The Great Falls Theatre Company opens its 10th production tonight, The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, at the University of Providence Theatre.
The play, first performed in 1944, became one of the most famous plays of the modern theatre with timeless themes of balancing responsibility, longing for more, and family dynamics that are just as relevant to today’s audience as when first performed, according to GFTC.
“Williams’ drama of great tenderness, charm, and beauty is sure to entertain and inspire all,” according to GFTC.
The play centers on Amanda Wingfield, a “faded remnant of Southern gentility, living in poverty in a dingy St. Louis apartment with her son Tom and daughter Laura. Although shattered by her husband’s abandonment, she focuses on securing their futures. Amanda collides with her children’s dreams and ambitions as attentions turn to securing a suitor for Laura, the fragile balance of the family’s dynamic begins to crack.”
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Amanda is played by Tyler Layton, a professional actress who left Hollywood and since coming to Great Falls nearly three years ago, she’s unplugged from the unions to do community theater.
Growing up in Birmingham, Ala., “I used to pretend to be on stage every night when I was supposed to be doing my homework.”
She had to leave Alabama to launch her professional career, where she had a main role in the television show Silk Stalkings in the mid-1990s, among other television and theater credits.
On television, she said she was disappointed not to be performing to live audiences.
It was a career, but now she loves to act just for fun, and the fact that it’s virtually impossible to make a living in theater in Montana was part of the draw.
“Theatre brings people together. You have to work together. You have to work as a team,” Layton said.
It gives young people confidence and “encourages you to step out of the box that Montana and Alabama provide. It’s an exploration of the human condition, which I am more fascinated with than anything in the world. If you get good at it, you can see others experiencing it, showing them themselves, that they’re human.”
As an acting professor, she taught her students to “get out there and bleed for the audience,” meaning feel and show deep emotions to people who “go to a lot of lengths not to feel things, to keep it all inside.”
Just as she got to town in the summer of 2023, she heard about the Great Falls Theatre Company.
Layton sent a quick email with a resume, saying she was in town and were there ways to get involved.
Within 24 hours, she said that Amber Henning Griffith, the company’s board president, wrote back, suggesting they meet for coffee.
In 2024, Layton had a role in the company’s spring production of Steel Magnolias.
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In larger cities, she said, theater groups can be tough to get into, with their set cliques and attitudes.
The Great Falls Theatre Company, she said, is the opposite.
“They want everybody. They believe in community theater,” Layton said, with a focus on ensuring the actors and backstage members have a good experience.
“I feel really grateful that they have just opened their arms, not just to me, but everybody who’s interested in theater,” she said.
Zoë Lynn Burritt is returning to the stage after a break from the theatre.
She’s playing Amanda’s daughter, Laura, in her first show with the company.
The California native has been in Great Falls for several years and was missing theatre, feeling the pull back the stage.
A quick online search brought her to the Great Falls Theatre Company and like Layton, she sent an email looking to get involved.
The response was quick, letting know there were open auditions for The Glass Menagerie.
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Burritt said she showed up, thinking it would be a practice run to get back in the swing of things and that she wouldn’t get a part.
But, she did, and said it’s been “cool to have everybody come together,” as the volunteer company prepared for the show.
“We’re all so happy to be here,” Burritt said. “It’s just fun because we love to do it.”
She said she feels a strong sense of community in Great Falls and the theatre company adds to that.
As a theatre nerd, “it’s cool to have a place to be able to find my people,” Burritt said, and everyone will be able to find a bit of themselves in The Glass Menagerie.
The play ends with stories unresolved, an aspect she likes, “because that’s how life is.”
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The show has been a favorite of Kaylee LaClair’s for more than a decade.
She the company’s vice president and making her directorial debut with the show.
LaClair took directing classes as part the University of Montana’s theatre program and she’s worked with directors in many capacities, including as an actor and stage manager withe the Great Falls Theatre Company.
The Glass Menagerie had come up in the company’s season planning discussions and LaClair said she volunteered to direct.
“Everyone’s been supportive and lifted me up,” she said.
It’s a play that many were assigned to read in school, but probably didn’t actually read, she joked, but seeing it live is different.
Set in the 1930s, the play was first performed in 1944.
It’s the everyday life of a mother, son and daughter as a “memory play,” a term coined by the playwright, LaClair said.
The audience meets Tom, the son, in the present day, and relives his memories with him, as he narrates how those moments have affected his present day.
LaClair said the company has been building momentum and a swell of community support.
“We love putting on plays, but if no one comes to see it, what’s it all for,” she said.
They’re hoping their summer show, The Wizard of Oz, will be their biggest show yet, and they continue fundraising and programming. The company is running a kids’ summer camp again this year.
“There’s a place for everybody,” LaClair said.
The company includes seasoned actors, those who haven’t acted since high school and those trying it for the first time.
Their youngest performer so far was 5-years-old and the oldest 80.
“That’s community theatre,” she said.
Want to go?
The Great Falls Theatre Company presents its spring show, The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams at the University of Providence Theatre, 1301 20th St. S.
The play is about 2.5 hours with one intermission.
Advanced tickets are highly recommended and available online. A limited number of tickets are available in person one hour before the performance, subject to availability.
General admission tickets are $17.
Show times are:
- April 23 at 7 p.m.
- April 24 at 7 p.m.
- April 25 at 2 p.m.
- April 25 at 7 p.m.
