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Pontine Premieres TALES OF NEW ENGLAND LIFE this April
By: Rebecca Russo Mar. 27, 2019
April 4 - 14, Pontine Theatre continues its premiere season at the Plains School, with performances of Tales of New England Life, its original stage adaptation of four stories by New Hampshire author, Alice Brown (1857-1948). Pontine's newly renovated Plains School, located at One Plains Avenue in Portsamouth's West End, is fully accessible with convenient free parking adjacent. Performances are Thursdays at 3pm, Fridays at 7pm, Saturdays at 3pm and Sundays at 2pm. Tickets are $27 and may be purchased online at www.pontine.org. Tickets may also be purchased at the door a half-hour prior to each show based on availability. This production is underwritten by Optima Bank & Trust and a grant from the Fuller Foundation. Pontine's season is supported by a grant from the NH State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Alice Brown was born in 1857 on a farm in Hampton Falls, a community that acted as a template for the villages depicted in her stories. She attended Robinson Female Seminary in Exeter, where she displayed a talent for writing at a young age. It was during her early years in Boston that Brown published her first novel Stratford by the Sea (1884), set in a small coastal community. Her rich descriptions and candid characters established Brown as a popular regional color writer. Brown was best known for her popular New England short stories. Collected into volumes, her tales of New England life portray the traditional simplicity and bounteous goodness of country life: Tiverton Tales(1899), The County Road (1906), Meadow Grass (1886), and Country Neighbors (1910). Pontine Co-Directors, Marguerite Mathews and Greg Gathers, have selected four of Ms. Brown's evocative tales to bring to life on stage: Farmer Eli's Vacation (1895), Gardener Jim (1910), A Poetess in Spring (1910) and The Flat Iron Lot (1899). Each story introduces a cast of colorful characters portrayed by Gathers and Mathews through storytelling and Toy Theatre figures created by Greg Gathers.
Photo credit: Carol Dostie
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