Review: FROM HERE TO WHERE at Wilbury Theatre Group

The Wilbury Theatre  kicked off its 2025-2026 season with the World Premiere of "From Here to Where"-part Poet Jam, part Improvised ensemble performance, part reckoning with the world around us and so much more!

"From Here to Where", with book by Umberto Crenca and music by The Gillen Street Ensemble, is a 75 minute thought-provoking jam session that will make you ponder the world around you, the struggles that you face and how it all may someday get resolved or not....

The idea behind "From Here to Where" started about two years ago when The Gillen Street Ensemble was at the Wilbury Theatre for another production("People of Earth")  where an umbrella jam session came out of the event with musicians piecing together parts of what this show would become.  The Gillen Street Ensemble includes Heather Ahern, Chris Anderson, Susan Clausen, Umberto Crenca, Alan Greco, Alice Jackson, Mitch Mackenzie and Cliff Wood.

Like some of Wilbury Theatre Group's other musically-focused productions from the past few years like 2024's "Noise" and 2023's "Once", "From Here to Where" is in a place all its own when it comes to theatre.  For those looking for a drama or comedy in a few acts with a plot, a beginning and an ending, "From Here to Where" has none of that.  It has incredibly improvised music-saxophone, violin, electric guitar, keyboard, flute, trumpet and drums with a sprinkle of thought-provoking poetry.

"From Here to Where" questions existence-hell it questions everything we know about life experiences.  Some of the lines include "try not to hold grudges but do", "cross many borders" "quick to learn but not that learned", "I hate that I've had to hurt people" "I worry about stuff (no need to worry) but I do.."  Any of this sound familiar to you?  Yep, thought so.  And with these thought-provoking words, spoken from a heavy and colorful book by Umberto Crenca, we think, we ponder, we wonder and we jam.

In one set, Umberto tells the story of being on a dark road at 2 a.m. and stopping at a stop light even though there's no one around for miles and you wait for the light to change...and you wait...why?  Crenca calls the work a culmination of years of improv music sessions that eventually incorporated writing, dance and video.  "The work is personal without fitting comfortably in any particular genre of art of performance, a bit of an assault on the senses we love."  And he's right.  Everyone will get something different out of this work.  Our 16-year-old loved the music but was still mulling the message (mostly because there really wasn't one defined message). 

Bassist Susan Clausen said "From Here to Where" is traveling through a landscape they have all created, discovering new places along the way.  "It's aim is to feed the soul and provide an escape from this crazy world we live in."  And that's so true, this 75-minute musical tour de force goes by as if it was like 5 minutes.  When the standing ovation came, I literally had to check my watch because I didn't believe the 75 minutes had come and gone.  You just get caught up in the incredible music, dancing and poetry and you lose yourself, something we all need a little bit of these days....   "From Here To Where" is another original muscial triumph for Wilbury Theatre and for all of us....