BLUEFIELD, WV (WOAY) – The Bluefield University Theater Department is taking the stage for a play that’s all about community living.
Written in 1938 by Thornton Wilder, the play Our Town is set to open at Harman Chapel on the university’s campus Thursday, February 24.
The theater professor and co-chair of the department Charles Reese says the play will take the audience back to a simpler time.
“We thought it was a perfect play for where we are in today’s society, we’ve been spending the last two years in Zoom meetings and talking through masks and fighting about everything,” Reese says. “This is a play about a more peaceful, less polarized time.”
Featuring a cast of 18 people, the production consists mainly of students but will also include some of the university’s alumni.
It’s the third play the department has put on this school year and the fourth production since the start of the pandemic. Along with taking the audience back to a different era, Reese hopes it will bring some more perspective to the present time.
“I would hope that after seeing this play there is a desire at least to get back to a more centered, living-in-the-moment kind of lifestyle or kind of view of the world,” he says. “Maybe if people would just slow down for a couple of days and focus on the people around them, then we’ve done something.”
The play will be held Thursday, Feb., 24, Friday, Feb., 25, and Saturday, Feb., 26 at 7:30 p.m. There will also be a matinee performance on Sunday, Feb., 27 at 3:00 p.m.
The play is open to the whole community. Students and staff will get in for free and it’s $10 for the general public. You can visit the Bluefield University Theater Department to order your tickets.
