The Hackmatack Playhouse of Berwick, Maine, comes back to life in June for its 37th summer season.

The playhouse is named after the Hackmatack tree, which loses its leaves each winter and looks dead, unlike most coniferous trees. Like the tree, the Hackmatack Playhouse reemerges every summer. The country theater seats 218 people in a renovated barn.
Executive producer Michael Guptill said the playhouse is a unique, quaint theater with a “down home atmosphere” that offers home-made desserts.

The colors of the upholstered seats are arranged so that, from the stage, one can read the initials of founder S. Carlton Guptill, the initials of the playhouse, and the year ’72, marking the first season. Before and after the show, audience members occasionally get escorted onstage to take a look.

Guptill said this summer’s schedule is full of variety, including the classic drama “Our Town” and “The Mystery of Edwin Drood,” which is based on an unfinished Charles Dickens novel and lets the audience vote on the ending. The high-energy song and dance show “Anything Goes” tends to appeal to older audiences, while “The Producers” draws a younger, high-energy crowd, he said.

The season begins and ends with music. Maine’s award-winning women’s vocal group Royal River Chorus stops at Hackmatack on Saturday, June 13, on their way to a national competition. The star of Hackmatack’s “Annie Get Your Gun,” The Irish Music Guy Kevin Farley, takes the stage on Friday, June 19. Then, contemporary a cappella group “Tuckermans at 9” returns on Saturday, June 20. The last shows are on Sept. 4 and 5, as Richard Conrad and the Bostonians present “Masters of American Operetta.”

Thornton Wilder’s story of a New England community “Our Town” runs June 24 through July 4. The timeless musical “Anything Goes” runs from July 8 to 25. The musical mystery “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” runs from July 29 through Aug. 8. Finally, Aug. 12 through 29 will feature Mel Brooks’ madcap musical “The Producers.”

Hackmatack is located at 538 School St., Berwick, Maine, 207-698-1807. For tickets or more information, visit www.hackmatack.org.