“OUR TOWN” IS COMING TO OUR TOWN…

It’s a play everyone of us knows, most of us have seen, and many of us have taken part in over the years.  On Saturday evening at 7:00 pm, February 25th all of us will have an opportunity to experience Thornton Wilder’s greatest play in a totally new way.  The “Oral Tradition” of the Pilgrim Place Scrooby Club is presenting a reader’s theater production of the Pulitzer awarded and quintessentially American play, “Our Town” on the Decker Hall stage.

Our spoken arts version of the play, like the original 1938 production, is intended to be in the “minimalist tradition.” There is no scenery or special costuming save that which is colorfully painted in the rich imagination of the mind’s eye of the audience.  True to the oral tradition, this reader’s theater production features only the well rehearsed voices of friends and neighbors to create the timeless characters in the play, who in tern quickly come to seem like our friends and neighbors.

Set in a typical, albeit fictional New England village of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, “Our Town” addresses the changes on and in the lives of various characters over a thirteen year period at the beginning of the twentieth century.  The audience is guided throughout by the insightful commentary of a “Stage Manager,” who focuses attention and provides a context for a better understanding of the play’s conversations and motivations.  All of this is simply set yet skillfully accomplished through the plain and powerful medium of the spoken word.

This Pilgrim Place production will be the first of Wilder’s peerless play since the legendary Pilgrim, the late Bob Dewey directed and performed as the Stage Manager in his adaptation of play’s moving final act.  His 1994 production was entitled, “Emily’s Return.”  The current Pilgrim Place effort is from a slightly pared script that provides all for three acts, and was especially created for the Decker Hall stage.

As is always the case for Scrooby Club “Oral Tradition” offerings, the entire Pilgrim Place community in invited and guests are most welcome.  From more information call 909.399.5500.