Director's Notes for
Almost, Maine

     First, they asked me to direct a show. Then, Gavin - my mentor and friend - suggested that I look at Almost, Maine as the show with which to begin my theatre adventure. By page one of the prologue I was intrigued, by page two I was captivated, and by page three I know that I had to do this play. I was immediately struck, and fell in love with, how real the people of Almost, Maine are. They are each of us: they are poignant and complicated; at time they are simply ordinary people, boring even. Cariani's play works because we see ourselves in each character, and we relate to the world of Almost. It is in the interaction of extraordinary circumstances and ordinary life that we come to know the reality of a life that is ... Almost. It is in the fantastical Almost, that I find myself still captivated.

     And with the connection between each set of characters to another is loose in the play, the reoccurring element of the northern lights is specific and beautiful. In his notes, Cariani, describes the northern lights as a natural phenomenon in which normally stable atoms come into contact with another, become unstable, and react in unpredictable ways. As we went through this process of creating, it became perfectly clear why the playwright chose this astronomical wonder as the thread that ties the show together. The people of Almost, Maine are stable (for the most part), and reasonable (to an extent); put into contract with one another in extraordinary, and at times unbelievable ways, they are driven to do and say what they normally would not. The results are wonderful and painful.

     So, what is Almost, Maine? A series of love stories? A magical fantasy? For me, as I have watched each scene over and over, it has simply become the mirror by which we will all have the chance to reflect. And at the end, when we reflect on our own lives, this play allows each of us to simply answer the question ... what is your Almost?

     ~ Tim Vialpondo