Middlebury Acting Company Presents SMALL MOUTH SOUNDS

Middlebury Acting Company will present the Vermont Premiere of Small Mouth Sounds, a play by Bess Wohl.

At an upstate New York meditation retreat in the quiet of the woods, six strangers confront internal demons both profound and absurd, their vows of silence colliding with the human need to connect. Filled with awkward humor, this unique and compassionate new play asks how we address life's biggest questions when words fail us.

Wohl's play was inspired by her stay at a silent meditation retreat at the Omega Institute in upstate New York. Wohl explains, "Like that retreat, much of the action of the play happens without words. Because of that, I have provided extensive character descriptions to help the actors and director navigate the play and provide texture and depth to what they do. The audience will always be able to follow the main story lines but should also have a little bit of room to make - and revise - their own assumptions about who the characters are."

Says Director Melissa Lourie, "What playwright Bess Wohl manages to create is a gentle satire of the self-help industry, a very funny exploration of the absurdities we all unwittingly create and a deeply touching look at our human need to connect. And the audience has a wonderful puzzle to solve, a test of our emotional intelligence as we begin to understand each characters complicated story and the reasons for why they do what they do.

"This play is unlike any other I've directed. It offers the director a very wide latitude to create. I am working with some very talented designers to create a world of light, sound and images that allow us to shift rapidly between locations and to play with the idea of impermanence which underlays this beautiful show. I am also very excited about my stellar cast, which includes our own Vanessa Dunleavy, Andrew Cassel, Eric Reid. St. John, Andrew Ritter, Delanté Keys, Wendi Stein & Chris Caswell."

Small Mouth Sounds opens on Thursday, May 4 and plays through Sunday, May 7. Tickets can be purchased through the Town Hall Theater Box Office, at 802-382-9222 or online at www.townhalltheater.org.

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