Sharon, Conn. — Sharon Playhouse’s production of “Our Town” will open on Friday, September 15 and run until Sunday, September 24.
The Sharon Playhouse production of the three-act play, written by Thorton Wilder in 1938, will be directed by Andrus Nichols, who has taken part in multiple productions as an actress, including “Saint Joan” and “Hamlet.”
Jane Kaczmarek, who is best known as playing “Lois” on the TV show “Malcolm in the Middle,” will be playing the lead role of “The Stage Manager.” Kaczmarek has also been a Sharon resident for the past 30 years and has been nominated for multiple Emmy, Golden Globe, and Stage Actors Guild awards.
Nichols said that, surprisingly, the last production of “Our House” at Sharon Playhouse was in 1963, over 60 years ago. “I was shocked because this play should be at the top of the list for productions, especially in a town like this,” Nichols told The Berkshire Edge. “I thought it should be something I would direct because it’s always been one of my favorite plays.”
Nichols said that she moved to Sharon full time during the COVID pandemic and that she is also a member of Sharon Playhouse’s artistic committee. “I have played a lot of roles and worn a lot of hats in the theater, but this is my maiden voyage directing,” Nichols said. “I thought that this is something wonderful that we can do with both professional actors and a newer generation of actors who moved up here to this area, along with some townsfolk who are not necessarily actors, but who are well suited for things that they are doing in the show.”
Kaczmarek has lived in Sharon since 1986. “I saw ‘Our Town’ for the first time back when I was in high school,” Kaczmarek said. “I had no idea what it was about. By the time it was ending, I was weeping. At the end of the play, I remember thinking ‘Can theater make people feel?’” Kaczmarek said that “Our Town” was the impetus for her to become an actress. “I wanted to tell stories that had people wake up with gratitude for their lives,” Kaczmarek said. “I call it the ‘sacred ordinary,’ and this play is about the appreciation of the sacred ordinary.”
The play itself depicts the lives of the Webb and Gibbs families in the small town of Grover’s Corners.
Back in 2017, Kaczmarek portrayed “The Stage Manager” in a Deaf West production in Pasadena, Calif. “Deaf West is a wonderful theater company of deaf actors, and that was an incredible experience,” Kaczmarek said. “When I walked into the first day of rehearsal for this production, I walked through town, past Town Hall, past the cemetery, the post office, everything. I was weeping so hard when I sat down for the first read-through because it was art, and life imitates art. I couldn’t believe that these streets that I love are in this town that I love so much.”
Nichols said that one of the reasons why “Our Town” continues to be performed, over 85 years after it was first performed on Broadway, is because Wilder intentionally wrote it to be timeless. “Wilder’s intent to have very minimal sets is because he intended ‘Our Town’ to be timeless,” Nichols said. “When ‘Our Town’ premiered on Broadway in 1938, it was incredibly avant-garde and wildly different from anything else that was being produced at the time.”
Nichols said, however, that Wilder never considered himself to be an innovator. “He always used the phrase ‘a re-discoverer of forgotten goods, and, hopefully, a remover of obstructive bric-a-brac,’” Nichols said. “When I read this play in high school, and then when you revisit this play as an adult, it is astounding just how much it changes for you and how differently it resonates. I’m sure that it’s going to be true in another 10 years, when it will knock me off of my feet again. There’s something simple in the rhythm of daily life that is so moving. It’s the sacred ordinary that takes these mundane rhythms of our daily life and makes us realize this is what we have and this is what is sacred.”
For more information about Sharon Playhouse’s production of “Our Town,” visit its website.
