Our Town: April 30, May 1, and May 2 at 7:00 p.m.

Join us this week for a special Readers' Theater of Our Town.  Read more about this wonderful production from the Mountain Democrat.  Tickets are $5 and are available online and at the door.

Imagination Theater presents "Our Town" (Readers' Theater)

Thorton Wilder's Classic Story.  Only 3 evenings!

  

  Wednesday, April 30, 7:00 p.m.

  Thursday, May 1, 7:00 p.m.

Friday, May 2, 7:00 p.m.

Tickets $5 (Suggested Donation) s General Seating

Tickets Online 24/7 or 1-800-838-3006, Option 1

Theater & box office:  100 Placerville Drive

on the El dorado County Fairgrounds, Placerville s 530-642-0404

Seeking Teens (15+) for Our Town

Auditions are coming up on March 23 for Our Town.  It is going to be a Readers Theater and adapted to Placerville in 1901.  Roles are available for adults and children, yet the theater is especially interested in teens ages 15+ for a couple of the leading roles.  Contact Lanny if you have questions at 530-903-6361.

Our Town Rehearsal Dates (Revised)

Love theater? Want to squeeze in a little Readers' Theater this spring? Join us for Thorton Wilder's classic, Our Town which has been adapted to Placerville in 1901. 

There are five parts available for kids (age 12+) and twenty or so parts for adults age (18+).   We are looking for a teen boy and girl ages 15/16+ for a couple of the roles.  There are eight reading rehearsals.   

Eight reading rehearsals on: Thursday, March 27 (Character Study) Act 1, Sunday, March 30 (Character Study, Read Act 2 and 3), Monday, March 31 (Read Entire Play), Wednesday, April 2 (Read Entire Play), Wednesday, April 9 (Read Entire Play) Wednesday, April 16 (Dress Rehearsal), Tuesday, April 22 (Dress Rehearsal, Sound, Lights), Monday, April 28 (Final Dress Rehearsal).

There will be three performances--April 30, May 1 and 2 at 7:00 p.m. with donation (suggested) of $5.00. General Seating.

Bring your good reading voice and join us for the audition/reading on March 23 at 6:00 p.m.

More Audition Information for Our Town

Imagination Theater will be have reading auditions for Thornton Wilder's awarding winning play "Our Town" on Sunday evening, March 23rd at 6:00pm at Imagination Theater.  Imagination Theater will be doing a Reader's Theater production of this classic.  Auditioners will be asked to read form the script and possible some improvisation.  There are parts for approximately 19 actors which includes three boys (two age 11 to 13 yrs old and another 16 to 19 years old), three girls (one 10 to 13 years old, and two 14 to 19 years old) and the remaining actors ages between 20 to 70 (8 men and 7 women).

If you haven't read in a Reader's Theater it is a very enjoyable experience for both the actors and audience.  This is a great way to improve on your diction and character development.  There will be only eight rehearsals and three performances. The Performance Dates are April 30, May 1 and 2 at 7pm at Imagination Theater.  Scripts are available to check out at our Box Office.  Box Office hours are Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10 to 2:30pm.  For further information on Our Town please call Lanny Langston, the director, at 530 903-6361.

Our Town Overview

From the Thorton Wilder Society web page (article by Ashley Gallagher)  

First produced and published in 1938, this Pulitzer Prize–winning drama of life in the small village of Grover’s Corners has become an American classic and is Thornton Wider’s most renowned and most frequently performed play.

“No curtain. No scenery.” A minimalist theatrical style sets apart the 1938 recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. Wilder’s greatest and best-known work as a playwright, Our Town opens with the Stage Manager’s introduction to Grover’s Corners, a fictional town based on Peterborough, New Hampshire where Wilder often spent his summers. The sparse and symbolic qualities of the set suggest Wilder’s intention to make Grover’s Corners represent all towns.1 

The Stage Manager, played by Wilder himself for two weeks in the 1938 Broadway production, breaks the fourth wall by directly addressing the audience. The Stage Manager also assumes control over the onstage action through such unconventional, metatheatrical devices as prompting actors and cueing scene changes. Once the actors have been set in motion by the Stage Manager in Act I, entitled, “Daily Life,” the allegorical world of Grover’s Corners unfolds. The audience is introduced to the Gibbs and Webb families who symbolize “ordinary people who make the human race seem worth preserving and represent the universality of human existence.”2 Wilder explores the families’ inter-relationships, specifically between George Gibbs and Emily Webb. The audience watches George and Emily talk through their second story bedroom windows, represented by ladders: their simple actions complemented by the simple set. Act II, “Love and Marriage,” takes place three years later on George and Emily’s wedding day. After listening to Dr. and Mrs. Gibbs talk about their own wedding day, the Stage Manager transports the audience back to the days of George and Emily’s high school courtship. In this scene, Emily expresses her disdain for George’s conceited behavior. To make amends, George buys Emily an ice cream soda presented in an imaginary glass by Mr. Morgan, played by the Stage Manager. As this glimpse into George and Emily’s past comes to an end, George decides not to go to agriculture school so he can remain in Grover’s Corners, close to Emily. Then, the audience again finds itself at George and Emily’s wedding. The Stage Manager, now playing a minister, focuses the audience’s attention on the tearful and anxious families before George and Emily blissfully run up the aisle, ending Act II. In Act III, Wilder focuses on the end of the life cycle. Nine more years have gone by and Emily has died in childbirth. As the funeral procession crosses the stage, Emily, dressed in white, emerges from behind the mourners’ umbrellas and sits next to the deceased Mrs. Gibbs in the graveyard. Emily begins to question what it means to live and die, and, although warned against it, chooses to relive her twelfth birthday. Deeply saddened by everything she failed to notice while alive, Emily asks the Stage Manager to take her back to her grave but hesitates a moment to say good-by to the world. As Emily accepts her death, George falls at her feet in grief. While watching George, Emily asks Mrs. Gibbs, “They don’t understand, do they?” to which Mrs. Gibbs responds, “No, dear. They don’t understand.”3 As Emily settles in with the dead of Grover’s Corners, the Stage Manager bids the audience a good night.

*****

Thornton Wilder’s 1938 Pulitzer Prize-winning play made its debut at Princeton, New Jersey’s McCarter Theater before ultimately moving to the Henry Miller Theatre in New York City. In the New York Times review, Brooks Atkinson called Our Town “one of the finest achievements of the current stage…a hauntingly beautiful play.”4 Despite the myriad of interpretations of Our Town, most critics agree that the play is a microcosm of the life cycle. As Haberman writes, “[Wilder] is reminding the audience of how precious daily life is, because it determines our true reality…our enduring identity is not derived from the things and the events because they are familiar and repeated, but from our ever-new, ever-fresh relation to them.”5 Wilder also demonstrates that these aspects of daily life and their constant renewal are universal to all generations and cultures. While Act I covers “Daily Life,” Act II explores “Love and Marriage.” Once the audience is transported back to George and Emily’s wedding day, they hear various characters’ opinions about marriage, which compels them to make their own judgment and promotes the idea that while marriage may be another part of daily life, “each marriage is different from all the others, and no definition could satisfy everybody.”6 Our Town’s emphasis on the universality of daily life, conscious audience engagement, and minimalist theatrical style are a few of the signature techniques which have qualified Wilder’s work both at home and abroad as the “most representative and significant product of the modern American theater.”7  Since the play’s tremendous success in New York, Our Town has become a popular play in schools and community theaters.

Imagination Theater looks forward to bringing this Readers' Theater adaptation of Our Town to Placerville April 30 through May 2 at 7:00 p.m.   

Audition: Our Town (Readers' Theater) - March 23 at 6:00 p.m.

Love theater? Want to squeeze in a little Readers' Theater this spring? Join us for Thorton Wilder's classic, Our Town which has been adapted to Placerville in 1901. There are five parts available for kids (age 12+) and twenty or so parts for adults age (18+).  The audition is Sunday, March 23 at 6:00 p.m.   There are eight reading rehearsals in March and April. There will be three performances--April 30, May 1 and 2 at 7:00 p.m. with a donation (suggested) of $5.00. General Admission. Bring your good reading voice and join us for the audition in March!