Tonight the fall play, “Our Town” opens and will run through the weekend, Nov. 3-5.
“Our Town” is a three-act play written by Thornton Wilder that is set in the early 1900s. The story takes the audience through the normal, everyday life of two families in the small town of Grover’s Corners.
“I think Our Town is unique because there are three acts, so it’s a longer play, and there’s really diverse moments.” Grace Yoder said. Yoder is a senior who is acting in the lead role, Emily.
“I would say a majority of it is contemplative,” Yoder said. “I think it (the play) really wants the audience to think about their life and about what’s important to them.”
With opening night just around the corner, tech week is well underway with rehearsals as a daily occurrence.
“It’s definitely gotten busy,” Yoder said. “It was pretty chill in the beginning, just a couple practices a week, but then as you need your lines memorized and all of that, it kind of got intense.”
Despite that intensity, or because of it, the fall play seems to be right on track.
“There’s a couple of little repairs I need to tweak,” junior costume head Brecken Meiners said. “Like fixing buttons and doing some hems, taking things in, letting things out, fixing zippers, fixing snaps, there’s little things like that.”
The story of “Our Town” is a beloved play among all of the cast members, and something that the performers look at fondly.
“It is a kind of social commentary on just life itself and how quickly life goes by,” Meiners said. “Andall of the little details you miss. It’s just really beautiful.”
Three Theater Education student directors are leading the play as their capstone project for ISU, and they have played a big part in leading rehearsals.. They have each been directing their own act since early September when auditions and roles were cast.
“We all kind of run our rehearsals a little bit differently, but not to the point where it’s jarring to the cast,” Markos Carmona, an ISU director, said. Carmona is in charge of managing Act III.
All in all, “Our Town” is set to be a reflection of how much hard work has gone into this show.
“It just takes a lot of commitment, and we’ve made it work with everyone’s crazy schedules,” Carmona said. “So many of the kids here are involved in so much, and we’re happy they are because it just shows their creativity each and every day.”
Tickets available through Ticketleap
Performances are Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.
