"To Gillian on her 37th Birthday" was written by Michael Brady, a Tufts alum, and starred former Jumbo Peter Gallagher in its 1996 Hollywood adaptation.
So it only seems natural for it to appear in the Balch Arena Theater this weekend.
"Gillian" is this year's freshman show, put on by Pen, Paint, and Pretzels. The actors and production staff are all members of the Class of 2008, with the only exceptions being senior director Caitlin McGarty and junior assistant director Laura Semine.
The action in "Gillian" takes place over one Labor Day weekend on an island off the coast of New England. The holiday marks the two-year anniversary of the accidental death of Gillian, the woman referenced in the show's title.
Gillian's widower, David, has hardly begun to get over his loss, and he talks to his deceased wife every night when she appears as an apparition to him. During the course of the show, friends and family struggle both with David's detached state and their own emotions.
"Gillian" was a play long before it was brought to the silver screen in the mid-90s, first produced on Broadway in 1985.
Director Caitlin McGarty chose this script because of an interest in the character development and real-life feel of the show. McGarty adapted the script by shortening it and moving the order of some scenes.
Besides acting in the show in the past, McGarty has seen it performed several times, and has seen it "done very well and very poorly." Her connection to this play is about as thorough as they come.
"I fell in love with this play a very long time ago," she said.
As to why she chose to adapt "Gillian" for Tufts, the director said she was drawn to it because it is "a real show about real people. They are all rounded, well-developed characters that undergo changes."
The cast consists of only seven parts, thus allowing the audience to better understand the motivations and personalities of each of the characters on stage.
"There are no throwaway parts," McGarty said. Each character is important to the story because of who they are, but also because of what their interactions reveal about those around them.
All the characters in the show are either family of Gillian or friends of those family members. The close relationships of the people in the script are greatly enhanced by the jovial and enthusiastic crop of the Tufts actors who are making their Arena debuts in "Gillian."
The freshman cast is clearly a tight-knit group, thus allowing for more believable interactions on-stage. Freshman Elaine Harris, who plays David's daughter, said that it has been a change to work with a new director after consistently working with the same one for many years. "Gillian" was a "friendly directing experience" for Harris because McGarty is close enough in age to the actors that she can relate to the problems they encounter.
The all-freshman production staff is also an eager and well-acclimated group. Freshman stage manager Leslie Stephenson said that the members of the production staff were assigned upperclassman mentors to help familiarize them with the "new space, new rules, and new jobs" of the Arena theater.
Stephenson's mentor, junior Ashley Berman, said that the "mentors try to take as much of a backseat as possible," but that the connection allows the freshmen to seek guidance whenever necessary. This setup allows the incoming freshmen to build on any past experience they have and augment it with new familiarity with the Balch Arena Theater.
Boasting an impressive beach scene as its set, a few "Gilligan's Island" jokes, free admission, and yes, even a happy ending, "To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday" debuts tonight in the Balch Arena Theater.
