HSU to host performance of ‘Our Town’

ARKADELPHIA — Henderson State University Theatre and Arkadelphia Little Theatre are partnering for four performances of “Our Town” beginning Thursday through Feb. 19.

The Thornton Wilder Pulitzer Prize-winning play will be performed in the Studio Theatre of HSU’s Arkansas Hall by a combination of 18 students and community theater enthusiasts.

Performances will be at 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday with a matinee performance at 2:30 p.m. Saturday.

Tickets can be purchased at https://hsu.edu/onlineticketing, by calling 870-230-5291 or emailing theatre@hsu.edu. All seats are reserved seating for $10 or free with an HSU student ID, courtesy of the college’s Student Activities Board.

“Our Town” follows the Webb and Gibbs families as their children fall in love, marry and eventually die in the fictional town of Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire, from 1901-1913. The play’s three acts are titled Daily Life, Love and Marriage, and Death and Eternity.

Wilder described the play as “an attempt to find a value above all price for the smallest events in our daily life.”

The cast includes HSU students Sophie Burke, Zandora Chinwah, Natalie Gray, Nathaniel Gray, Camden Dalie Keech, Bryce Nunn and Chelsea Spain; Ouachita Baptist University student Hayley Johnson; HSU faculty Russ Breshears and Bill Higgins; public school students Collin Green and Morgan Lewis; and community members Drew Davis, Jim Fletcher, Emily Golden, Sarah Miller, Ali Painter and Bill Sutley.

Retired HSU theater professor and former director of the university’s Theatre and Dance program, Claudia Beach, is directing the play with fellow retired theater professors William Henshaw and Doug Gilpin serving as costume designer and scenic and lighting designer, respectively.

HSU student Kylee Hancock is technical director for the first staging of the play at HSU since 2004 at the grand opening of the Studio Theatre.