By Alana MacKay-Kao
ARTS EDITOR
On a clear Friday evening, my mom and I sit down to appreciate the work of the Drama Guild in their latest production, Almost, Maine, a series of vignettes about love. I have just frantically grabbed an HDMI cable to plug my laptop into the TV, and my mom is carrying over some precariously balanced plates of homemade Indian food. I’ve just managed to turn the volume up as Susan Choquette’s voice floats through the speakers, welcoming us to the show. She tells us what we’re about to see is live, not recorded, and explains the show is a story about our connections with other people–something we’ll never take for granted again.
As the first scene opens, I recognize Cole Gervais, who plays Pete, and Abinaya Ganesh, who plays Ginette. Masks and all. They immediately rope us into their characters’ story, one of a couple in a long-distance relationship who have just met up in person. Ginette happily talks about how they’re as close as they possibly could be (ironic considering the actors are still socially distancing, sitting on the ends of a very long bench).
Pete tells her that they’re also as far as they could possibly be since, on their other side, the entire circumference of the Earth is between them. Ginette gets upset and walks away, and the camera pans out, leaving Pete in the middle of an enormous stage, overwhelmingly alone. The scene is beautiful, but as I take my first bite of dinner, I can’t help but think of the many understudies who, even though they worked so hard, are also sitting alone in the Collins Center seats, out of the spotlight.
They have had to memorize their scenes in the event that one of the principal actors is quarantined. Junior Anya Lazar, the understudy for both Pete and Steve, described some of the challenges that come with being an understudy: “Most principal actors only have one role but I have two. I also don’t get to be on stage much if at all during rehearsal.”
Junior Tessa Barcelo, who serves as one of the vice presidents of the Drama Guild along with junior Julia Kole, described rehearsals in more detail: “We started out doing a readthrough on Zoom with everyone, and then we started blocking rehearsals in person…The actors also did a lot of our own online rehearsing in between scheduled ones just to practice lines.”
Barcelo is also the principal actor for Glory, who is standing in the middle of the stage as the lights come up for the start of scene two. She is a hiker on a quest to see the northern lights who’s found the perfect field, time of year, and latitude for it. Soon enough, another character named East, played by senior Connor Murray, comes out of a house sitting off to the side. It turns out that the wonderful open field Glory is standing in happens to be East’s yard.
While the actors on stage discuss whether or not Glory should be allowed to stay in East’s yard and why she wants to see the lights in the first place, members of the stage crew have been preparing for the next scene change. The stage manager, senior Sarah Oltman, oversees the whole show from the booth and calls cues to Kai Lonie, senior and head of stage left, and Grayson DiNino, junior and head of stage right. They let their crew know when exactly to place and strike (take down) set pieces as scenes change. Their seamless cooperation and constant communication is the whole reason the audience can stay immersed in the small fictional town of Almost, Maine, and the stories of the people there.
As Glory and East’s scene comes to an end, we’re almost immediately pulled into the local hangout, the Moose Paddy, with the sign that marks the building flying in from above the stage and smoothly fitting into the rest of the set like the last piece of a puzzle.
Organizing the tech crew was somewhat of a puzzle itself. “Crew was split down the middle into cohorts, so cohorts A and B didn’t really see each other much until the first day of tech week,” Lonie said. “It was a little harder to coordinate and the stage crew of [this] show is a little more chaotic than other shows.”
Their hard work paid off though, and the Moose Paddy becomes the perfect place for an extremely awkward interaction between Sandrine and Jimmy (Zoe Saum and Ethan Pelt), exes who haven’t talked to each other for quite some time. After the waitress (Kelsey Dennehy) mistakes them for a couple several times, they sit down and try to talk.
Ethan Pelt (left) playing Jimmy and Zoe Saum (right) playing Sandrine, exes
who run into each other in the Moose Paddy.
The awkwardness of that encounter is swiftly whisked away to make way for another scene, this time set inside a laundromat. Here we meet Steve (Anthony Merenda), who can’t feel pain, and Marvalyn (Ava Vassilopoulos), who’s stuck in an abusive relationship. As the characters talk, I realize that I haven’t stopped to really admire the set itself.
Steve (left, played by Anthony Merenda) showing his list of things to be
afraid of to Marvalyn (right, played by Ava Vassilopoulos).
The town of Almost has been brought to life by DiNino and fellow set designer, sophomore Abby Clement. From the washing machines behind Steve and Marvalyn to the curtain of glowing stars that serves as the backdrop, all of the scenes together are cohesive, definitely feeling like they take place in the same town. But none of the settings are repetitive–each clearly accompanies its own unique love story.
Julia Kole (left) playing Gayle and Ethan Pelt (right) playing Lendall, Lendall got up the courage to proposes to Gayle.
We are then brought into the living room of Lendall (also played by Pelt), where Gayle (Julia Kole) bursts into his house and demands that he return all of the love she gave him. Later, outside, Deena (Sophia Yannalfo) and Shelly (Isabelle Galgano) compare terrible date-night stories and lament feeling the need to date at all. Over at Echo Pond, a married couple, Phil (Gio Coppola) and Marci (Katie Budinger), have just finished skating. They grow increasingly frustrated with one another and hash out a fight that has clearly been building for a long time. Still later, a well-dressed woman named Hope (Aislinn Cantin) knocks on a small house’s door, looking for somebody named Daniel so that she can answer a question he asked her years ago. The man who answers the door is played by Jack Gately. Dave (also played by Murray) and Rhonda (Caroline Pritchard) come into Rhonda’s house from snowmobiling, and Dave gives her a painting that she tries to see the meaning of. We finally return to the bench we started at, with Pete and Ginette. Each of these pairs’ stories play out one at a time, some ending tragically, some ending hilariously, some really just beginning.
As some of these adventures begin, the show comes to a close and the actors take their bows. I can’t help but think back to something that Barcelo said when asked what her favorite part of preparing a show was. “I think it’s probably the final dress rehearsal with all the lights and the sets and the costumes and the knowledge that tomorrow night, there will be people there,” she had said.
Although the pandemic has taken the roaring crowds out of the Collins Center and deposited us on our couches, I hope that all of the people involved in making this show can feel the cheering from us through the screen as my mom and I jump up and scream, applauding thunderously. Despite the circumstances, the Drama Guild has done it again, they’ve created magic. And it’s Almost like we were in the room to experience it.
