By Rod Hansen
Staff Writer

Goffstown News/Rod Hansen Goffstown High School juniors Kristin Lauer, left; Kayleen Duclos, right; and Justine Whitney rehearse for the Goffstown Theatre Company’s spring production of “On the Verge, or The Geography of Yearning.” The company will perform the play at Goffstown High School’s Hieber auditorium on April 7 and 8.

The costumes evoke Victorian England, but the technology is strictly 21st century.

The three actresses rehearsing onstage at the Hieber Auditorium of Goffstown High School look and sound as though they dropped out of 1800s England, in full dresses and upper-crust accents. The talk of some of the stage crew takes a decidedly more modern bent. One crew member works to synchronize a laptop computer for onstage projections. Another asks a question about Microsoft PowerPoint.

Welcome to the Goffstown Theatre Company’s production of “On the Verge,” by Eric Overmyer. Using a $5,000 technology grant, this play promises to give the cast and audiences a taste of state-of-the-art theater-going. And the state of the art at the moment is in multimedia projections, according to Goffstown High School Director of Theatre Lee Mannion.

“Theater is becoming a multi-media experience through the use of cuttingedge technology,” Mannion said. ”From college campuses to Broadway, theaters are experimenting with projection technology.”

The equipment used for this production of “On the Verge” results from a grant that Mannion and technical director Dan Pare applied for in December.

Working with Matt Kizer, associate professor of design and technology at Plymouth State University, Mannion and Pare obtained the grant.

They used the funds to purchase a laptop and two projectors, with further funding from a school district grant being used to purchase projection screens.

The use of projection technology in the theater offers many challenges and rewards, Mannion said. Kizer spelled out these dual aspects clearly in his letter to the technology committee. “The process of creating projections can be quite involved,” Kizer wrote.

“It involves doing visual research, scanning images, creating them from scratch, using the Internet, and using video animation and editing software.

The process can begin very simply and can grow into very sophisticated manipulation of multimedia. It is a superb blend of scholarship, technology and art.”

Mannion said “On the Verge” presents the perfect material for using the new projection technology.

The play, about three Victorian female explorers who engage in time travel, is ordinarily performed on a bare stage, similar to Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town.”

In the Goffstown production, the projections will serve as the backdrop for the action. The projection technology lends itself well to the play’s exotic locales, Mannion said.

“On the Verge’ fits in perfectly with the technology we wanted to use,” Mannion said.

Mannion’s intuition proved correct, as the Goffstown Theatre Company has already earned awards for an earlier production of “On the Verge.”

Performed on March 11 at Nashua High School South as part of the New Hampshire Regional Educational Theatre Festival, the play took in seven awards, including Best Regional Performance 2006; Best Student Director for Erika Carey, Best Concept Design for Carey, Kristin Duclos and Jon Poirier; Best Lighting Design for Jess Donovan and Ali Ward; and Best Actors for Jocelyn Duford, Christina Kelleher and Kristen Whitney.

Watching a new cast perform at a recent rehearsal, members of the cast who took home festival awards all spoke positively about their experience.

Duford, who won one of the Best Actor awards for her role as Mary, said the projections do not present a distraction from the overall performance.

“Once you get into it, you don’t even notice there’s a projection behind you,” Duford said.

Kelleher, who appeared as Fanny in the festival production, said the projections even lent an air of believability to the scenery.

“I found it freeing,” said Kelleher, a junior at the high school. “We could create our own world on the stage. Being with the other two (actresses) is helpful, too. I try to let myself believe we’re really in that world.”

The believability of that world apparently helped to earn the troupe plaudits at the festival.

“One of the judges complimented us at the festival,” said Kristen Whitney, who appeared in the role of Alex. “They said they could see our world by the actions and motions we did onstage.”

Carey, who won the award of Best Student Director, said she considers herself “technologically challenged,” but still enjoyed the process of preparing for the production. Some of the preparation included picking out slides for the play during her fourth-period study hall and studying the script.

Carey said she also thought the projection technology enhances the overall theater experience.

“I hope they can keep working technology into the performances,” she said. “it brings a lot more into the theater experience.”

The Goffstown Theater Company will perform its spring production of “On the Verge: Or, the Geography of Yearning” on Friday and Saturday, April 7 and 8, at 7:30 p.m., in Goffstown High School’s Heiber Auditorium.