Ilta Evening
Free · No pass required
FREE Finnish Evening at Minnehaha Park
Play, Live Music + Dancing
One night only: Morton: The Forgotten Founder—a new history play with music—followed by live Finnish and Finnish American folk music and dancing with Lauluaika.
Free RSVP link will be added when Tommy supplies it.
This FREE public event is part of FinnFest USA 2026, September 17–20 in Minneapolis. No festival pass is required, and everyone is welcome.
Spend a September evening in Minnehaha Park with a story most Americans have never heard—and music that has kept Finnish communities dancing for generations.
Morton: The Forgotten Founder follows John Morton, the grandson of Finnish immigrants whose vote helped tip Pennsylvania toward the Declaration of Independence. Written by Laurie Flanigan Hegge and directed by Wendy Knox, this new play with music brings heart, tension and a rarely told Finnish American chapter of the nation’s founding to the stage during America’s 250th anniversary year.
The play was commissioned by Finlandia Foundation National and is presented by Finlandia Foundation National and Frank Theatre, together with FinnFest USA.
When the play ends, the evening keeps moving. Lauluaika—“Song Time”—will fill the pavilion with live Finnish and Finnish American folk music and dancing inspired by the old Finn Halls.
This is a free public event. No FinnFest pass is required, and everyone is welcome. Then explore the ticketed talks, workshops, films and performances that make up the full FinnFest weekend.
This is the kind of once-only FinnFest night people will talk about afterward.