Preview: Theater Program’s “Our Town”
- Cesareo Contreras
- Nov 12, 2016
- 2 min read
Updated: Jan 28
Cesareo Contreras
Arts & Features Editor
FSU’s Theater Program will stage its production of Thorton Wilder’s “Our Town” on Nov. 17 – 19 in DPAC. It will be the third production put on by the group.
With a fourth-wall-breaking, time-traveling narrator named the Stage Manager, “Our Town” is a reflective play focused on exploring the idea of “living life in the moment,” said Kate Caffrey,
communication arts professor and the play’s director.
Following the lives of the play’s two enamored protagonists George Gibbs, played by junior Kyle Hicks, and Emily Webb, played by junior Tiffany Santiago, the Stage Manager uses his time-shifting abilities to look back at some of the couple’s most heartening moments, causing the audience and cast to reflect on the years gone by.
Santiago, says she can “most definitely” relate to the themes brought up in the play.
“I’m usually super busy and juggling so many things at the same time, I forget to live life beyond that,” she said. “Time has flown so fast for me these past few years, and there’s so many little things I didn’t appreciate. So when Thorton Wilder brings light to this, it’s made me really take another look at my life.”
Sophomore and Veterans Club president Brandon Bledsoe, who plays the Stage Manager, said he can relate to Wilder because he was also a veteran.
“Most of the play is set before the First World War, and I think that is on purpose. He references it once describing someone who died in it having wasted education,” he said. “The play itself is about living your life, about not wasting your life, just telling people to take notice, and that is me. I hate going to sleep for all the things I could be doing, and experiencing with my family.”
Of the 20 cast members involved, nine are participating in it in tandem with CaRrey’s fall theater production class.
“We produce the play and then students are assigned different aspects of production, she said. “Some focus on sets. Some focus on publicity. Some focus on acting. ... At the end of the semester, after the production goes up, we talk about the things that we learn.”
This production will also be an associate entry member in the “the Kennedy Center American College Theater Region 1 conference, which will give select students from the cast and crew an opportunity to audition and present work for scholarship opportunities and network with performing arts professionals from New York, New England and Chicago,” Caffrey said.
Caffrey hopes that audience members come out and appreciate the unique medium that is play production.
“The way that it’s different than T.V. or movies is that the audience is really a part of the performance,” she said. “It’s especially true with this show because the Stage Manager talks to the audience and connects with them.”
Additionally, she hopes they recognize the dedicated cast and crew.
“[I] also want them to appreciate that it’s a lot of hard work. Their fellow students are really doing a great job,” said Caffrey.
Admission is free for students and $15 for the general public. Tickets can be purchased at
