Auditions for Almost Maine by John Ciardi, Trinity Street Players, December 1

Trinity Street Players announces open auditions for Almost Maine by John Cariani, produced by Trinity Street Players in downtown Austin, directed by Cathy Jones: 901 Trinity Street, 4th floor Saturday, December 1st, 10am .

Auditions will be for 2 female & 1 male actors and 2 non-speaking "stage hands" who are not afraid to wear goofy clothes and participate in sight gags. Almost Maine is a romantic fantasy for the Valentine's season with 9 different scenes only partially interconnected. Each actor will play 5-6 roles. 

Rehearsal will be through January, tech Jan 27-31, and performance the first 3 weekends in February Friday and Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons. Please bring a short comic scene you have prepared, or just come and read one of ours. If you have questions, please call Cathy Jones 512-632-2820.

Upcoming: Almost, Maine, Texas State University, October 27 - 30

Found on-line:

presents

Almost, Maine

by John Cariani

directed by Crystal Franz

October 27-29 at 7:30 p.m.; October 30 at 2 p.m.

PSH Foundation Theatre, Texas State University Drama Department

430 Moon Street, San Marcos

With more than 600 productions Almost, Maine is one of the most produced contemporary American plays of the past five years. Charming, whimsical, clever, thought-provoking, and honest, this play strings together a series of vignettes to tell the story of a rural, mythical town, where ordinary people undergo surprising and extraordinary events. With broken hearts and heads over heels, this tragicomedy is a love story of the most fantastic kind.

Upcoming: Almost, Maine, University Theatre Guild, UT Student Center Black Box Theatre, April15 - 17

Found on-line:

University Theatre Guild

presents

Almost, Maine

directed by Walt Lengel

Three chances to watch!
April 15, 16, and 17 at 7 p.m. each night.
In the new Blackbox Theater in the SAC 2.304 (UT Campus East Mall – click for map)

Tickets are $7, $5 with a student ID

This is a show you won’t wanna miss, so make sure you don’t!

On a cold, clear, moonless Friday night in the middle of winter, all is not quite what it seems in the remote, mythical town of Almost, Maine. As the northern lights hover in the star-filled sky above, residents of Almost find themselves falling in and out of love in unexpected and often hilarious ways. Knees are bruised; hearts are broken. Love is lost, found, and confounded. But the bruises heal and the hearts mend – almost – in a story that explores the mysteries of the human heart, touching audiences with laughter, heartbreak and hope. (synopsis taken from website, almostmaine.com)

Click for cast and crew list at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Arts Reporting: The Success of Broadway Flop 'Almost, Maine'

Thomas Cott's 'You've Cott Mail' publishes an excerpt from the December 17 article by Cara Joy David profiling the widespread success of the multicharacter piece done in January, 2009 by the Gaslight Baker Theatre in Lockhart and by McCallum Fine Arts Academy at the Blue Theatre in May, 2010:

New York flop becomes a hit everywhere else

From The New York Times, December 18, 2010

by Cara Joy David

It closed a month after it opened Off Broadway. Most New Yorkers don't even remember it. Yet John Cariani's Almost, Maine, an earnest 19-character play about the romantic happenings one cold night in northern Maine, has since been produced around the world, including in Australia, Dubai and South Korea. More than 600 companies have put it on in the United States and Canada. And move over, Our Town, and other staples of the school auditorium stage. Almost, Maine was the most-produced play in North American high schools this year. It unseated Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream from the No. 1 high school slot.

Craig Pospisil of Dramatists Play Service described its slow build as a "real Cinderella story." Perhaps it helped that Dramatists representatives handed out colorful Almost, Maine buttons (left over from Off Broadway) at conferences. Or that Mr. Cariani and Jack Thomas, the show's original producer, sent out mailings to artistic directors, putting it on the regional circuit's radar.

Maybe it was because the play offered material students could perform at drama competitions and professional actors could present at auditions. Or could the key to success be that the text can be performed by as few as 4 people or as many as 19? "If you are a professional playwright looking to make it in New York, you write something with the smallest possible cast," said Doug Rand of Playscripts. "Amateur theater groups want to have as big a cast as possible. New York really hasn't generated that kind of work in decades. So, when you come across that work, it's like water in the desert."

Read more at the New York Times. . . .

Almost, Maine, McCallum Fine Arts Academy at the Blue Theatre

For the school's opening On Tour! production, student directors Ansley Lee and Sierra Tothero from McCallum Academy's theatre department took over the Blue Theatre, out behind the Goodwill warehouse on Springdale road. It was a friendly and successful conquest, with manager Jennie Gravenstein running concessions and generally helping out in the excited rush.

Almost, Maine by John Cariani is a whimsical set of sketches about folks in the icy northern reaches of the United States. He's looking at love and how it creeps up on us, even on the famously blue-collar, tactiturn and slow-moving young Mainers. Cariani likes to turn figures of speech inside-out. For example, Gayle (Kahla Brown) comes storming into the house of her boyfriend Lendall (Dylan Jones), having abruptly decided, after 11 years of courtship, that she wants all her love back. To prove her determination, she brings in boxes and bags full of love from her car, and flings them down. "Here! This is all the love you gave me! Now I want mine all back!" Lendall rides through the absurdity and rises to the occasion.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Almost, Maine, Gaslight-Baker Theatre, January 29 - February 14

Lockhart, Texas, is about as far as you can get geographically from this mythical almost-town in the wilds of Maine, but that hardly matters. Director Randy Wachtel and the Gaslight Baker cast of 16 actors open a big box of valentines here. Warm, humorous, comic and sometimes slightly surreal, these nine skits with a little modification could have been played anywhere.

The Gaslight Baker motto is "Putting the ART in Lockhart." Anyone who has been following the fine work of this theatre organization will have the additional pleasure of recognizing familiar faces, reinforcing the message that the Gaslight Baker is both a community theatre and something of a repertory group. GB president Steve Lawson, for example, and Todd Martin Allen, who recently locked in deadly, earnest combat in GB's Sleuth, in separate pieces transform into taciturn, practical Mainers with surprisingly soft hearts. Billy Alexander, Stephen Reynolds, Christy Smith and David Young were in Amateurs. Terry Bennett was a familiar face from City Theatre's Christmas Belles.

This style of theatre recalls the "blackout sketches" of American vaudeville, typically performed in front of the curtain as more elaborate acts were setting up backstage. Two or at most three actors would play a sketch or exchange banter to keep the audience entertained. With the punchline, lights would go down and action would continue. It was economical entertainment that was formative for the great radio and television comedians from the 1930s onward.

The arriving audience is advised that the theatre may be chilly, in part to replicate the climate in Maine, and staff kindly make available blankets for those who arrive unprepared for February air conditioning. This measure not only sets the stage but also helps the actors, some of whom are wearing high-thermal winter wear (in some cases, in several layers). In contrast to the epic scenery built for Amateurs and for Sleuth, this stage is mostly bare, with looming white snowbanks on either side, and the nine scenes are furnished with modest changes. Locale is set with a park bench, a table, the exterior and back door of a house, or a couple of garden chairs. Welcoming the audience, director Randy Wachtel told us playwright John Cariani specified that these scenes are playing simultaneously on a night of great activity for the northern lights.

Here's a gazeteer of Lockhart's creation of mythic Maine:


Pete (Billy Alexander and Ginette (Ashley Vogel) try to figure out how to get closer by getting further apart. Example: how to circumnavigate a snowball. . . .


Glory, a tourist hiker, turns up late at night to watch the northern lights. She posts herself in the snowy front yard of East, a repairman. He gradually comes to understand why she's here and what she is carrying in that bag that means so much to her. (Terry Bennett and Steve Lawson)

Jimmy, a heating and cooling guy, is asleep on the couch when Sandrine, his woman friend of eleven years, comes storming in with things to return to him. But how can they be measured? (Thomas Sandlin and Lydia Kettle)


Phil, a hard-working man, and Marci, his wife, go skating. But afterwards, she can't find her shoe. And why are they so angry, even though they don't want to admit it to one another? (David Young and Noelle Stroka)

On her way back to her bachelorette party, the honoree stumbles across a former boyfriend. His face lights up and he persuades her to talk. But that blonde waitress just won't leave them alone. (actors not identified in the program!)







An encounter in a laundromat on Friday night. The strangest things can happen from the most casual encounters -- including from an accidental whack on the head with an ironing board. What is pain and who's the one really feeling it? (Stephen Reynolds and Gillian Hickman)


Country boy Chad and country boy Randy are drinking beer in the park, sharing their most recent humiliations in dating. The winner will get to decide what they do for the rest of the night. Romance is bleak but there's always beer and bowling. Until a sudden slip occurs. (Todd Allen Martin and Thomas Sandlin)

Hope has traveled the world but comes rushing back to Almost, Maine (163 miles from the nearest airport in Bangor) to try to find Daniel, a guy who has not traveled the world. She owes him an answer to a question that she fled, years ago. But the man who answers the door looks nothing like the man who used to live there. (Tysha Calhoun and Braden Williams)

Snowmobiler buddies Rhonda and Dave get back to her place after doing twenty miles up the river and back. She exults that she has whupped him, once again. Dave gives her a present -- his own art, from a community class. It's one of those pictures that look like like a bunch of blobs until you can unfocus your eyes and sneak up on it and figure out what it really, really depicts. (Lori Z. Cordova and Todd Michael Wheel)

The cameos above provide you with the starting points for these sketches. Cariani takes them in some surprising and very comic directions, sometimes applying a deft dab of magical realism.

I was impressed by the consistently high quality of the acting -- believable individuals, perplexed, steering with changing winds of emotion, and played with an exquisite sense of comic timing throughout. One truth of the old vaudevillians was that nothing was as funny as silence -- the pause of befuddlement or enlightenment that telegraphs to the audience the amazement of the character. Randy Wachtel must be responsible for some of that accomplished pacing, but I suspect that one can credit, as well, the existence of a community of actors who learn from one another's work.

A PR plug -- the Gaslight Baker is presenting their second annual theatre gala and silent auction fund-raiser on Saturday, February 21, from 7 to 10 p.m. Tickets are $25 and include admission, theatre membership, food, wine, beer and spirits. Address is 426 W. Prairie Lea (corner with Cibilo Street). Lockhart's newest thespian resident, Jason Williams of the greater Tuna series, will be the featured guest of honor. Further info is available on the Gaslight Baker website.

Upcoming: Almost, Maine, Gaslight-Baker Theatre, January 29 - February 14

Received January 24:

The Gaslight-Baker Theatre, Lockhart, presents
Almost, Maine
by John Cariani
directed by Randy Wachtel
January 30 - February 14

On a cold, clear, moonless night in the middle of winter, all is not quite what it seems in the remote, mythical town of Almost, Maine. As the northern lights hover in the star-filled sky above, Eight different couples residing in Almost find themselves falling in and out of love in unexpected and often hilarious ways. Knees are bruised. Hearts are broken. But the bruises heal, and the hearts mend—almost—in this delightful midwinter night's dream.

This is a wonderful, romantic, quirky comedy about love It is perfect for the Valentine Season. It is directed by our artistic director, Randy Wachtel. Actors are: Billy Alexander, Ashley Vogel, Terri Bennett, Steve Lawson, Todd Martin, Christy Smith, Tysha Calhoun, David Young, Gillian Hickman, Stephen Reynolds,Thomas Sandlin, Lydia Kettle, Braden Williams, Lori Cordova & Todd Wheel.

For more information, go to www.gaslightbakertheatre.org.

Play dates: Friday and Saturdays, Jan 30 Feb. 14 at 8 pm,
Pay What You Can preview is on Thursday, Jan 29 at 8 pm
"Wine and Cheese Reception" after the show on 1/30.
Special matinee, Sat. Feb. 7 at 2:00.

Purchase Tickets Here.

On-line tickets only are available for standard $10 ticket...any special promotions, group rates, senior / student prices, etc...will have to be purchased in person at the box office. Please contact us if you have any questions.