Now that the sideshow that was the election is over, we can all settle back into our regular lives. Gone (for the next three to four years, anyway) are the endless, cartoonish attack ads and mailers that flood our consciousness.
Now we have room in our brains to take in a musical play, and wouldn’t you know it, but the Community Players of Concord have one coming up at the Concord City Auditorium.
This Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the Players will perform the Oliver Award-winning Once On This Island.
If you’re wondering why we started this off talking about the election, it will all make sense when you hear about the plot.
The play features interesting Calypso-inspired music, joyous dancing and a timely message about how arbitrary differences often divide people unnecessarily.
In this telling, the play – directed by Bryan Halperin – opens in a school gymnasium-turned storm shelter somewhere in New England as a hurricane rages outside. The gym has been decorated for a masquerade party that was cancelled due to the storm. To calm a frightened little girl who is alone in the shelter, a pair of kindly Red Cross volunteers comfort the girl by telling her a story, which comes to life as the girl’s imagination transforms the shelter occupants into the story’s many characters.
The story is that of star-crossed lovers, featuring Ti Moune, a poor island girl, who falls in love with a wealthy boy from the other side of her island. The gods who preside over the island make a bet to determine which is stronger, love or death, and use Ti Moune as a pawn in their game.
Ti Moune’s fate breaks the walls that separate her society, and ultimately unites it.
Once On This Island received eight Tony award nominations in 1991, including Best Musical, and was the Broadway debut of the songwriting team of Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, who went on to win Tony Awards with their subsequent hits, Ragtime and Seussical. A proposed Broadway revival of Once On This Island is currently rehearsing in New York – so you know this is a big deal.
Tickets for the show are $18 to $20 and can be purchased at communityplayersofconcord.org or at the Audi box office, which is open Wednesday through Saturday from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 2 p.m.
Showtimes are this Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.
The show’s content is family friendly, but not recommended for younger children due to the show’s 90-minute running time, with no intermission – wouldn’t want the little ones bouncing off the walls by the final act.
Halperin will be directing a show for the Players for the first time. His work is highly acclaimed in the Lakes Region, where, as co-founder of the Winnipesaukee Playhouse in Meredith, he has directed and produced many shows. He has also directed and produced many youth productions with the Inter-lakes Middle/High School Theater Company.
With all of that being said, how could you not want to check this play out? Whether you’ve heard of Once On This Island before or not, this should be a fun and perhaps culturally relevant show for everyone. Plus, let’s show the new director what the Concord theater and arts scene is all about.
