Welcome to Northern Burlington!
We are grateful that you have joined us for our first production of the 2023-24 school year.
We kick off this season with an experiment that has proven to be the most challenging, creative, and rewarding of any production in the history of Northern Burlington: Theatre in the Round. Staging a show in “the round” is a concept that dates back to Greek amphitheaters and arenas. It is unique in its simultaneous simplicity and difficulty to achieve. It demands that everyone: actors, technicians, and the audience, approach live theatre in a different way than in a traditional auditorium/proscenium style setting. This is a technique that is historically reserved for more advanced settings, such as collegiate and professional theatre, due to the progressive demands in the approach to the craft.
What makes this approach so perfectly unique for Northern is twofold: the first being that we do not have a traditional style auditorium with established seating drilled to the floor. This allows us the versatility and flexibility to recreate the performance space in any style that we can imagine. We have striven to take what makes our school different from other high schools in the area and accentuate what makes us unique to the fullest possible extent. Secondly, when choosing this show, I believed “the round” would work because our students are sophisticated, driven, and passionate about their craft in a palpable way. I knew they would rise to the challenges of this advanced technique with no hesitation and their enthusiasm for the project has paid back my belief beyond expectations.
Our Town premiered in 1938 at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey. It is Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama of life in the mythical town of Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire, a representation of any small town in the U.S.A., and is widely considered to be the greatest American play ever written. It is the simple story of a love affair that asks timeless questions about the meaning of love, life, and death. At its core, it asks the audience to examine what makes the average, ordinary moments of our days beautiful, in an attempt to teach us how to cherish life and time itself. It begs the question: do human beings ever fully realize their lives while they live it?
It is our sincerest hope that your time spent in Grover’s Corners this evening will leave a lasting impact on how you choose to spend your average, ordinary moments. We’ve certainly had the time of our lives.
Mr. Joshua Yoder
Director - Our Town
