Not Proverbial Sausage-Making : At a Rehearsal for A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE

Opening March 28 at the Briggs Opera House

There’s a proverbial notion that if you try to look behind a metaphorical curtain of a piece of legislation, for example, in the back halls of Congress, you’ll learn “how the sausage is made.” And you’re often warned off such an endeavor, because sausage-making is supposedly not pretty and that means you’ll be disillusioned with the final product. You’ll swear off sausage forever. The risk is not worth the knowing.

Oh, this is so not true when it comes to theater. From the days of my youth when I worked backstage in a local theater company, it has been fascinating to watch a production come together—evolving from a disparate bunch of people with an unmarked script in hand to a fully-realized work of art on the stage.

Sitting in the Briggs Opera House recently watching a scene from We the People’s upcoming A Man of No Importance looked like this—Director Eric Love meticulously pacing onstage in something he is calling “the wedding march” (step, together, step, etc), actors finding their places on the stage and then pivoting through changes, consultations with the maestro at the piano, a missed line and then a do-over, moving that single chair further upstage for this scene only. The play will open on March 28, and what you will see is a polished product that is the result of each of these changes, decisions, reblockings, the altered tenor of a line. It’s messy, and thrilling to watch.

Founder and Producer Perry Allison chose A Man of No Importance as this year’s production in part because it is a quieter piece, set in 1960s Dublin, that contrasts with last year’s “boisterous” Something Rotten, and “there’s Irish music.” In addition, it’s a “play within a play;” the characters are an amateur theater group who are staging a production of Salome. It is described by Music Theatre International as “as a rare gem in the canon of musical theatre, one that combines the depth and drama of a play with the lyricism and comedy of a musical.”

In her blog, Perry comments on the hybrid nature of the theater company, founded in 2019.

So what is different about a community production from a professional production? We certainly strive to mount the most professional, polished production that we can. . . . But we also know that we are asking our cast and crew to fit this project into their very busy lives. Many of our actors have been professional actors in the past. That should come in handy. :-) So we plan a rehearsal schedule that allows our people to manage their lives alongside this production. It’s a bit like herding cats. It’s a big commitment and the final push can be exhausting. The reward is being able to bring something to our community that we are proud of. The countdown to opening night is on.

Of the cast, she added, “They now come from disparate professions. We have teachers, nurses, IT professionals. We even have a psychiatrist in the cast.”

And I might add, a law professor. (See my previous post about lawyers turned artists here.) Jonathan Rosenbloom of Albany Law School tries to do something new each year. One year it was mastering cacio e pepe. This year it is singing and dancing on stage. Though describing himself as “terrified,” he credits the cast for getting him through. “That kind of support is everything. It lets me embrace the awkwardness, laugh through the missteps, and discover just how much growth can come from stepping into the unknown.”

A Man of No Importance opens on March 28, 2025 at Briggs Opera House in downtown White River Junction, Vermont. Tickets are available here.

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And in case you are wondering . . . Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.