BWW Blog: Amanda Grillo - Our Show, Our School, OUR TOWN: Meet the Director

Welcome to the second installment of the behind the scenes look at the University of New Haven's production of Thorton Wilder's American classic, Our Town. For those who are just joining us this week I have the pleasure of guiding this journey from the rehearsal process all the way through closing night.

This week I spoke with the director of the production, Jonathan Yukich, about the play, pantomime, and the translation from page to stage. He is very excited for audiences to see this interpretation of this classic. He shares with us, "Each interpretation of the play is unique. I'm excited for audiences to see the UNH version and the terrific work put forth by our students." One of the biggest questions I have learned to ask at this university is "why?". Yukich disclosed why Our Town was chosen for this season:

"I believe Our Town is one of the great American plays. We have not done a 20th century American classic at UNH in a long while. We needed to do one. For teaching purposes, Our Town presents many opportunities. It demands specificity, earnestness, thinking outside the boundaries, and the willingness to work together as an ensemble. It is also a recognizable title, one that should appeal to the larger UNH community. It is certainly a classic, but one that remains dynamic, highly ambitious, in its construction and approach."

For those who don't know, Our Town is traditionally done in pantomime. Pantomime is a dramatic form in which performers act out the desired scene without having the actual objects there. Yukich explained how audiences should approach the use of pantomime in the show, rather than traditional props and elaborate scenery.

"If actors are committed to the world of the play, the audience will start to see that world too. A lot of theatre is very representational, hyper realistic. I'm not sure that entirely works a lot of the time. Who are we fooling? We're not film. Theatre, at its best, invites us to create a world while embracing our limitations. Our limitations, our poverty if you will, is what makes us great and distinguishes theatre from other art forms - it demands we make magic from nothing. The play embraces this idea. Audiences are much smarter than we sometimes give them credit. They are willing to see what the performance asks them to see."

Now I know what you are all thinking: I read that in high school! Or I did that in a scene study class!

Yukich also touched upon reading the play versus watching it performed:

" It's one thing to read the play, it's another to see it. When Grover's Corners truly comes alive - with its many voices, faces, personalities, loves, fears, triumphs and tragedies - it's an extraordinary place. It embodies the universal human condition, reflecting how remarkable life can be in its smallest, most intimate moments. There's no car chase, no explosion, no big musical number, yet it remains one of the most produced plays of all time. It must be doing something right."

That's all for this week folks! I'd like to leave you with Jonathan Yukich's response to what the most rewarding part of directing university productions is, "[It's] [g]etting to explore and realize tremendous works like Our Town with our students and faculty. Then sharing the end result with our larger community."

Come see Our Town at the University of New Haven

November 16th thru 19th

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