'Our Town' comes to this town

LACONIA — When it opened on Broadway in 1938, Edward Albee called it “the greatest American play ever written.” Now "Our Town" is coming to your town.

Auditions for Thornton Wilder’s classic play about small town life, all its mundane, magic and heartbreaking events, will be held Sunday and Monday at the Colonial Theatre. 

It’s a novel opportunity for theater veterans and for area residents who are completely new to acting to sample what it’s like to participate in community theater.

“It’s about a New Hampshire community and the community involves people of all ages, people of all experience," said producer/director Bryan Halperin of the Powerhouse Theatre Collaborative, the Belknap Mill’s affiliate dedicated to performance. The play includes 21 major and minor speaking roles for people of all ages, and parts that are silent. “Anyone qualified to sit still in a chair for 30 minutes is qualified to be in this,” Halperin said.   

The storyline follows the daily lives of two families, Gibbs and Webb, who live next door to each other in fictional Grover’s Corners – a town inspired by Peterborough, where Wilder lived while he was an artist-in-residence at the MacDowell Colony. When "Our Town" premiered on Broadway nearly a century ago, it was considered avant-garde: For the first time theater featured actors speaking directly to the audience.

The production includes a large cast of extras who sing hymns in a church choir, and small parts for people who play the dead in a graveyard, sitting quietly or voicing their thoughts. Their message: Don’t take the joys of ordinary daily life for granted, because you won’t always be around to enjoy them.

“On one level, it’s about small-town New Hampshire,” said Halperin. “On another level, it’s about what it means to be human. It’s about any town, anywhere. It’s about the people in your life, the day-to-day aspects of your life that you miss when you’re gone. Today, people think of it as an old classic. In its time, it was groundbreaking.”

The play will be one of the first chances for community players to be on stage at the restored Colonial Theatre, now a regional performance venue. "Our Town" performances will occur November 19, 20 and 21.

Rehearsals will be held Sunday, Monday and Wednesday evenings starting in mid-September, with individual time commitments based on a character’s number of scenes. The ensemble will likely rehearse once every two weeks, said Halperin, and is open to seasoned singers and choir newcomers. “Anyone able to carry a tune is welcome,” he said.

“It’s a good opportunity for people who are curious about community theater. It’s a good opportunity to dip your toe in and see what the water is like. It’s a low pressure way to get your feel wet,” said Halperin, a co-founder of the Winnipesaukee Playhouse who now heads the Inter-Lakes School District’s theater program and runs Powerhouse with his wife, Johanna.

“The one wild card is we don’t know how bad COVID is going to hit the area in the next few months,” said Halperin. “We’re asking people to be flexible as things develop.”

Auditions at the Colonial Theatre on Main Street will be held Sunday at 3 p.m. for ages 10 to 15, and Sunday and Monday, Aug. 29 and 30 at 6:30 p.m. for ages 16 and up. Those who can’t make it can audition by video.

A read-through of the script will be held next Thursday, Sept. 2. Rehearsals will begin Sept. 19.

COVID-19 vaccination is required for participants age 12 and older. To register for the audition, and for more information including audition materials, go to https://www.belknapmill.org/powerhouse-auditions.