"If you’ve never seen Our Town before, our production is an honest representation of one of the best plays ever written," says director and actor Geoffrey Kent. "If you’ve seen Our Town before, I hope you'll see it again, because you're at a different place in your life, and different things will resonate with you now. This play has stuff that's relevant for teens, parents, grandparents and those facing the last moments of life."
Our Town tells a story about residents of a fictionalized American town, Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, during the early twentieth century, as they deal with the complexities of life in a small community. Through the relationship of neighbors George Gibbs (played by Thomas "Teej" Morgan-Arzola) and Emily Webb (Claylish Coldiron), the play takes audiences on a three-act journey through the circle of life.
The script invokes meta-theatrical techniques, such as the play being set, not just staged, inside the theater in which it is being performed, and including the venue's stage manager (Geoffrey Kent) as its narrator, to connect the audience and performers. Since its premiere, this play has been one of Wilder's most frequently performed, and critics laud it for its ability to capture the universal human experiences of love, life and loss.
"My concept for the show is to just try to do the play simply and clearly," Kent says. "Our framework is what we call a designer run, which is a part of the normal rehearsal process in American theater. It’s a performance of the show that all the designers come to watch, pre-adding costumes, lights, sound and set. We're attempting to capture that moment before the technical elements enter the story, so this production is very stripped down."
The only musical accompaniment in Our Town is a vintage 1860s pump organ, played by Frank Oden, and arranged by music director Emily Van Fleet, who also plays Mrs. Gibbs in the production. There is hardly any lighting or sound design; the props are portrayed by the actors using mime, and the costumes are simple pieces.
"One of the things I've come to appreciate about the play is that it's a love letter to theater-making," says Matt Zambrano, who plays Mr. Webb in the production and serves as the pantomime consultant. "In a time when so much theater is over-designed or filled with projections, it's a gift to return to storytelling at its most basic level."
Our Town opens on Friday, February 24, and is presented along with Karen Zacarías’s contemporary comedy The Book Club Play, which opens on March 17, as a part of the Arvada Center’s repertory theater season. The organization began experimenting with a repertory model back in 2016, when it cast a troupe of actors who perform up to three plays on alternating days in its black box space.
Thirteen actors perform in Our Town as part of the Arvada Center's repertory company, and seven of them will also appear in The Book Club Play. "Usually when you're casting repertory, you never get to cast your dream cast because you're always compromising with the needs of the other play," Kent explains. "Lynne and I cast our shows together, and we immediately agreed on the actors. We always want our cast here to be a mix of new and old, both in terms of age and experience. So this cast has people who've done lots of repertory theater before, and people who are doing some of their first professional work."
Blending new actors with seasoned professionals allows for each group to learn from each other and brings in a diversity of perspectives. This artist-forward approach to theater is one of the reasons Kent prioritizes working at the Arvada Center.
"Our rehearsal room is close to what I would call Buntport's style of theater," Kent says. "It's highly collaborative. and we're all asking each other, ‘Does that work? Great! Let's do more of that and less of that,' and we're all kind of as a group just constantly shifting things, and I love it. The best idea wins, and it doesn’t matter where that idea comes from; we're just trying to have fun telling stories."
This is Zambrano's first time as a repertory company member at the Arvada Center, and he's been enjoying the experience. "Geoff is a great director who knows he doesn't know everything and creates a room where people feel like we can contribute to the conversation," Zambrano says. "It just feels like now more than ever that joy is an active, radical choice of resistance, so I’m just loving going to work and getting to have fun."
Frank Oden and Claylish Coldiron sit near a piano in the rehearsal room of the Arvada Center's production of Our Town.
Courtesy of the Arvada Center
"Geoff has created this lovely environment for problem-solving," Van Fleet says. "Every day we're asking, 'What do you think the playwright meant when they wrote this?' It's a testament to a really good play and a great production when it doesn't give you everything or answer all the questions for you. That means the audience will get to have their own opinions about what happens, which I think is sort of beautiful."
Van Fleet's thoughts on the play have evolved over the years. She remembers relating to the struggles of the teenage characters when she studied it in high school and college. Now that she is a mom, however, she connects more with the adults in the story.
"I feel like Mrs. Gibbs is a lot like me, and it's almost harder to play a character that's so close to you, because you can't hide behind the armor of someone else," she says. "These characters are real people, and they're not caricatures. They're not broad or huge; they're simple and earnest, and that's really vulnerable for an actor. So just sort of leaning into that and not trying to add anything that doesn't serve that character in the story is my biggest challenge."
Kent is in the thick of acting and directing responsibilities as the show gets ready for its opening night. Even as he rushes to make sure the production is ready, he can't help but reflect on the play's transient nature.
"Our Town breaks apart sentimentality to remind us of the value of each moment," Kent says. "No human being can live every moment to its fullest, but all human beings could live each moment a little bit more. The play makes you want to call your mother or reach out to your children and celebrate them, because the time we have on this planet is fleeting. I hope that after [audience members] leave, they will just take a moment to appreciate the present."
Our Town, Saturday, February 25 through May 21; various times, Arvada Center, 6901 Wadsworth Bld., Arvada. Find tickets, starting at $45, and more information at arvadacenter.org.
