单选题 It closed a month after it opened Off Broadway. Entertainment Weekly selected it as one of the worst shows of 2006. Most New Yorkers don't even remember it. Yet John Cariani's "Almost, Maine," an earnest 19-character play about the romantic happenings one cold night in northern Maine, has since been produced around the world, including in Australia, Dubai and South Korea. A Spanish-language version will be presented this spring in Mexico City. More than 600 companies, amateur and professional, have put it on in the United States and Canada. Moreover, "Almost, Maine," which lost its entire $800,000 Off Broadway capitalization, was the most-produced play in North American high schools this year. It unseated Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream from the No. 1 high school slot, according to Dramatics magazine's Top 10 list.
"After it closed Off Broadway, I sort of put it behind me," said Mr. Cariani, 41, who is also a Tony Award-nominated actor. "I had to make a living. I started audi-tioning again. But then it started to build like a snowball." While Mr. Cariani has done other acting parts, royalties from the play alone could have supported him over the last two years, he said. "It's great because I don't have to take every audition."
Yet auditions are what led him to create the play. Raised in Presque Isle, Me., Mr. Cariani began writing vignettes about his home state to perform at auditions. In the late 1990s he started presenting them at Performance Space NBC in New York, a place where the television network would develop new talent. It was there that Gabriel Barre, a theater director, approached Mr. Cariani about stitching the stories into a play.
Craig Pospisil, the director of nonprofessional licensing for Dramatists Play Service, which has the North American rights to the show, described its slow build as a "real Cinderella story". Productions that have flopped in New York but succeeded elsewhere usually showcase big-name creative personnel, well-known titles, child-friendly material or a combination of all three. It is much rarer to find a play that still attracts attention outside the city without those calling Cards. "Almost, Maine," however, has had a particularly unlikely ascent. Perhaps it helped that Dramatist representatives handed out colorful "Almost, Maine" buttons (left over from Off Broadway) at conferences throughout the country. Or that Mr. Cariani and Jack Thomas, the show's original lead Off Broadway producer, sent out mailings to artistic directors, putting it on the regional circuit's radar. Maybe it was because the play—composed of nine vignettes— offered material that students could break off and perform at drama competitions and that professional actors could present at auditions. Or could the key to success be that the text can be performed by as few as 4 people or as many as 19?
"If you are a professional playwright looking to make it in New York, you write something with the smallest possible cast," said Doug Rand, chairman of the licensing company Playscripts Inc. "Amateur theater groups want to have as big a cast as possible. New York really hasn't generated that kind of work in decades. So, when you come across that work, it's like water in the desert."
That the play has become such a high school favorite is somewhat surprising, given that one segment involves two men falling in love, a story line that would seem to hamper productions in more conservative areas. Yet it has been performed twice in Dubai, where homosexual acts are illegal and a government agency must approve all theatrical scripts before they are produced.
"We were a little nervous about the whole thing, but we were very much charmed by the material and wanted to do it," said Emily Madghachian, the artistic director of Kids. Theater Works!, who produced one of the two Dubai renditions after seeing the show at the 2009 International Thespian Festival in Nebraska. "In the end we didn't encounter any trouble." The production even made money.
"When shows have certain sweetness, an absolute lack of guile, they can be very good for regional theaters to do," Mr. Thomas said. He described the scene at one such house, Florida Repertory Theater, in Fort Myers, where the show played in 2007. Mr. Thomas said, "The theater was filled with people who drive big American cars and were wearing embroidered sweaters with moose and other animals. They loved it."

单选题 Which of the following is TRUE about the market reaction to the show?

A.It was a successful Off Broadway show.
B.People in New York were excited about it.
C.It was a total failure.
D.It was extremely popular in high schools.

单选题 How did the writer, Mr. Cariani, feel about people's reaction to his play?

A.Surprised.
B.Indifferent.
C.Disappointed.
D.Angry.

单选题 What does "real Cinderella story" in Paragraph 4 mean?

A.The play is as poor as Cinderella was.
B.There is a huge change in the fate of both Cinderella and the play.
C.The play is disliked by most people as Cinderella was.
D.The play is about a story similar to Cinderella.

单选题 Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of the play?

A.It consists of many separable parts.
B.It can be played by many or a few people.
C.It involves some big names.
D.It is suitable for school performance.

单选题 Why was Emily Madghachian nervous about the play in the last but one paragraph?

A.The play is very conservative.
B.It's likely to irritate the radical people.
C.It involves homosexual love.
D.It involves sexual discrimination.