Sudden death of play director reels Cloquet theater community

A young man with an outsized personality and impact on the Cloquet theater world died

Saturday, while gardening at his home in Cloquet. Landon Hall, 23, a 2014 Cloquet High School graduate and the director of the past two fall musicals, "Legally Blonde" and "Hunchback of Notre Dame" was so big in the world of CHS theater that he even has a hallway named after him, in bedazzled letters: the Landon Hall Hall.

Family, friends, students, fellow actors and alumni, and fellow students at the College of St. Scholastica where he worked and studied will remember Landon in the newly renovated Cloquet High School Auditorium Friday. Visitation is from 2:30 p.m. until the 4 p.m. "tribute to Landon's legacy," which will include a rendition of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," from Hall's favorite high school role as the Tin Man in "Dorothy in Wonderland." Students are asked to wear shirts or sweaters from "Legally Blonde" or "Hunchback" or apparel from any other production Hall was a part of. Others are asked to wear vibrant colors to reflect Hall's high-spirited personality. People are also invited to bring a copy of their favorite photo of Landon to share on a memorial wall.

Members of Landon's theater team - who worked with him on set design, choreography, music and sound and light tech - opened up the auditorium to students on Sunday, so they could come and grieve together. They explained to the students there and on Facebook that the cause of death was unknown, but didn't involve any violence or drugs. He simply collapsed while gardening.

Hall and his team had recently cast the fall musical, "The Little Mermaid," another one of his favorite shows.

Find Hall's obituary on Page 6 of this week's Pine Knot News and look for a story about the tribute in next week's paper.