We may think of most of our day-to-day lives as ordinary but, when we actually stand back and look at what our days encompass, we find that the things that we do every day that make our lives work are actually much more meaningful than we give them credit for. Or, that’s what Ordinary Days, running October 17 – 19, gives us the time and space to examine.

Ordinary Days is a new musical written by Adam Gwon, an emerging American playwright, and mounted by Three Form Theatre. I was able to speak for a few minutes with the play’s Director, Steven Angove, about what audiences can expect from the show.

In Steven’s words, the play is about four New Yorkers who discover “how these small events spark these big revelations. How these ordinary days are actually extraordinary for these people…It’s kind of how everyone is so interconnected and how they don’t realize it until later and how special their lives truly are.” The story is set into motion when one of the characters loses notes for her graduate thesis and lives of the four characters intersect – and they find they’ve actually been intertwined for quite a while.

And while musicals may not be your thing, Ordinary Days does quite a few things differently from your typical broadway show. To start with, the run time is only 85 minutes – most musicals I’ve seen run for at least 2 hours! As well, don’t expect a lot of “fluff” from the musical numbers – the songs are very conversational and hardworking in terms of advancing the storyline. Steven says the play will leave the audience feeling tired not from sitting in a theatre for three hours, but rather because of the journey the play will take the audience on. “One of the strongest themes I take away from the show is not to take anything for granted. The smallest moments, the most ordinary things, can be extraordinary. That’s very personal to me, especially recently. You just have to take these little moments, because sometimes they are the last kind of moments you can have, especially with someone. But just appreciating where you are and not always feeling like you have to be moving somewhere… It’s something I think we struggle with a lot as actors – we need to be performing in those big theatres, otherwise we’re not successful. Or we need to be always rehearsing a show or we’re not doing our jobs. But there’s something to be said for being comfortable with where you are and realizing that good things take time and really cherishing those experiences that you do have because they can be few and far between. So, it really hit close to home, especially having just graduated a year ago… [realizing] that, ‘yeah, you’re not always going to be doing a show, but you’re always going to be an actor, you’re always going to be a performer and you should always be practicing those skills and you shouldn’t be disappointed you’re not always working on a show, but you should be looking forward to the next opportunity’.”

Ordinary Days runs at the PCL Theatre October 17 – 19. Tickets are $15 – 20 at Tix on the Square.  Check out threeformtheatre.com for more information about Three Form Theatre.

– Jenna Marynowski