Almost, Maine
by John Cariani

February 13 - March 7, 2009

Directed by Brett Young

"Almost, Maine" is a remote locale in northern Maine where folks are falling in and out of love at an alarming rate on one particular night.

Almost is not quite a town because, as a character explains: "You’re in an unorganized territory, Township Thirteen, Range Seven. See, to be a town, you gotta get organized. And we never got around to gettin' organized, so…we're just Almost."

The word "almost" can conjure either a feeling of loss or brimming hope, and both of those feelings run through the nine different romantic encounters in the play. With a whimsical approach, each story explores gaining or losing love, perhaps discovering love where it is least expected or not recognizing where it had always been. All of the stories are also connected by time, as each is occurring at 9 p.m. on the same Friday night in the middle of winter. Another connecting thread is the strong physical reaction different characters have to the complications of love.

One character gets an odd tattoo, another carries around shards of her broken heart in a bag after her husband’s betrayal, two young men are literally struck to the ground when they discover their hidden feelings for each other, and one character who cannot feel pain suddenly experiences both pain and love due to a hilarious ironing board accident.

Playwright John Cariani is probably best-known as an actor, most notably for a recurring role on "Law and Order" and his award-winning turn on Broadway in the 2004 revival of "Fiddler on the Roof." He complained once to his mother that he wasn’t too keen on many of the new plays he was seeing. He thought that they were too New York-centric and there was a lot more world to portray than just New York City. His mother replied, "Well, don't complain about that unless you're willing to do something about it." And so he began to write backstage during his down time.

ALMOST, MAINE was inspired by his memories of growing up in Presque Isle, Maine, an 11-12 hour drive north of NYC. Cariani says: "Where I grew up had a huge influence on me. It's a place where there aren't many people and there's lots of sky. The world feels much bigger there somehow. New York is all about people and the things people make. Presque Isle is the opposite. It's about the things people don't make – like the sky and the woods and wide open space. So the play is mostly a tribute to that place – a place where there seems to me so much possibility because there's time and space to daydream."