Fine & Performing Arts

Candace Taylor knew Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town” is something of a theatrical chestnut about family life and community.

So when the guest director began to put together North Central College’s version, she gave the 1938 classic just enough tweaks to make it distinctive.

“I wanted to make it a lot different from productions that have gone before,” she told the Daily Herald in a story published Feb. 12. “The biggest concept thing I did was to cut the cast down to 12 people. Several actors play multiple roles.”

The story, narrated by a stage manager who guides the audience through scenes from the lives of several characters living in a fictional town, opens Thursday, Feb. 12 at the Naperville college’s Meiley-Swallow Hall.

Taylor, a veteran theater professor and actress making her North Central debut with “Our Town,” said several actors play as many as four roles.

“To make it make sense, we’re looking at the play as though these are actors coming to rehearse the production,” she said. “I’m making it a play within a play.”

It also gives cast members a more substantial opportunity to test their acting mettle.

“They’re representing characters differently by their physical and vocal choices,” Taylor said.

There’s one actor, she said, who transitions from playing an 11-year-old boy to portraying a 60-year-old policeman.

“These students are great to work with. I’ve found them extremely enthusiastic and dedicated,” she said.

Freshman musical theater major Hannah Toriumi plays the stage manager.

“She has me virtually never out of the theater,” Toriumi said of Taylor, explaining that the stage manager is always visible to the audience, even when she’s on the sidelines watching the action along with the audience.

The message that reverberates through the show, Toriumi said, is the preciousness of life.

“We need to take life for every minute that we have it. People don’t really realize life as they’re living it,” she said.

“Our Town” performances are at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Feb. 12-14 and 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 15 at Meiley-Swallow Hall, 31 S. Ellsworth St., Naperville. Tickets are $10, $8 for students and seniors. Call 630-637-7469.