Heritage Theatre Festival

Ruth Caplin Theatre

July 23 – August 1, 2015

Directed by:  David Dalton

Scenic Designer:  Tom Bloom

Costume Designer:  Amy Goffman

Lighting Designer:  R. Lee Kennedy

 

 

Almost, Maine is a collection of small stories set in a small area of ‘unorganized territory’ in Maine.  The stories are all about love and relationships, though each take interesting physical aspects.  In ‘Her Heart’, the female character’s heart is a physical thing, broken, in a paper bag.  ‘Giving It Back’ features love being brought in giant bags.  Each story has an interesting connection either being explored or falling apart.  It’s a very emotional play.

 

The show recommends the original soundtrack for performances.  I listened to what was provided but felt that it was completely wrong for the way we were doing our show.  None of the music fit the director’s approach or the way the actors were creating the characters and telling the stories.  So, I took it upon myself to compose an entirely new soundtrack for the piece.

 

My choices of melody and instrumentation were driven by each piece and the themes at work.  Most of the music served to transition from one scene to the next.  The two snowmobilers in ‘Seeing The Thing’ were introduced by energetic guitar music that depicted an exciting run across the snow-covered land.  ‘This Hurts’ transitioned through folk guitar, while ‘They Fell’ used distorted electric guitar.  The appearance of the northern lights in ‘Her Heart’ was perhaps my favorite of all the pieces, expressing the awe and wonder of the lights paired with the character saying goodbye to her former love and awaking to a possible new one.

 

The show is bracketed with a prologue, and interlogue, and an epilogue.  For this section I used a repeated theme that would occur in some capacity with each moment.  The first appearance of the theme was bright and hopeful to open the play.  When one of the characters begins moving away from the scene in a sad and confused state, the theme shifts to a slightly sad underscore as she moves away.  The theme returns as a ghost in the interlogue.  For the epilogue, the theme returned as tentatively hopeful and then expressively beautiful.

 

This soundtrack remains one of my favorites of all my composition work.  It allowed me to express powerful emotions and stories in several different ways throughout the play.  I got to indulge myself in several pieces, going right for the emotional content.  It was a rare treat of music and sound, and I relished in each note.