If you’ve ever seen a high school playbill in the last 20 years, chances are it included "Almost, Maine." John Cariani’s 2004 collection of tender, slightly magical vignettes about small-town romance has quietly become one of the most performed plays in the English language, especially among teenagers trying on first love under stage lights. Now Cariani returns to the same territory—Northern Maine, young love, cosmic metaphors—with a new work that’s having its New York premiere not in Manhattan, but in Ellenville.
"Darker the Night/Brighter the Stars" opens at Shadowland Stages on August 29, directed by Cariani himself, a fact that makes the whole production feel less like a regional staging and more like a world premiere in miniature. Shadowland, celebrating its 40th anniversary this season, has made a habit of punching above its weight, and this is a feather in its cap: a brand-new play by one of the country’s most frequently produced playwrights, helmed by the playwright.
The setup is pure Cariani. A small town in Northern Maine is gathered under the Perseid meteor showers, hoping for a little magic. But as the shooting stars streak overhead, no one can decide whether they’re portents of good fortune or omens of doom. Between those streaks of light fall stories of young love and wishful longing, stitched together into what the playwright calls “an interwoven collection of short plays about the desire to be truly understood.”
That phrase could double as Cariani’s artistic mission statement. Whether on the page or onstage, his characters tend to be slightly awkward, slightly adrift, but always yearning—for connection, for recognition, for the mysterious thing that makes two people see each other clearly. If "Almost, Maine" caught the bittersweet humor of falling in love, "Darker the Night/Brighter the Stars" asks: What happens when we look up and wonder if the universe is paying attention?
Cariani himself is no stranger to the stage beyond his writing. Many know him as the earnest forensic tech Julian Beck on "Law & Order." Broadway audiences remember him as Motel the Tailor in the 2004 revival of "Fiddler on the Roof," a role that earned him a Tony nomination. He’s also been part of the original casts of "Something Rotten!" and "The Band’s Visit," giving him a resume that straddles popular television and acclaimed musical theater. That he’s chosen to direct this premiere in Ellenville, with a young cast featuring Hannah Daly, Aidan J. Lawrence, Emily Verla, and Shawn Denegre-Vaught, speaks volumes about Shadowland’s reach.
The play runs through September 14 at Shadowland’s MainStage on Canal Street, with evening and matinee performances (and the theater’s “Pay What You Can” previews).
As anniversaries go, 40 years is nothing to sneeze at. Shadowland has spent four decades proving that world-class theater can bloom in small Hudson Valley towns. With Cariani’s newest play lighting up the Ellenville night sky, the stars seem aligned for another wish to come true.
