Our Town
By: Anna Kim, Jane Park, Valentina Zhang
The Office of Multicultural Affairs (OMA) and the Theater Department announced the Advanced Acting Ensemble’s spring production of Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Our Town, on Feb. 3. Participation in Our Town fulfills both a physical education and a course requirement.
Uppers and seniors auditioning for Our Town submitted a video clip of themselves reading lines of the Stage Manager, a character who will be played by Exeter Summer Director Russell Weatherspoon. The cast list was announced on Feb. 5.
According to Theater Instructor Sarah Ream, the auditions process omitted the Theater Department’s conventional blind-casting policy, instead implementing a “race-conscious” casting process to represent a “large, racially-diverse cast playing racially diverse characters.” The course also plans to engage libraries, external speakers, and the Exeter Historical Society to explore the history of the town of Exeter and “make whatever changes to that history we want in order to arrive at the town we want to create.”
Ream added that recent OMA events also inspired her to conduct Our Town. “I have been very moved by the programming that the Office of Multicultural Affairs has done this past year on issues of racial equity,” she said.
Ream recalled attending an OMA program about the town of Exeter last fall. “I was struck when I listened to that conversation by how your connection to this town can really matter depending on race,” Ream said. “I began to think, what would it be like if we really had a town where everybody had a stake in the community, regardless of race, and what would that look like and how could we have gotten there? And so my thought was to take a play like Our Town and to be race-conscious rather than race-blind.”
“I'm very mindful of the fact that my perspective is necessarily limited as a white woman,” Ream said. “I want to approach this whole project with a lot of humility and a lot of interest in finding out about the history of the area. [I want to] both give students a chance to learn about New Hampshire history, but not make them responsible for teaching it.”
Senior Louis Mukama, who was cast as Dr. Gibbs, praised OMA and the Theater Department’s “race-conscious” approach to the play. “It shows that the school is listening. The events and themes of Our Town—the circle of life, companionship and marriage, mortality, etc.—are universal and their portrayal should be as realistic and relatable as possible. Our school, our town, our state, and our country are not monolithic. Our Town is a commentary on America and, to be true to life, it necessarily must have a diverse cast,” Mukama said.
Upper Amelia Tardy, an ensemble member, agreed. “We should try to always have diverse casts. I think that because there is such a lack of diversity in the world of theater and television and movies, it’s common for characters being played by BIPOC actors to be confined to only focusing on their race or the discrimination they face. Of course those stories are important, but it can be harmful to the viewers and actors to only focus on that.”
Upper Shalom Headly, who is playing Joe Crowell, noted his past experience in majority-white casts. “I think it's always weird being in a play where you're one of, like, three people of color because there are going to be some things that you experience as a person of color in an all-white setting that are just uncomfortable, [and] that might feel scary.”
Mukama shared his excitement for joining the play. “I dropped a class and forgoed Track and Field because I thought it was a tremendous opportunity for growth,” he said. “The play will define my senior spring.”
Ream reflected upon the message she hopes the play will send. “It's a reminder that we are all part of a community that, regardless of gender or race or sexual preference or any of the markers that sometimes divide us, we all have our humanity in common.”
