The final curtain falls at Hampshire College: Silverthorne Theater Company marks the end of an era with ‘Deep Blue Sound’

Silverthorne Theater Company’s next production isn’t just a show — it’s an occasion that marks both a director’s return to acting after a 15-year hiatus and a bittersweet conclusion to a four-year college partnership.

The Amherst-based company will present its production of Abe Koogler’s “Deep Blue Sound” from Thursday, July 16, through Sunday, July 26, at Hampshire College’s Emily Dickinson Hall.

“It’s a really fun show,” said director Ezekiel Baskin. “You’ll laugh a lot. I feel like I’m always looking right now for things that feel sparky and active and alive and funny, and I think [this show] displays all of those things.”

The show is about a small island town in the Pacific Northwest and the interesting personalities who inhabit it — for instance, the unofficial mayor, the newspaper editor, the horse groomer looking for love and the homeless man who carries around a chainsaw. When a pod of orcas disappears, the group gathers to talk about where they might have gone and why.

“It’s really unlike any other play that I’ve read in the way that it captures how groups of people really talk together. … I think Abe Koogler has this brilliant ear for dialogue, and you really get this picture of a whole community of people, and it’s hilarious and it’s heartbreaking, and it’s almost kind of oceanic in the way the play washes over you,” Baskin said.

The aforementioned symbolic mayor is Mayor Annie, played by Gina Kaufmann. This show will mark Kaufmann’s return to acting after 15 years as a director.

Going back to acting is great for directors, she said, “because you realize how vulnerable it is and how much you have to just put yourself out there and not know if what you’re doing is working, and you can’t hold back, because you know that if you hold back, it won’t work. You have to 100% go there.”

It helped, though, that she was able to recognize herself in her character. “Not that I’m exactly like Mayor Annie, but I certainly have to curb my tendencies to be a Mayor Annie,” she said. “And I know that when I was a kid, it was Mayor Annie all the way: ‘I know what to do!’ ‘I’ll be in charge!’ ‘No, you don’t know what to do, I know what to do!’”

While the play is inherently moving and funny, this staging carries a poignant weight: it marks Silverthorne’s final curtain call at Hampshire College, which is set to close its doors this fall, forcing the company to find a new home.

“I walk outside the theater and I feel so gut-punched sometimes,” Kaufmann said. In those moments, she thinks, “Oh, it’s so lonely out here now.”

In fact, a number of people involved with this show are — or will soon be — Hampshire alums. Notably, lighting designer Sabrina Hamilton was part of the first-ever theater class at Hampshire, which had just two people in it. Now, with this show, she’s mentoring a student who will graduate from the college in the fall.

“It’s a really nice intergenerational Hampshire theater presence,” Baskin said.

Assistant Director Ash Goverman, who is not a Hampshire alum, said the partnership that Silverthorne and Hampshire shared for years encapsulated “the ethos of Hampshire, of collaborative experimentation imaginativeness.”

“The death of this institution is a heartbreak, and not having such direct ties to the school, I’m able to see the seeds of that legacy watered in the art spaces that I’m encountering here,” she said. “And especially knowing that it was founded as an experiment, I feel hopeful for continued experiences, and I feel really grateful to get to be in the space.”

Baskin told the Gazette that the company will announce its next venue and its 2027 season in February. In the meantime, they said, “I’m excited for people to see themselves reflected in the show.”

“I’m excited for people to think about the ways that they relate to nature and that nature relates to us,” they added. “I’m excited for people to think about, how do we make change as a community together, and how do we reach for each other in a relationship, [and] for people to laugh a lot. And I think, hopefully, the show will be both.”

Tickets to “Deep Blue Sound,” fees included, are $29.58 general admission, $25.31 for seniors and guests 25 and under, $19.98 for students and $7.18 for EBT/SNAP, WIC and ConnectorCare cardholders via deepbluesound.eventbrite.com. The cast includes Jamie Berger, Imani Bibuld, Mary Beth Brooker, Tracy Einstein, Nisse Greenberg, Dana Harrison, Gina Kaufmann, Moe McElligott and Joseph Wright.