Almost Maine, Almost Ready

Practicing for the play, Adrianna Steele delivers a dramatic dialogue to the Mayo student audience.

Sarah Dingman

Practicing for the play, Adrianna Steele delivers a dramatic dialogue to the Mayo student audience.

Lexie Lang, Writer

Almost Maine is a widely broadcasted play with a unique plot and is coming to Mayo High School’s auditorium April 20th-22nd casted by the students.

Sarah Dingman
The romance heats up between Connor Brown and Caroline Utzs’ characters in Almost Maine.
Sarah Dingman
Voicing her feelings, Carolyn Leibovich expresses her love for Manuel Mendoza’s character.

The play Almost Maine was originally directed by Andy Polk in 2002, and then moved to Broadway in 2005. Since then, it has been produced by over 2,500 theater companies in the US (and over a dozen internationally). The play then moved to many high schools around the world, including Mayo High School.

Almost Maine has an interesting style since there is no single lead role. According to the editors of About Almost Maine, “Everything takes place at nine o’clock on a Friday night in the middle of winter.” In each scene, the audience encounters a new pursuit of love, each one looking at a different aspect of this universal concept.

Almost Maine caught the eye of Mrs. Monson, the play director. a few years ago. She waited until she had the right timing and the right cast to run this play, and she believes that this year it was perfect timing. There was not enough time to build the huge buildings like the previous year’s spring play A Dark and Stormy Night, but with the time they had, the tech crew did an outstanding job. Mrs. Monson was very relieved about this, noting that, “It worked nicely because [the play] appears in scenes, and there are set pieces for each scene.” Mrs. Monson and her crew started putting together the show in early February and have worked non-stop since then.

During the run-up to the start of the production, a few setbacks have occurred. The biggest frustration came when the electricity went out in the main rehearsal a few days before opening night. Once power was restored, so was everyone’s sanity. Now the cast and crew are ready for opening night.

The cast and crew are very excited to perform this play and have a goal of selling 1,150 tickets which has never happened from a spring play. One major component of getting to this goal is the weather

Sarah Dingman
Practicing for the play, Adrianna Steele delivers a dramatic dialogue to the Mayo student audience.

. “Spring audiences are very unpredictable because of the weather, the rainier the weather, the better it is for us,” Ms. Monson said. Mayo’s production of the play will be debut on April 20th at 7:00 PM’ tickets will be available at the door or online at www.showtix4u.com ranging from $6 to $8. The shows will continue April 21st at 7:00 PM, and April 22nd at 1:30 PM.