Our Town

Inside the Pres theater, our own thespian community has been hard at work polishing acting and memorizing lines. And few have more to do than the play’s female lead, junior Sophie Wood. As a member of ITS (the International Thespian Society), Wood has done a few minor productions and has been an active member of Speech and Debate. Wood’s event in Speech is DI, or Dramatic Interpretation (basically the acting out of a scene from a play, book, or movie). But this is her first main role in such a big production on the Pres stage. After being encouraged by her friend, junior Jennifer O’Brien, who plays the part of Wood’s mother in the play, Wood decided to try out.

“I suppose it was on a whim,” Wood admits, “but many of my friends are in theatre and love it so I thought I should try as well. I guess sometimes peer pressure can be good after all!” When asked how she felt when she auditioned, Wood laughs and says she was terrified.

“I was so nervous because I’d never really auditioned for anything before– I had to keep asking the people around me what to do next! It was scarier than my rounds in Speech and Debate, because there you get feedback on little sheets of paper. But when you audition in theatre, you put yourself out there for personal rejection.”

In her audition monologue, Wood used a piece from her DI—Rabbit Hole, by David Lindsay Abaire. In the scene, a husband and wife struggle to deal with the loss of their only son, Danny, from a car accident. In her DI, Wood portrays different characters with a change in voice or position.

However, she had no real pick in mind when it came to the characters in Our Town. “I was really open to anything—I thought for certain I would get a small part and I was totally fine with that. I was completely shocked when I found out that I was cast as Emily Webb!” When asked how she gets into character, Wood said that it is fairly easy to portray Emily Webb due to the energy of the rest of the cast, despite the fact that Emily herself is quite different than Wood.

But as any theatre member will tell you, the casting is only the beginning of an arduous but ultimately rewarding process. Rehearsals started in January and progressed from two hours to three and a half hour rehearsals during “hell week,” or the week right before the opening of the show. As an honors student, Sophie has to be careful to balance her lines and her schoolwork. She is thankful for collaborations, saying that they are what enable her to really get most of her work done. Memorizing her lines does not pose too much of a problem, for at rehearsals the cast runs through everything with scripts before they go “off book” so that the actors can get used to the feeling and context of the lines before they are forced to fully memorize them.

Blocking, or the way actors move around the stage, is done in much the same way. When Mr. Houle gives out blocking instructions during rehearsals, Wood makes sure to write them in the margins of her script so that when she’s going over her lines later the blocking will stand out. “It has all been a bit stressful,” Wood says, “but I think it’s definitely worth it.” The most worthwhile part of the whole Pres theatre experience for Wood has been working with the cast of Our Town. “It’s so much fun to work alongside with the people you go to school with in a totally different medium!” Wood says.

In regards to the male cast members, Wood admits that, while it is odd to see male specimens on campus who aren’t teachers, after a while she got used to their presence. After all, much like everyone else, the boys are just teenagers who love theater and who have joined the cast to demonstrate that. But unlike many plays, Our Town offers the cast members little time back stage and out of sight.

“In the show,” Wood says, “we actually have galleries onstage where cast members not performing at the moment sit down. Thus there is not a lot of ‘backstage’ time. Basically, while in the galleries we sit there and remain quiet. When backstage, (for a few seconds before your cue), I usually have quick conversations with the techies who I loveth so!”

When asked if there was anything that she didn’t “loveth” about the theater, Wood laughs. “The yellow seats,” she says. “When you are onstage the yellow of the seats really jumps out at you and kinda cause you to break the fourth wall by staring at the seats. I think that’s the real reason why everyone should come watch the show—if all the seats are full, none of the actors will have to look at the yellow backs of the seats!”

Wood readily admits, however, that this should be only one of the reasons to watch Our Town. She finds the play itself very interesting, as Our Town not only centers on the concept of daily life, but constantly reinforces the fact that the play itself it is nothing more than a pantomime. The lack of anything but the most rudimentary props constantly reminds the audience that what they are seeing is nothing more than actors on a stage, acting, not living, in a town that mimics reality, but is not in itself real.

However, the nerves that actors experience opening night is often all too real. While she admits to having been nervous before the start of the first show, Wood said that once she was performing everything came naturally. “Once you’re on stage and you start doing everything that you’ve rehearsed a thousand times, it’s no longer terrifying,” she said. “It’s when you’re offstage that the nerves come back to you!” Though the actors practice numerous times in the empty theater, it is an entirely different feeling to perform to a full audience. “It’s different than rehearsal.” Wood said. “You need to pause of laughter, especially in times you wouldn’t expect to be funny; that can throw you off sometimes. And everyone performs better—they bring more to the show when there’s an audience. There’s just a whole other vibe coming from the cast, and that pushes everyone involved to do better.” Wood says that one of the most important things about the play is that it “makes you realize that we take everything for granted. We never realize what it is we have till it’s gone. And all of that might seem to be cliché, but it really does ring true.” So go see Our Town before it’s too late! The play runs till March 13^th and tickets are selling fast, so go to the pres website and buy yours today.

A ladder as a window and a cupped hand for a glass—minimalistic set pieces to tell the bare bones of an American classic. Our Town, a play by Thornton Wilder, chronicles the life of its two central characters, George Gibbs and Emily Webb, within the confines of a stage and the merit of its actors. With few props and little scenery, the actors are left for themselves to flesh out the story of growing up, falling in love and striving to understand the importance of a life pursued. As the stage managers narrate the story of the children who would grow up to be sweethearts and start a family of their own, they manage to offer subtle glimpses along the way into the lives of the small community nestled in the fictional New England town of Grover’s Corners.