’Home’ is where the theater is

These are a few of the vignettes authors Annie Martin and Suzi Regan have included in “Home: Voices From Families of the Midwest,” which is having its world premiere at Williamston Theatre.

It’s the third in a trilogy of “Midwest” shows originally conceived by Williamston artistic director Tony Caselli: 2008’s “Maidens, Mothers and Crones” was the first installment, and last year’s “Flyover, USA” was the second. “Home” brings together Sandra Birch from “Maidens” and John Lepard from “Flyover”; Hazen Cuyler and Maggie Meyer complete the ensemble. Regan also directed the show.

“Each of them has had its own sort of life,” Lepard said of the parts of the trilogy. “‘Mothers, Maidens and Crones’ had the same playwright and director we have now, so there are moresimilarities with ‘Mothers’ than with ‘Flyover.’” “Flyover,” whichdealt with a variety of male concerns from unemployment to teenagerecklessness to finding the best chili, had “a lot more testosterone,”Lepard said. “This one is a little gentler. It deals with relationshipsa little more than the last one.”

In one scene, set in Kalamazoo, a mother (Birch) who’s initially wary of her son’s relationship with a “friend” (Cuyler) unexpectedly winds up sharing family secrets with the young man, including the fact that, as a child, her son insisted on wearing a “Xanadu”-inspired Halloween costume year after year. “Olivia Newton-John — on roller-skates!” she gasps.

Lepard has a poignant monologue in which a retiring high school teacher in Dublin, Ohio, both anticipates and dreads the “depressing bad-sheetcake party” he’ll be escorted to at 4 p.m. on his last day.

Like the previous shows in the series, “Home” was at least partly inspired by suggestions and anecdotes from Midwesterners, “but I think you could take it to the South or the West and have the same stories,” Lepard said. “They just happen to be in our voices.”

’Home: Voices From Families of the Midwest’

WilliamstonTheatre, 122 South Putnam, Williamston Through June 13 Thursdays andFridays at 8 p.m.; Saturdays at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m.; Sundays at 2 p.m.Thursdays $18; Friday and Saturday evenings $24; Saturday and Sundaymatinees $20; Student tickets (with valid ID) $10; Senior discount (65and older) $2 off regular ticket price. (517) 655-SHOWwww.williamstontheatre.org