This Thursday night, L1 filled up with eager parents and students, waiting to see the annual Winter Week 10-minute plays. The last play of the night was Spoon River, a longer play of about 30 minutes and the deserving winner of seven awards at the Emerson Play Festival.

This play was directed by Nicole Poirier and starred Kate Fiske, Jonathan von Mering, Haylee Rosenblatt, Jesse Vogel, Jonah Greenawalt, Jade Donaldson, Sophie Facher-Yarin, and Patricia Akrivoulis.

Spoon River is a fictional small town in Illinois. Each character is a deceased member of the community, including a poet, a widow, and a schoolteacher. The characters talked about their experiences after death and reflected back on their lives.

Although the idea of the play was hard to understand at first, once the story fell into place, I began to fully appreciate the actors’ phenomenal performance.

I was impressed with the maturity of the actors and the deep level of thought that they brought onto the stage. It was obvious that the actors spent a lot of time preparing to perform this play and that each action and line was well thought out. All in all, this was yet another incredible Winter Week performance.

Miss an event from Winter Week 2011? WSPN’s got it covered.