‘Our Town’ comes to Bennington Nov. 21, 22

By Dawson Raspuzzi Herald Staff

Seventy years after it was written by Thornton Wilder and then performed across the country, the timeless portrayal of everyday New England life in the classic “Our Town” will come to the Bennington Center for the Arts .

The production is a collaboration between theater students at the college, professionals from Oldcastle Theatre Company in Bennington, and a couple of Poultney children.

The production marks the first time GMC has teamed with Oldcastle and the first time “Our Town” has been performed at the college since the 1940s, said theater professor John Nassivera.

“‘Our Town’ is a huge cast so professional companies can almost never afford to do the show because the cast is so big, and colleges can come up with the people, but if you don’t have the age difference between the parents and stage manager and the kids you don’t have a play,” Nassivera said. “By combining the two you can come up with an excellent production, the best of both worlds.”

Held in the recently refurbished Ackley Theatre, professional actors — who have all performed in past productions of “Our Town” — fill the roles of the two sets of parents and the stage manager, while the majority of other parts are filled by students in the college’s theater department.

“I love working with students and professionals. Students see how the professionals work — this is how you approach your parts, this is how you learn your lines, this is how you take notes … and then it’s a burst of enthusiasm from the kids that we get excited about,” said director Eric Peterson, the founding artistic director of the Oldcastle Theatre.

“The students all improve dramatically. It’s a wonderful lesson to them,” he said.

This will be Peterson’s second time directing the play in a joint production with college students, with the first time 25 years ago. He said he’s since developed a deeper appreciation for the play.

“It’s just so real, they are people, characters, situations we can recognize. It’s about falling in love, dying, it’s about family … it has all the varieties of life,” Peterson said.

The production is special to Paula Mann, a GMC theater professor who plays Professor Willard in the play, as her first professional acting role many years ago was Emily Webb, the main character in the play.

“For me, I just think it’s a wonderful play and a great play to do in New England,” Mann said. “The message of the play really is that we need to realize life while we’re living it.”

It is fitting to have a 70th anniversary production in Vermont, Mann said, as the play is set in the fictional town of Grover’s Corners, based on the town of Peterborough, N.H., just across the North Connecticut River, where Wilder wrote much of the play.

A special guest will be in the audience on opening night. Peter Davis will be seeing “Our Town” for the second time since playing a newsboy in the original national tour of the play in 1939, and on the big screen in Sam Wood’s film when he was 12 years old.

Davis, who now lives in Dorset, played alongside his brother, Tim, who portrayed the other newsboy, as well as stars of the big screen William Holden, Martha Scott, Fay Bainter and Thomas Mitchell in the 1940 film.

After winning the role on the production’s West Coast tour, where it competed with John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men,” Davis said he and the rest of the cast never imagined “Our Town” would become as popular as it is today — now being one of the most-performed productions at high school and college levels.

“The original play, which has become such an American classic, was not as successful in Los Angeles, basically because it was a movie town … and without scenery the Hollywood people didn’t get it,” Davis said. “I don’t think any of us at the time, even Thornton Wilder, ever dreamed it would become the icon it has become — the sort of modern classic.”

Now 70 years, Davis said he’s still amazed to hear about it being continually performed.

“The source of its continuing popularity is that it touches people because it is so real and comes so close to touching the daily life, the common lives of Americans — it’s just very real and very New England,” he said.

Davis said he’s only seen “Our Town” performed one time when he wasn’t in the cast, approximately 30 years ago in Washington, D.C., and he is anxious to see it again.

The play will also be presented at the Bennington Center for the Arts at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 21 and 22 and tickets for those performances can be bought in advance at 447-0564.

Contact Dawson Raspuzzi at dawson.raspuzzi@rutlandherald.com.