Something great about making friends with the Sand’s Performing Arts students (besides their wonderful talent and lovely company), is that sometimes they text you asking if you want to go see a Broadway show with them that night. Those are the circumstances that led me to see Our Town at the Barrymore Theater. I went into this show blindly, not knowing much more about it than the title and names of a few characters. This is often my preference, as it allows me to avoid making comparisons to previous renditions, whether they be conscious or not. However, in this case I think having some context would have been helpful. This play runs for an hour and forty-five minutes with no intermission, and it is split into three acts; “Daily Life,” “Love and Marriage” and “Death and Eternity.” The ensemble is robust and led by notable actors such as Jim Parsons, Zoey Deutch, and Katie Holmes, to name a few. However, sometimes star power isn’t enough. It’s not to say I didn’t enjoy the show—it certainly had its merits, but in my opinion, it missed the mark overall. As I said before, I wasn’t super familiar with the source material, but I felt nothing clicked. I left with a similar impression to when I came in. By the time we hit the big emotional climax of the third act, it felt very undeserved due to the lack of cohesion in the first two. I think this had to do with both the cast and the directing. While I appreciated the eclectic nature of the cast, they never gelled together in a way that got the audience invested in their relationships. The directing felt ambitious but at times certain choices seemed to lack purpose. However, the moments that felt intentional, such as the confrontation between the characters of Mr. Webb and Simon Stimson had a strong emotional impact. If more moments like this were present throughout the show the climactic ending would have been much more powerful. This show did have some great strengths. A standout was Ephraim Sykes’ performance as George Gibbs. He balanced playing a character who went through different stages of his life in this short runtime in a way that felt really genuine. His youthful nature was palpable in the first act, and by the time it got to the third you truly believed he was dealing with these characters’ emotions. I also really enjoyed Jim Parsons’ performance as the stage manager. He felt like a grounding force in a production that was somewhat chaotic. Overall, I enjoyed many of the performances, the entire Gibbs family in particular was great, but in my opinion some choices lacked intention, preventing the audience from connecting with the characters in any real way. Don’t get me wrong, I am in no means pessimistic about this experience, any live theater is a good time for me. Make sure to take advantage of all the opportunities Pace offers to go to shows! Even if it’s not exactly your cup of tea, art can always be enriching. I may not have loved this show, but others will, and that is the great thing about experiencing the performing arts.