Papermaker Comes to Arts Center East

Dionysus Theatre Company has finished their auditions and is bringing Monica Wood’s Papermaker to Arts Center East, October 28-30, 2022.

Papermaker takes place in Abbott Falls, Maine, in 1989. Ernie’s taken a notion. He got it in his head to build an ark. Without his job at the papermill for the last three months and his wife ill at home, Ernie Donohue is building an ark in his backyard. "A man's gotta do something with his hands. Maybe that's all there is to it," Ernie reasons.

Meanwhile, three months battling the union has made Atlantic Paper Company CEO Henry John McCoy weary. He didn’t expect such a fight from these small-town Maine papermakers. Though Henry knows better than to underestimate Irishmen.

Also without a job and with a new baby at home, Ernie’s son Jake is feeling the pressure to cross the picket line and return to work at the mill. But doing so means turning his back on generations of papermakers before him. “It’s not just the men on the line you’re facing," his mother tells him. "It’s the ghosts of the men before them. The ones who worked double-twelves with no insurance, no safety measures, no dignity, Jake. You don’t know what that feels like, because of them.”

Jake's father tells him, "You set foot over that picket line, your grandfathers can feel your boot on their crumbling bones.”

Things get complicated when the lines between ‘us’ and ‘them’ blur.

And building an ark is no small feat for our theater company! If you would like to support this production, you can make your donation in person, mail a check to Arts Center East, or donate online. When you donate to the production, your name or business will be displayed on the website and on the wall in the ground floor entrance of Arts Center East.

Performances of Papermaker will be at Arts Center East in Vernon October 28–30 and November 4–6. Tickets will be available online or by calling 860-871-8222.