T&C Exclusive: Broadway's Our Town Took A Field Trip And Brought Us Along
“Our Town is my favorite play in the world,” says Julie Halston, a lucky thing considering the celebrated actress will be playing Mrs. Soames in the Broadway revival of the Thornton Wilder play, beginning previews September 17 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. “It still resonates for a lot of reasons, one being that it’s about the basic elements of life: you’re born, you bond with someone, you die. It hits those biggies, and despite the changes we’ve seen to everyday life, all those things are still true.”
Recently, the cast and creative team of the play—including T&C September cover star Katie Holmes, Jim Parsons, Zoey Deutch, Ephraim Sykes, director Kenny Leon, scenic designer Beowulf Boritt, and more–took a field trip to Peterborough, New Hampshire, the town where Wilder wrote Our Town while in residence at the MacDowell Colony, and one which has some clear similarities to his fictional Grover’s Corners.
The group took the trip on the first day of rehearsals, meeting outside the Barrymore Theatre before hopping aboard two coaches to make the journey. Once in Peterborough, they had lunch at a local diner, got a tour of the town thanks to Gus Kaikkonen, a MacDowell fellow and former artistic director of the Peterborough Players, visited MacDowell and the Veltin Studio where Wilder wrote, and read through the play together for the first time at MacDowell's Bond Hall before returning to New York.
“It was very special,” Halson says. “When I first heard about it, I was like, ‘Really? Can't we look at photos? Why do we have to go there?’” But taking the trip changed her mind. “It does mean something to see where he wrote the play,” she says. “He'd been to the MacDowell retreat nine times, and he finished the play in this little studio cottage, and it reminded all of us that art is not easy. Art takes work, art takes reflection. I'm about as spiritual as my coffee cup, but it was very spiritual. It was when we were in a different environment, smelling that air, seeing the birds, hearing those sounds that we realized, oh, this is what Wilder is asking us to pay attention to.”
The visit not only helped the Our Town team understand more about Wilder’s world, but it made that first reading of the play more impactful. “We sat down and read the play and we were all crying,” Halston says. “It was very moving to see 28 people—we do not all know each other very well at all; most of us are getting to know each other for the first time—all moved by the same words. It was quite extraordinary. Having to the trip with a little bit of cynicism, wondering, is this going to be worth, we will all very pleased and very moved that we made that trip.”
Below, T&C and photographer Jenny Anderson tag along.
Richard Thomas and Ephraim Sykes
Matthew Elijah Webb and Ephie Ardema Sarnak
Jim Parsons and Julie Halston
"Jeffrey Richards [the producer] started us out by playing a game. I was like, really, Jeffrey, it's 7:30 in the morning, but we ended up having fun. He made us play a game where he would give us the last line of a play and we'd have to guess the play. That was how we started the trip—and we had fun doing that. They also fed us, and that's important for actors." — Julie Halston
Ephraim Sykes
"My favorite part of the day was after we finished the first read through. Myself and a few cast mates found ourselves standing outside of the bus, doing everything we could not to get on so we could bask and breathe in the fresh air, beautiful sunset and scenery of MacDowell Center grounds as long as possible."
Zoey Deutch
"As someone who has loved this play for so many years, it was beautiful to get to see the place that helped inspire Thornton Wilder. And meet and share it with all the amazing people I am so blessed to go on this journey with. A very special day indeed!"
Jim Parsons and Julie Halston
Safiya Kaijya Harris, Ephraim Sykes, and Michelle Wilson
The company of Our Town with the staff of the Peterborough Diner
A tour of MacDowell from David Macy, Resident Director of MacDowell
Kenny Leon, Katie Holmes, and Jim Parsons
Hagan Oliveras, Katie Holmes, Richard Thomas, Zoey Deutch, Jim Parsons, Ephraim Sykes, Michelle Wilson, Safiya Kaijya Harris, and Billy Eugene Jones
Beowulf Boritt
"I played the Stage Manager character in my ninth grade production of Our Town, and my mother says it's the first time she suspected I would spend my life in the theater. So, it was really moving to get to walk around Peterborough with Kenny Leon and this cast, and to experience the places Thornton Wilder was writing about, see the houses on the main street where the Gibbs and the Webbs would have lived, smell of the pine forests, and hear the birds. The play encourages us to recognize the moments of beauty in our brief lives, and it was a beautiful moment for me to inaugurate this new Our Town in the original town."
Gus Kaikkonen and the company of Our Town
Jim Parsons
"It was very moving to me to visit the MacDowell residency in Peterborough. I first heard of MacDowell in Spalding Gray’s monologue “Monster in a Box,” which would be the same monologue where he recounts his experience performing the role of the Stage Manager in Our Town on Broadway in the '80s. In addition to this, I recently worked with Paula Vogel and she actually spent time writing in the same cabin where Thornton Wilder wrote part of Our Town, and to move through that space was electric for me, a real walk through history and inspiration."
The first read through of Our Town at MacDowell
Katie Holmes
Kenny Leon, Katie Holmes, Ricardo Vázquez, Zoey Deutch, and Ephie Ardema Sarnak
You Might Also Like
