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northbrooktower.com life & arts
the northbrook tower | June 28, 2018 | 31
Fall play a glimpse into life’s relationships
Sarah Haider
Freelance Reporter
Love played out on
stage at Glenbrook North’s
production of “Almost,
Maine” Oct. 11-13 at The
Sheely Center for the Performing
Arts.
The show gives a
glimpse into moments of
life and human relationships
through eight vignettes
occurring between
8:50-9:00 p.m. in the fictional
town of Almost,
Maine, on the night of the
Aurora Borealis.
“I like to say that if you
take love, relationships
and you shoot it through
a prism and you break it
up into its possible component
parts, that’s what’s
being explored in this story,”
director Gerald Nevin
said. “Some of them are
very funny and some make
you cry. All of them have a
surprise element where the
characters come to an extraordinary
life-changing
event, a direction-changing
event that is usually
brought forth in the form
of a surprise.”
The eight scenes include
a new romance forming
after love lost, the longing
and conflict between a relationship
left in the past,
a marriage proposal, and
a love that can never be.
Each scene features twoto-three
actors exploring
the fine details of the ups
and downs of what a life
with love entails.
“It’s given them a better
opportunity to do very indepth
scene work than a lot
of them have had,” Nevin
said. “It’s been extraordinary
to watch them devour
and grow with it. They do
a lot of productions here
and they do very good
work, but ... it’s a different
level of what is expected.
We have 17 actors and
they all are in an important
play and the story couldn’t
be told without them. They
are not expendable and it’s
a good feeling to have.”
Nevin has worked at
GBN as speech coach for
more than seven years.
Now in his first director
role at the school, Nevin
brought years of professional
directing and acting
experience to the popular
play.
The play takes place
on a smaller, bare-boned
theatre-in-the-round stage,
where audiences sit on the
school’s main stage for an
intimate performance. For
Nevin, who is a Feldenkrais
practitioner, studying
the way humans move
through space, students
were taught to use their
bodies as their tool to act
from every angle.
“It’s just the two people
on stage,” student director
Abigail Tzinberg said.
“There is more of an intimate
relationship and they
really needed to figure
out their chemistry. They
have really made an effort
to get to know their scene
partners and they have all
been really enthusiastic
about watching the show.
Everyone has been pretty
fantastic throughout this
process.”
Actors rehearsed for
six weeks, preparing their
segmented scenes twice
a week when Nevin and
Tzinberg would alternate
as director.
Treating the play as
eight individual parts allowed
flexibility in rehearsal
schedules for many
of the actors to simultaneously
take part in GBN’s
student-run one-act plays.
In the final weeks before
the show, Nevin stitched
the scenes together “like a
quilt work,” allowing the
eight parts come together
in one fictional night under
the Northern Lights.
“The degree of professionalism
that these kids
bring to this is astounding,”
Nevin said. “I have
been in a lot of different
theaters around that aren’t
Please see Play, 36
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Amy Glazer and Ryan Currie perform during a dress rehearsal of Glenbrook North’s
fall play “Almost Maine.” Photos by Sarah Haider/22nd Century Media