First printed in Cranston High School West’s newspaper the West Wind.

About 50 years ago, Ms. Nancy Vitulli and Ms. Barbara Bianco attended Cranston East together, and they were in countless productions with one another and while they performed the show Our Town together, the same exact play opening tonight in the Alumni Auditorium and continuing for the weekend.

In this week’s West theater play directed by Vitulli with support from make-up and hair advisor Bianco, the timeless classic is being brought to life once again for the two, but on the other side of the stage. In their production at East 50 years ago, Vitulli played the lead, Emily Webb, and Bianco was in the role of Mrs. Gibbs, respectively being portrayed throughout this coming weekend by West junior Payton Mays and senior Emmaline Hall. At the time, the two never knew what a timeless classic Our Town would turn into in the future and now lead students at West to experience it.

After meeting at Hugh B. Bane middle school, and moving on to Cranston East together, both Bianco and Vitulli had an amazing experience through Our Town. Their high school theater teacher, Mr. Babbitt even brought them down to a small village in New Hampshire, like Grover’s Corners, the setting of our town, to give the students a true understanding of life in Our Town. Along with bringing their class over 3000 miles to London. Vitulli stated that Babbitt was “very instrumental in opening up the world of theater to me and all of the possibilities.”

Once their 3 years of high school were all done the two went separate ways, with Vitulli going out to New York to study theater at NYU and Bianco staying in Rhode Island and going to Rhode Island College, getting both a degree in theater and English teaching.

After Vitulli had children, she moved  back to Rhode Island to start  the ‘Cranston Community Theater’ and the two got back in contact. After many years of working on productions together in many different churches and other places, Bianco got her job opportunity at Cranston West, where to this day she has kept assisting Vitulli on her productions here at West.

The ability to be able to work together on the production and to work on bringing it to life through the West students is a way for the two to relive their memories and use their past with Our Town to help the students truly put an impactful show onto the stage. Bianco says in regards to this idea, “it’s just really hard to believe that it’s been all these years and Ms. Vitulli and I are together again and it’s wonderful, it brings back lots of wonderful memories,”

In this full circle occurrence between the two, Bianco said, “it’s a pleasure, it’s really special, the play is special.” For the both of them, going from childhood to adulthood and from the stage to the director’s chairs, it is a true full circle surreal experience for the two friends.