-wise friends who’ve taken their lumps and their chances, whose trade is words and music but know what it is to work a loading dock or a pitchfork, and who figure if life ain’t played out exactly as you drew it up, you might as well laugh about it, sing about it, and get on with it.

To purchase tickets, please visit Big Top Chautauqua's website:

Lake Superior Big Top Chautauqua | Description - Michael Perry & Mary Cutrufello (ticketsbigtop.org)