About Almost, Maine

Text below taken with applicable sources from the Wikipedia page about Almost, Maine. 

“Almost, Maine is a play by John Cariani, comprising nine short plays that explore love and loss in a remote, mythical almost-town called Almost, Maine. It premiered at the Portland Stage Company in Portland, Maine in 2004, where it broke box office records and garnered critical acclaim. Cariani adapted the play into a book of the same name, first published in 2020. As of 2018, it had been at the top of the list of plays produced at American high schools for a number of years. ” 

“ The New York Times review of another production at TheatreWorks in Hartford in 2013 was positive: ”John Cariani's Almost, Maine is a series of nine amiably absurdist vignettes about love, with a touch of good-natured magic realism…This is a beautifully structured play, with nifty suprise endings (most but not all of them happy) and passing references to characters from other vignettes, which slyly tell us more about them. Mr. Cariani describes the play's subject as ‘falling in and out of love’. It is just as much about pain." 

 

Selected by the American National Theatre as one of the most outstanding regional theatre productions of the 2004-2005 season.

Featured in New Playwrights: Best Plays of 2006.

Most produced play in North American high schools 2009–2010, and 2011–2012, and four consecutive years from 2014–15 through 2017–18.

 

 

 

Delaware Hayes Thespians

The Delaware Hayes Thespian Troupe is a group of student thespians who attend or live in the Delaware City School District. Most of our students attend Rutherford B. Hayes High School, though some of our students attend the Delaware Area Career Center, attend Post Secondary or College Credit Plus Classes, or are home schooled within the district. 

Rutherford B. Hayes High School has a history dating back to at least 1973 of performing high quality theatre productions all of which were staged in the Willis Auditorium until the new auditorium was added to the high school in 1997. The complete list of past musical productions can be found in our annual spring musical program, however in the last 10 years it includes fabulous productions such as:

2009 Fiddler on the Roof
2010 Guys and Dolls
2011 The Phantom of the Opera
2012 Legally Blonde: The Musical
2013 Hello, Dolly!
2014 Anything Goes
2014 You're a Good Man Charlie Brown
2015 Footloose
2016 Les Miserables
2017 Damn Yankees!
2018 Shrek The Musical
2019 Mary Poppins
2020* Chicago High School Edition
2021* Little Women
2022 Bye Bye Birdie

*Chicago High School Edition and Little Women were not staged in front of a live audience due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Alternative performance types were used for these productions. 

 

The Hayes Thespians also perform one fall play every year that takes place around the month of October. Our typical season involves a fall play and a spring musical that is performed in March. Occasionally an additional show is added in a year, however, this is not a regular occurrence. Shows which occurred at different times in the same year are indicated below. 

 In the past, play productions performed by the Hayes Thespians have included shows such as:

2015 (Spring) The Ugly Duckling and The Frog Prince One Acts
2015 (Fall)  Harvey
2016 Our Town
2017 Arsenic and Old Lace
2018 Noises Off
2019 The Crucible
2020 Digital Monologue Showcase*
2021 (Fall) Alice in Wonderland
2021 (Winter) A Charlie Brown Christmas
2022 Almost, Maine

*In 2020, in lieu of a full play production, a digital monologue showcase was put together and premiered for a very limited time on YouTube. This was done because of restrictions due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.