PLACE
Various locales in Almost, Maine, a small town in far
Northern Maine that doesn't quite exist.
TIME
All events transpire over the same ten minutes--from around 8:50 to a bit after 9 PM--on a cold, clear, moonless, slightly surreal Friday night
in the middle of the deepest part of a Northern Maine winter.
THE NORTHERN LIGHTS
The northern lights occur when atoms become "excited." During solar storms, plasma (ionized or charged particles) from the sun is sent streaming towards the earth. As it enters the earth's atmosphere, it collides with atoms, and excites them--that is, it moves their electrons into higher-energy orbits. Those electrons want to return to their normal lower-energy orbits, and when they do, they release energy in the form of tiny packets of light called photons. When enough photons are produced, the brilliant light display that is the aurora borealis hovers in the sky. When the aurora fades, it's because the affected atoms have returned to their grounded state.
Almost, Maine is a play about people who are normally very grounded
but who have become very excited by love . . .
and other extraordinary occurrences.
