Exploring Grover’s Corners

Today finds me not in the usual place at all, not any where near the usual place in fact. Right now I am on a bus in New Hampshire, traveling to Portland, ME where I will then catch another bus to a little coastal town named Damariscotta (also in Maine) where I will meet the company of Heartwood Regional Theater and dive into rehearsals for Our Town.

I will be playing George Gibbs in one of the most iconic plays of the American theatre, so I suppose it definitely counts as a “dream role”. I say dream role though and yet this play was never really on my bucket list until recently. Of course I had read it in high school and even saw a production in college but I was never struck by the poignancy of the piece until much later. Perhaps as I grew older, and while I’ll admit twenty-five (tomorrow!) may not seem so advanced, I get what the Stage Manager is saying about all of us being alive for just the briefest of moments.

This is a point of view I could not have expressed ten years ago when I was a freshman in high school and that’s why I love this play so much, that’s why the play is everlasting. It evolves with you, meaning something new to you each time you read it, with every passing year. If there’s one thing I’ll look forward to getting older about, it’ll be finding an entirely new meaning in Wilder’s words. At twenty-five it’s George Gibbs but one day it’ll be Mr. Webb and then in more time, perhaps the Stage Manager who will speak to where I’m at in life’s journey.

This certainly promises to be a grand experience, getting to explore both coastal Maine and Grover’s Corners. I’ll let you know what happens.