The Stage Is Set
Poet Ape Productions to Present Our Town in Downtown Noblesville
Writer / Matt Keating
Photography Provided
A Noblesville native is bringing his unique theater vision to his hometown, and hopes everyone will enjoy his upcoming project.
James Holbrook, founder of a Chicago-based production company called Poet Ape Productions, says he is particularly looking forward to his next production.
Poet Ape Productions is producing our first show this September in Noblesville, Holbrook says. We are working in conjunction with two great groups, Nickel Plate Arts and the City of Noblesville, to produce Thornton Wilders Our Town, in the south alley of downtown Noblesville. Im a born and bred son of Noblesville.
Holbrook has been thrilled with his work with Poet Ape Productions.
Poet Ape Productions was founded back in February of this year but has been percolating in my head for a while, Holbrook says. I dipped my toes into producing back in 2018 with a production called Mercury Hamlet, and after that short but successful run, I took some time to collect myself and figure out whats next. Then the pandemic hit, which gave the ideas more time to percolate. Once the world started to look something like normal, I saw that the moment was now or never, and went ahead with incorporating Poet Ape Productions.
Holbrook is grateful to Nickel Plate Arts and the City of Noblesville for giving him the chance to produce Our Town in the heart of Noblesville.
I was connected to Nickel Plate through a longtime neighbor and family friend, and also there is the fact that Mayor Chris Jensen and I have known each other since our early days growing up together, Holbrook says. So the timing turned out to be right to bring this production to life.
Holbrook believes Our Town is a wonderful play to bring to the people of Noblesville.
The production entails a simple request to the community and the City of Noblesville – to see your neighbors, community and city with a new sense of curiosity, Holbrook says. We hope audience members will, for the first time they are with us, suspend their assumptions of what they think they know, to see with unimpeded eyes what they might not have seen before.
Holbrooks idea for the production came from a walk around downtown Noblesville in 2015.
The alleyways had just been activated, and I, as I often do when Im at home, was walking around downtown reminiscing about my hometown, Holbrook says. I was walking down the north alley next to old Kirks Hardware, and when I reached Kirks backdoor I was struck in a way I never had been before. Here was this entrance I had seen numerous times before and never paid much attention to, that was now a living piece of Noblesville history. The modern world was buzzing by in front of the building, and the ghosts of every worker who had ever entered this door just to go to work seemed to be looking back at me. It was this feeling I wanted to capture with our production.
Tickets for Our Town are available now.
Walk-up tickets will always be available the day of the performance, Holbrook says. Online sales will begin August 26 at www.poetapeproductions.com. We hope everyone can join us September 29 to October 8 in the south alley of historic downtown Noblesville.
Holbrook would like to hear from the public about Our Town and Poet Ape Productions, and can be reached at
jholbrook@poetapeproductions.com.
