RSS
Home
Awwwwwmost, Maine
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
John Cariani, who grew up in Presque Isle (he once said, "They call Montana Big Sky Country. Well. . .they haven't seen northern Maine") and is best known for his work on Law & Order as Julian Beck, was once a struggling actor who ran out of audition material and compensated by writing his own. This led to his first play, entitled "Almost, Maine." The New York Times gave its off-Broadway debut a mixed review, saying, "Susceptible hearts may be set to tingling at his tales of love lost and found, but for those of us with a limited tolerance for his fanciful conceits, 'Almost, Maine' may leave the cloying aftertaste of an overly sweetened Sno-Kone."
Since then, Almost has been featured in Best Plays of 2006 and performed in over 300 American theaters, not to mention Korea, Germany and Australia.
Why so popular? Well, it's quirky and it's about love. That's a recipe for success right there, that is. And it doesn't hurt that it's made up of vignettes and can be performed by as few as four cast members or as many as nineteen. Memorable and memorizable both. (If "memorizable" isn't a word, it darn well should be.)
Here's an ad with a very brief outline from Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Here's a fuller trailer from a production in Cullowhee, North Carolina.
And here's a post-production moment from Chester Springs, Pennsylvania, where one of the actors got caught up in the romance and proposed to his girlfriend.
