“Pontine Theatre is a
small miracle. This theatre has used puppets, mime and stagecraft to
convey visions of the past to modern audiences for more than 35 years.
Artistic Directors, Marguerite Mathews and Greg Gathers, conspire to
fascinate the contemporary mind with original works based on the
stories and literature of New England. There’s really nothing else
like it anywhere.”
—New Hampshire Magazine
To bring Pontine to your community, contact us at: info@pontine.org
AVAILABLE DECEMBER 2024
A NEW ENGLAND CHRISTMAS
Featuring an original staging of William Dean Howell’s Christmas Everyday and Christmas in Our Town by Alice Van Leer Carrick.
Author, editor, playwright and poet, William Dean Howells (1837-1920) was a resident of Kittery, Maine. In his story Christmas Every Day, a little girl is granted a wish by the Christmas Fairy. Her wish is to have Christmas everyday for a whole year. The first day of Christmas is perfect. The following day it is Christmas again, and every subsequent day as well. It wreaks havoc with the economy. All the woods are cut down for Christmas trees. People get so poor, buying presents, that everybody had to go to the poorhouse. Finally, the little girl begs the Christmas Fairy to undo the spell; she doesn't want it to be Christmas ever again.
In her treasured reminiscence, Christmas in Our Town, Alice Van Leer Carrick tells of her treasured memories of a New England holiday in Hanover, New Hampshire in the mid-20th century. Her whimsical turn of phrase and witty allusions coupled with sheer sentiment goes straight to the heart.
AVAILABLE APRIL / MAY 2025
A WHITE HERON
Pontine Theatre’s Co-Artistic Directors present a new work based on Sarah Orne Jewett’s, A White Heron, published in 1886. This is Pontine’s fifth staging of Sarah Orne Jewett’s stories. Born in 1849 in South Berwick Maine, Jewett was the daughter of the town doctor. As a child, she often accompanied him on his rounds to rural farms in the area. She would sit and listen to family members talking together while waiting for her father. She came to love the wit and wisdom of these country folks and they became the subject of her writings as an adult. She wrote of the rural folk of Maine and the beautiful landscape they inhabited.