On the weekend of May 24, Staples Players put on a production of the play “Our Town”. Our Town is a show about the daily lives of Americans and their conflicts with death, love and typical day to day activities. Students and teachers have been working on the play for months and are happy with how the performance ended.

The show focused around a small town called Grover’s Corners in New Hampshire. The two main families are the Gibbs and Webb families.

“Even though we were taking a glimpse into the lives of those in Grover’s Corners, it was a show that could resonate with any audience because of the shared experiences depicted in the plot, such as love, marriage, death and grief,” Nick Rossi ’19 said.

The show is particularly special because of one character who shapes the show: the stage manager. The stage manager is the narrator of the play and stops the show at different points throughout, making it unconventional and different.

“In ‘Our Town’ I played the stage manager…she helps set the scene and transport the audience into the world of Grover’s Corners,” Kristin Amato ’19 said. “I loved delving into the world of the characters and making the fictional town of Grover’s Corners feel very real.”

Another important character to the show is Mrs. Gibbs, the main wife and mother, who is played by Camille Foisie ’21.

“What I loved most about this production of ‘Our Town’ is that we took such a different look at such a classic piece of American literature,” Foisie said. “The show was taken in a direction of being very realistic as opposed to its typical interpretation of having a very period feeling to the play.”

Overall, “Our Town” was a well-liked show by Players’ students with a realistic and comforting story line. It even was special to the directors, David Roth and Kerry Long who were quoted in a press release saying, “Both directors’ love for the show dates back to their own time as Staples students. It was the first Players’ show Roth performed in after he moved to Westport, during the summer before his freshman year.”

“This was one of my favorite shows I did in my four years of Staples Players, not only because it is beautifully written, but also because the character work and staging that went into creating the production was such a phenomenal experience,” Amato said.