Welcome To Our Town
Miko Calivo
Staff Writer
November 10-12: 17-19 at 7:30pm
in the Campus theatre
$9 general
$8 student and senior
Grover’s Corner is getting a little more interesting • Some town folk are whispering about the forthcoming wedding • At the altar, Emily Webb (Rita Patterson) and George Gibbs (Josh Ryder) – childhood friends turned sweethearts – are about to take the vow • “Do you, Emily, take this man, George, to be your wedded husband?” the Stage Manager (SCC English professor Dennis Peters) asks. “I do,” Emily replies • There is a brief pause, the couple gazing into each other’s eyes., and then – the kiss • Just as quickly as the kiss came, the act ended and the cast prepared to start rehearsing the act all over again •
Our Town may have been written in 1938, but this drama now more than ever holds relevance to today’s society. The lessons in life and love expressed through Our Town’s residents are timelier now more than ever and when the show opens Nov. 10, audiences will leave with this knowledge. First performed in New Jersey, Wilder’s play served as a stepping-stone for a new type of drama. At the time of writing, Wilder was quoted as saying that theater productions, “aimed to be soothing.” Wilder hoped to offer a play with a far-reaching theme and unmistakable realism. Audiences quickly welcomed the drama and critics called it “one of the finest achievements of the current stage” (New York Times). Since then, the show has been performed over and over again, introducing the Gibbs family and the Webb family to audiences around the world.
“Our Town is universal. Everyone lives, falls in love, suffers tragedy, experiences unfairness of illness and death,” director Chris Fisher said. “People endure these things and go on.” Wilder exposes this in Our Town. Most of the characters in this show get very close to bearing their hearts but instead avoid real conversation and start talking about the weather. According to Fisher, “Wilder wants to break the ice inside us and wake us up.” Wilder created his characters to live every day life and miss all of the important moments. His hope was to get audiences to “realize that this could be [their] life and [they] don’t get a do-over in life,” Fisher added.
After the show was selected last spring, the start date of the Fall ’06 quarter only left 6 weeks for preparations. Casting quickly became the immediate priority. The role of the Stage Manager was a no-brainer as Fisher instantly thought of Peters. “He was the only person I thought of for the role,” Fisher said. “If he had said ‘no’ I wouldn’t have done the show.”
Filling out the cast as the family and friends are Adam Ramm (Simon Stimson), Shaina Cochrane (Mrs. Soames), Nick Hagen (Joe Stoddard), Vasili Melnik (Howie Newsome), Mark Rozema (Mr. Webb), Norah Peters (Mrs. Gibbs), Denny Peters (Joe Crowell, Jr.), Siv Prince (Mrs. Webb), Tom Prince (Dr. Gibbs), Cassie Friedle (Rebecca Gibbs), Samuel Hamilton (Wally Webb), and Tracy Frye (Choir member).
In order to meet the demand of a six-week rehearsal schedule, Fisher and her cast worked diligently to bring Wilder’s classic to life in SCC’s Little Theater. “We don’t have a lot of time but we have a lot of hard working actors,” Patterson said. To get into the role, Patterson, “studied the time period because it was important to learn about the things the script makes references to.”
Spanning 12 years, Our Town shares three specific time periods of life in Grover’s Corner. Meeting the characters in 1901, George and Emily begin their relationship in subtle overtones. Act Two picks up in 1904 as George and Emily admit their feelings for each other, leading up to the wedding. In a larger span, Act Three resumes nine years later to allow Emily to examine the life she lived and begin to appreciate common, every day living.
Patterson is excited for the show in part because, “there seems to be a negative connotation following the show.” Our Town is a play about everyday life. “People expect drama to be filled with action and over-the-top emotion,” Peters said. “When we celebrate normal life, we don’t know what to do with that.” The cast hopes to fill the audience every night and to do that, Peters adds, “People have to decide to go with Wilder and play an ordinary day as an ordinary day.”
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