It’s a cold winter night in Almost, Maine — a small town so remote it never quite got around to being officially incorporated. The Northern Lights shimmer overhead, and something in the air makes ordinary moments feel a little electric. Over the course of one enchanted evening, love stories unfold across town: couples fall into each other, fall apart, fall back together. A man carries the weight of his broken heart in a paper bag. A woman returns the love she borrowed from a relationship that didn’t work out. Two strangers find themselves drawn together in ways neither can explain.
John Cariani’s Almost, Maine is funny and aching in equal measure — the kind of play that makes you laugh out loud one moment and go quiet the next. It’s about how love surprises us, how it shows up when we’re not looking, and how hard it is to say the thing we most need to say. It has become one of the most-produced plays in American high school theater for good reason: it speaks to everyone who has ever loved someone and struggled to find the words.
Washington-Liberty’s talented theater students bring these stories to life under the direction of Danny Issa — named one of Northern Virginia’s Top 10 Teachers of the Year by Northern Virginia Magazine and the force behind a program that has earned Best Musical nominations at the Brandon Victor Dixon Awards for several years running.