CORRECTION: Orono playwright's real life in ice hockey inspired his new play at Penobscot Theatre
Mar. 23—"Hockey Mom," the new production going up this weekend at the Penobscot Theatre Co. in Bangor, is Orono playwright Travis Baker's most personal play yet.
His previous plays that were produced at the theater, "One Blue Tarp" and "Hair Frenzy," were both set in Maine, in Baker's fictional midcoast town of Clara. But the story of "Hockey Mom," also set in Clara, is one that's taken directly from the personal experiences of Baker and his wife, Holly, as parents to two ice hockey-playing boys, Zane and Augi.
"Hockey has kind of become our lives," Baker said. "When the boys and their friends saw the read-through, they recognized specific stories and things that have happened to us. It's been really emotional, seeing how much of our lives are up on the stage."
"Hockey Mom," directed by Dan Burson, is about the titular mom, Cindy, played by Jenny Hart, and her son, Cole, a hockey phenom played at various ages by local actors Luka Bogolyubov, Michael Melia, Miles Green-Hamann and Ted Gibson, as they take on the sport they both love, and grow in the process.
Baker began writing "Hockey Mom" just after the pandemic started, when his work was on hold and he found himself with lots of time on his hands. Over the course of a year of writing, he found himself pulling more and more details from his actual life — from a major plot point involving one of the characters getting a concussion during a game (something Zane experienced) to the process of parents letting their kids start to make their own decisions as they get older.
"I think whatever thing your kid is involved in, whether it's sports, theater, dance, whatever, there comes a point where you have to figure out how much you need to be involved, and how much you need to let it be their thing," Baker said. "And that's definitely true of life as well. They'll always be your baby, but they're also growing up."
The set, designed by Sean McClelland, is inspired by the old hockey barns found all over Maine — an ice rink housed inside a wooden building. Baker, who plays on what he called an "old guy" hockey team at Penobscot Ice Arena in Brewer, knows the look and feel of such a place well, as he's traveled all over New England and Canada with his sons for their games. Zane Baker is a junior at John Bapst Memorial High School, where he's a goalie on the school's team, while Augi, now in seventh grade, has played with the Maine Junior Black Bears, the Bangor's region's youth hockey organization.
Longtime Penobscot Theatre actor Ira Kramer, who grew up in London, Ontario, playing hockey, has served as the show's hockey instructor, making sure the actors are properly handling their sticks and pucks and are moving correctly. For a few scenes involving characters actually on the ice, the actors wear in-line skates disguised as ice skates.
"It definitely felt like a clash of two worlds, because when I was a kid growing up in southern Ontario, you strapped on skates almost as soon as you could walk. I actually came to theater much later in life," Kramer said. "It's been really fun to see these two worlds I love so much, theater and hockey, come together."
"Hockey Mom" runs from March 24 through April 16 at the Bangor Opera House. Tickets start at $15 for students and $32 to $40 for adults.
Correction: An earlier version of this report misspelled Miles Green-Hamann's last name.
