Balancing Passions: Sean and Amber’s Journey Into The Woods

For Sean and Amber Jacobson, it’s all about finding balance.

The couple is part of Into the Woods, both doing what they love, using their skills and fueling their passions, while also getting to enjoy the experience together.

Sean, from Montevideo, and Amber, from the Brainerd Lakes area, came to St. Cloud for college, found each other, and have been married for several years. The couple met online while attending college- Sean at St. John’s and Amber at St. Cloud State, where she majored in psychology.

Their first time working together on a GREAT show was in 2023 during Jimmy Buffett’s Escape to Margaritaville. Sean played piano and Amber was in the cast for the show. Now they’re teaming up again – Sean is playing piano in the Orchestra, as he does for many GREAT shows, and Amber will be on crew – a first for her!

Sean admits this is some of the most challenging music he’s played.

“It’s Sondheim, so everything is tricky!”, he laughs. “It’s nasty” (in a good way—challenging and fun).

As a crew member, Amber’s work on the show is just beginning with tech week. From here on out she will be moving scenic elements and assisting with props backstage during all rehearsals and performances. They balance one another – Amber is an extrovert who enjoys the spotlight and Sean is an introvert, happily “hiding in the pit” while playing piano.

During her teen years, Amber was involved with band and choir, and multiple theatre activities, including one-act, musicals and plays.

She refers to herself as the “weirdo who liked opera” when she was 14, noting that not many kids in her community shared that interest. “Everybody else was listening to country music,” she told us.

Sean has loved music for most of his life. He started piano lessons when he was eight and joined the band and choir in middle school and high school. That education helped him fall in love with music so much that he decided to make it his career. He moved to central Minnesota to earn his degree in music education from St. John’s University.

Since graduating, Sean has been involved in about a dozen GREAT productions in the past 13 years and has been teaching music, first with the St. John’s Boys Choir and now at St. John’s Prep. Amber’s work serving adults and children with developmental disabilities has kept her busy in recent years but she’s found balance and can now pursue more passions outside of her work.

They say their relationship has thrived because they make room for each other’s passions. “It’s hard sometimes,” Amber told us, “to feel like it would be nice to have more time together. But at the same time, you get to watch the person you love do what they’re passionate about.” While they often pursue their passions separately, when an opportunity to work on the same show came up, they took it! Amber said, “The more passion projects we can do together, the better it is for our relationship.” Sean pointed out, “When somebody has a busy night, the other one will be like, ‘Hey, I’ll cook dinner’, or ‘I’ll take care of the dogs’.” That’s two dogs… and eight fish tanks… and they could not agree on whether they have 86 or 89 houseplants (we didn’t want to get in the middle of that one!).

Those plants aren’t the only roots Sean and Amber have planned for central Minnesota. Although they aren’t originally from this area, they’ve put down roots here and plan to stay.