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Show Breathes New Life Into Spoon River Anthology

Starry Night Repertory Theatre

Starry Night Repertory Theater in Macomb opens its season Friday, October 3. Its performers will interpret a well-known work by a writer from west-central Illinois.

A Starry Night in Spoon River features poems from Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology published in 1915. The collection is about the residents of a fictional town called Spoon River.

Director Rebecca Bean said the show is in the style of reader’s theater.

"You might call it a radio play in that you will be listening to the poems more than watching them."

Spoon River Anthology is nearly a century old, but Bean said, the lives of the characters depicted are not that terribly different from those who live in the region today.

"When you take away the cell phones and the internet we are still having to deal with the same decisions," Bean said. "What does it mean to be a parent? What does it mean to be fair? What does it mean to be kind?"

Bean said there's a benefit to listening to the poems versus reading them.

"The nice thing about this piece is we have 10 actors creating 55 different characters so you get that change from poem to poem," Bean said. "You get a change of sound,  you get a change of visual, you get a change of subject, you get a change of character."

There will be music dispersed throughout the show. The production will feature songs from Babylon Bend written by Merle and Virginia Lundvall. The musical first premiered in Macomb in 1969.

The Starry Night Repertory Theater performs a Starry Night in Spoon River Friday night at 7:30 and Saturday afternoon at 2.

The show will be at the Wesley Village Community Center in Macomb. Tickets are available at the door, online or at 309-255-8570. 

Emily Boyer is a former reporter at Tri States Public Radio.