Exeter Summer has finally started and students have just recently began to feel like it’s their home. With the process of making new friends and mapping out your schedule for the next five weeks this first part has not been easy. But because they are who they are the students of Exeter have adjusted quite fittingly. Now the big question on everybody’s mind is what is there to do. Some have decided on the stage.
The theatre was created somewhere back in the 4th century B.C.E. There was none of the technology we have today to improve lighting or sound, just simple acting. Today there are actors all around the country performing in musicals and plays everywhere. Including a play here at Exeter Summer.
This summer, on July 26 and 27, the Theatre of Exeter will present a series of short plays from the production “Almost, Maine,” by John Cariani. Directed by Exeter’s drama instructor Kyle Nash, these shorts will be based around the idea of love. These plays will be extremely intriguing, and you won’t want to miss them. But don’t just take my word for it hear it from some students who are in the play.
Chadwick Ho is from Hong Kong but he resides in Australia. In the play he portrays a husband named Phil. Phil has sort of a narcissistic personality with not only his wife but his friends and family. He cares too much about himself and forgets he’s not easy to get along with. Chadwick, even though he auditioned late, has had a fun time in the play so far. He has met new people and really enjoyed trying something new. He says you’d make a mistake to miss it.
Jeanne Cavil is from Champaign, France and really glad to be apart of the play. She plays a part where she is in love with her best friend for quite a while. Yet when she tells her best friend something very interesting happens. Jeanne loves being in the play because, like Chadwick, she makes new friends all with different accents. She says her director is very nice and gives good advice. She describes the play as many “meaningful and funny stories about love.”
Another actor, Lauren Isaacson, is a fellow journalist at Exeter Summer, from Boston Massachusetts, who aspires to one day be a reporter for the NFL. In one of the shorts, Lauren is Marci, a loyal wife who tries to remind her husband of their anniversary but is unsuccessful. Lauren has experience in acting before and knows this play will be a fantastic performance.
Actors usually have months to prepare before they actually act but for these students it will only be a couple of weeks. The play will no doubt be amazing. These students will give it their all for your enjoyment, so it would be impolite not to come.
Here’s how the website Stageagent.com describes “Almost, Maine”:
A woman carries her heart, broken into nineteen pieces, in a small paper bag. A man shrinks to half his former size, after losing hope in love. A couple keep the love they have given each other in large red bags, or compress the mass into the size of a diamond. These playful and surreal experiences are commonplace in the world of John Cariani’s Almost, Maine, where on one deeply cold and magical Midwinter Night, the citizens of Almost — not organized enough for a town, too populated for a wilderness — experience the life-altering power of the human heart. Relationships end, begin, or change beyond recognition, as strangers become friends, friends become lovers, and lovers turn into strangers. Propelled by the mystical energy of the aurora borealis and populated with characters who are humorous, plain-spoken, thoughtful, and sincere, Almost, Maine is a series of loosely connected tales about love, each with a compelling couple at its center, each with its own touch of sorcery.
The Exeter Cast:
Juan Guerra, Derin Kutlay, Jessikah Morton, Dakota DeVore, Mira Kwon, Nicolas Ling, Nasir Al-Sabah, Laura Voytko, Jada Wilder, Rawan Ibrahim, Jeanne Cavil,Justin Rigg, Armed Telekt, Kaan Celik, Gabrielle Steg,Tommaso Cardella, Lauren Issacson.