Alumnus and Broadway veteran acts alongside students in TXST play

Set on a theatrical stage with a lack of traditional set pieces, “Our Town” brings its audience into a story told by Eugene Lee, program faculty, as Texas State students portray the scene around him.

Lee has over 50 years of experience in acting, appearing on and off Broadway three times and working in multiple regional theaters in the U.S. He said he acts in or directs a play at Texas State every other year, but his last acting role was his return to “A Soldier’s Play” last year with the Center Theatre Group at Ahmanson Theatre.

With “Our Town,” Lee could enjoy not only learning the processes of a new play but also teaching by example as an actor instead of a director.

“I’m told that just watching me work in rehearsal is a lesson,” Lee said. “I teach at heart. I figure everything out there I can learn. It’s my responsibility as an artist to pass it forward to the next generation.”

Lee met the cast and creative team on the second week of rehearsals and said working with them was a learning process for everyone involved. Ronisha Reneus, acting junior and Mrs. Gibbs in “Our Town,” learned Lee would be the Stage Manager during callbacks along with the rest of the cast. She said it was inspiring watching Lee’s professionalism and his insight into each character.

Theatre junior Illiana Perez (Left) plays Emily Webb alongside theatre junior Nicholas May (Right), playing as George Gibbs, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024, outside the Theatre Building. Photo courtesy of Lauren Jurgemeyer.

“[Lee’s] professional, but he also is a person, and he loves to talk to the cast and connect with all of us,” Reneus said. “It’s fun to see his creative mind, how he thinks about each character and how he wants to connect to everybody, since some of the main points of the show is about connection and community.”

Originally written by Thornton Wilder in 1938, “Our Town” focuses on the lives of the Gibbs and Webb families who live in the fictional town of Grover’s Corners between 1901-1913. Lee plays the Stage Manager, who appears onstage, as he speaks to the audience and voices a few minor characters. He agreed to do the role to pass down what he knew to the next generation and because of a particular scene of the play he liked that aligned with its history.

“Dramatically, the third act of [‘Our Town’] just sold me on wanting to do it,” Lee said. “It’s about life, marriage and death and all the things before it happens.”

The department’s “Our Town” also includes a feature different from other interpretations: a new “Ghost” character. They will shadow Lee in the play and act as his understudy if he cannot do the play. Jack Smith, associate professor and “Our Town” costumer designer, said Ghost got their name due to the intense color palette of the cast and they will match with the Stage Manager.

“I wanted the world of the living to be very rigid and unbending, so straight lines, plaids, that sort of thing became that world,” Smith said. “If that’s the living, the dead have to be the opposite of that, so florals and organic shapes and curves.”

For most of “Our Town,” all the cast members will be on the stage. Kevin Engel, acting senior and Dr. Gibbs in “Our Town,” said Lee helped the cast engage more with their roles by serving as a liaison for the action taking place in the scene, having everyone collectively work together onstage.

“[Acknowledging one another] feels like a living, breathing organism and ecosystem that we’ve created onstage where we’re bridging the gap between this narrator character and the characters in the scene,” Engel said.

The Department of Theatre and Dance will show “Our Town” at 7:30 p.m. from Oct. 1-5 and 2:00 p.m. on Oct. 6 at the Patti Strickel Harrison Theatre. For more information, visit https://txstatepresents.universitytickets.com/w/event.aspx?id=4339.