GUILFORD — Guilford Center Stage is stepping into new, brief, territory this spring with “Shorts,” an evening of eight plays directed by six directors and performed by a cast of 17, an unusually large ensemble for the intimate Broad Brook Community Center stage.
The program marks a departure from the company’s usual full‑length productions, and it began with something far smaller: a forgotten college script from 1964.
When GCS co-founder Don McLean went digging through old college papers last year, he didn’t expect to find the seed for Guilford Center Stage’s newest experiment.
Buried in the stack was a a dark, esoteric skit he wrote in 1964 and performed once at Boston University and never again.
“It hasn’t ever been done since,” he said. “And there’s no reason that it should have been.”
While sorting through decades of files, McLean found the original script for “Cows and Other Esoterica,” the piece he wrote as a student for Boston University’s annual “Stunt Night,” during which each undergraduate college submitted a student‑written performance. McLean’s small school, the Division of General Education, decided to break from the usual broad comedy.
“Instead of doing the kind of skit the other schools typically did, we would do something sort of dark and esoteric,” he said. “I think it probably baffled people.”
Now, decades later, he wondered whether it might have a second life.
“I asked our board and I gave them copies of it, and they all said sure, let’s do it.”
But one 14‑minute play wasn’t enough to anchor a full evening.
“Somebody said, yeah, but we have to have something to go with it,” McLean recalled.
That suggestion opened the door to a larger idea: build an entire program of short plays around it.
A board member coined the title “Shorts,” and the concept clicked immediately.
Founded in 2015 as the resident theater company of the Broad Brook Grange, Guilford Center Stage has built a decade‑long identity around place‑based storytelling rooted in Vermont’s history and creative community. The company typically mounts two productions a year and has balanced new works by regional playwrights with revivals of rarely seen Vermont plays, including “A Battle of Wits” (1916), staged with original scenic curtains painted in 1900.
Its repertoire has ranged from classics like “Our Town” to thematic programs such as “Haunts of the Season,” which mixed original short works with pieces by Poe, Frost, Dickinson, and Shakespeare.
In 2025, the group marked its 10th anniversary season with an Agatha Christie double‑bill featuring “Yellow Iris” and “The Thumb Mark of St. Peter.” Guilford Center Stage has also revived community favorites like Verandah Porche’s “Broad Brook Anthology,” a “play for voices” built from local oral histories.
The audacity behind “Shorts” is visible long before opening night, with each of the eight plays needing its own setting, a choice that required the company to stretch the limits of its small stage and its historic scenic resources.
“We’re overusing the resources of our small stage,” McLean said with a laugh.
The production will use all three of the hand‑painted scenic curtains created around 1900 by Guilford artist Charles Henry, each depicting a different rural landscape.
“Each one has a kind of rural scene,” McLeanDon said. “We’re using all three of the drop curtains … and then black drapes for another play.”
One play, set poolside in Miami, required new scenic painting. Volunteers Nancy Detra and Rose Watson created palm trees and a blue backdrop to distinguish it from the more New England‑rooted settings.
Coordinating eight plays, six directors, and 17 actors has created a rehearsal schedule unlike anything the company has attempted, said McLean.
“Just coordinating all these different directors and casts … that’s been one of the big challenges,” he said. Some directors have been rehearsing off‑site, at Tiny Theater on Route 30, in Wardsboro, or in borrowed spaces, before requesting time on the actual stage.
“We squeeze them in,” he said. “It’s been interesting.”
The plays themselves range from under five minutes to about 15. Most are contemporary, though McLean’s 1964 piece is the outlier, performed exactly as originally written.
“Some of it’s a little bit dated,” he said, “but that’s part of the fun.”
The program includes works by local playwrights Sue Kelly, Rebecca Saunders, and Susan O’Hara, as well as writers from New York City, Portland, Maine, Northampton, and Maryland.
“We put the word out and we got much more in the way of submissions than we could have imagined,” McLean said.
The result is a mix of tones and themes: humorous pieces, more serious conversations, and everything in between.
One play, “Meeting Fingerman,” follows a young Jewish man seeking out an elderly scholar; another features two women walking their dogs on a park bench.
“There’s some really funny ones, and a couple more serious ones,” McLean said. “The overall balance is in the favor of humor and comedy.”
Performances take place at the Broad Brook Community Center, 3940 Guilford Center Road in Guilford, on Thursday, April 30, at 7:30 p.m., Friday, May 1, at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, May 2, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, May 3, at 2 p.m,
General admission is $16 per person, for purchase at the door. Payment accepted by cash, check payable to Guilford Center Stage, Venmo, or PayPal.
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