And the play's characters have similar natures to people he met in Maine, who had problems in their lives that generally arose from their relationships.

The Almost of the title is the play's fictional small town, but it also acknowledges that people often get close to achieving their ambitions, but events prevent them from doing that.

Almost, Maine has been one of the most popular plays selected for US secondary school productions since it premiered Off-Broadway in 2006, as many of the characters are in their teens, so it's not surprising that Hunter Drama has chosen it for staging by its Actors Company, with the production featuring 16 actors aged 17 to 23.

Almost, Maine will have a four-performance season at the Civic Playhouse, from October 15 to 17, and, as the play has been a worldwide hit with people aged 12 and over, having been translated into more than a dozen languages and performed in 20 countries, the shows could get the half-full houses that are now permitted by the Covid-19 regulations.

Almost, Maine has 19 characters, who are people with very different natures and also have very different relationships. Interestingly, the play has had professional productions with two or four actors, who switch from one character to another.

The Hunter Drama production's director, Allison Van Gaal, says the play is very engaging because it looks through 10-minute vignettes at how we connect and learn from each other. The characters almost find solutions to their problems but they don't look, in most cases, at living happily ever after. And they make interesting references to people that watchers have already seen, which indicate what is now happening in their lives.

The play is set on the same day and night in winter, with several of the people eager to see the bright northern lights that shine above the North Pole. And, as the people get together in pairs, they find themselves falling in and out of love in the strangest ways. Knees, for example, are bruised and hearts are broken.

The natures of the nine couples are often shown in amusing and amazing ways.

One woman, for example, carries her heart, broken into 19 pieces, in a small paper bag, with a repairman she meets and who is attracted to her putting the slabs of her heart back together when he finds out how her relationship led to the heartbreak.

A man shrinks to half his former size, after losing hope in love. A couple keep the love they have given each other in large red bags, and sometimes compress the mass into the size of a diamond. And one woman has largely walked around the world, occasionally catching a bus or plane, to show the man she is attracted to just what she will do for him.

Some of the sequences have watchers laughing loudly.

When they are together in a laundry, a man tells a woman who is a new acquaintance, that he has congenital analgesia - an inability to feel pain - which leads to her hitting him on the head with an ironing board to find out if that is indeed the case.

And one of the episodes, which has two young men together and showing an affection for each other, led to a United States school production of the play being cancelled, with the production team deciding to stage it independently and attracting large audiences.

A member of the Hunter Drama cast, Bill Parry, wrote a music score for the show which Allison Van Gaal said is very catchy.

The other cast members are Bailey Ackling Beecham, Jessica Bignell, Emma Blanch, Austin Cooper, Shae-Lee McDonald, Grace Mclaughlin. David Newton, Alana O'Brien, Shyla Schillert, Jay Scott, Adam Soldo, Georgia Vaughan, Matthew Webster, and R.J. Zacharia.

The Civic Playhouse season has shows nightly at 7pm from Thursday, October 15, to Saturday, October 17, plus a 2pm Saturday matinee. For bookings, call 4929 1977.

THIS bright 60-minute version of a classic American musical, which has songs by the Mary Poppins' Sherman Brothers, was to have been staged in the April school holidays, with the COVID-19 epidemic leading to its postponement.

With the COVID restrictions now eased, people seeing the show will enjoyably realise why YPT was so keen to present it.

A lot of the amusing story by Ian Fleming has fitted into the reduced running time, with the actors in the three alternating casts making it a lot of fun.

And while this stage version does not have the title's car high-flying above the cast, the vehicle is seen moving through a white fabric that represents a flooded river.

Likewise, the costumes are very colourful, with the evil Baron and Baroness of Vulgaria always seen in bright orange garb that warns people they could be burnt if they touch them.

The actors are predominantly students, but some of the adult performers who train the young actors also feature in the casts.

Harold Phipps, for example, is one of the production's Caractacus Potts, an eccentric inventor, who buys the old car for what he unsmilingly sees as an expensive 30 shillings.