Seneca High School fall drama students will take audiences through the lives of everyday people in a way that will make them realize that everyday life is extraordinary.
Seneca High School’s fall drama is “Our Town” by Thornton Wilder, a play following the lives of the fictional town of Grover’s Corners, N.H. “Our Town” is being performed at the high school Dec. 1, 2 and 3 at 7 p.m. and a 1 p.m. matinee on Saturday. Tickets are $7 at the door.
“Our kids have worked extremely hard on this production, and I really think it’s something special,” assistant director Allisson Dougherty said.
“Our Town” is a three-act play that follows the lives of individuals in the town of Grover’s Corners, specifically three days in the life of Emily Webb, played by Ally Lardner — a day in her childhood, her marriage and her death. During the play, relationships between the townspeople are highlighted, and at the end, as Emily dies and moves into the afterlife, there is a strong message to pay attention to the mundane, everyday details of life, because they are the moments that are truly important, according to Dougherty.
“We live in a world where there any many things dividing our attention — jobs, bills, chores — and we rarely stop and truly look at one another. That’s a message that is timeless,” Dougherty said.
“It allows you to take a closer look into everyday life and how everyday things are extraordinary. It is not a show where amazing, impossible things are happening. It is just people living their lives and how that, in itself, can be amazing,” senior Emily Chant, playing Mrs. Gibbs, said.
The 25-student cast, with two student directors, has been working on “Our Town” with director Robert Yates and Dougherty since September. The play is a hard one to perform, as there is no timeline, little scenery and the story has many different ranges of emotion and themes throughout, yet Dougherty felt the cast was up for the challenge.
“’Our Town’ is a play that everyone remembers from 10th-grade English class. The themes of love, marriage, childrearing and death are universal — whether you live in a small town or a city. We thought that we had the cast perform a play that is both serious and comical, and I think we’ve really pulled it off,” Dougherty said.
“We put a lot of hard work and dedication into this, so it is a good opportunity to see us at our most vulnerable and most open,” Lardner said.
Dougherty and members of the cast hope the audience can feel a connection to characters and take away the various themes and morals of the play.
“I hope that the audience can recognize the same personalities in Grover’s Corners that they see in their own town. I hope that they can identify and empathize with their struggles, successes and failures,” Dougherty said. “Hopefully the audience will leave the theater, take a deep breath, look around and really see and appreciate their lives.”
“The moral is that ordinary life is wonderful and should be treated as the miracle that it is. I hope by the end of the show people will see that and at least look at things under a different light and be a little more thankful for the regular, ordinary things,” senior Dylan Paulson, playing the stage manager/narrator, said.
Locals are asked to support the drama program at Seneca High School, enjoy the performance and maybe take away a new appreciation of life.
“I think people should come out and see ‘Our Town’ because we’ve worked so hard. I think it has a strong message and (hope) that people leave more appreciative of life,” Lardner said.
Seneca High School is located at 110 Carranza Road in Tabernacle.
