American Repertory Ballet to Present OUR TOWN as Part of Hub City Our Town Celebration, 5/2

On Friday, May 2 at 7:00pm at Crossroads Theatre, American Repertory Ballet will present Philip Jerry's Our Town as part of the Hub City Our Town celebration of arts and community in New Brunswick. The Hub City Our Town festival is a collaboration between the New Brunswick Cultural Center, George Street Playhouse, and six other New Brunswick arts organizations, including ARB.

Philip Jerry's Our Town is a ballet set to the majestic music of Aaron Copland and based on Thornton Wilder's classic play. Like Wilder's play, the ballet chronicles the lives of neighbors Emily Webb and George Gibbs as they grow up together in a small New England town, fall in love, and eventually marry. Philip Jerry choreographed Our Town for American Repertory Ballet in 1994. The company premiered the ballet at McCarter Theatre in Princeton, where Wilder's play also received its premiere in 1938. ARB revived the ballet in 2011 and has since presented it as a part of its Access & Enrichment School Time Matinee and Assembly programs.

Robert Johnson of The Star-Ledger says of the ballet: "Like a pair of lovers gazing into each other's eyes, for whom the rest of the world ceases to exist, Our Town focuses inward. With its spare set pieces of black umbrellas, ladders and folding chairs, the ballet dwells on essentials, and on 'what really matters'- the emotional bonds that grow as Emily Webb and the boy next door, George Gibbs, experience first love, marry and have children." Jennifer Dunning of The New York Times remarks that the ballet "remains faithful to its source while translating it into vivid impressionistic physical terms."

Following ARB's performance of Our Town at Crossroads Theatre on May 2 at 7:00pm, George Street Playhouse will present their production of Thornton Wilder's play next door at 8:00pm. George Street Playhouse will present Thornton Wilder's Our Town April 22 through May 25.

Photo Credit: George Jones