Our Town
Sunday, August 24 and Monday,
August 25
Sunday, August 31 and Monday, September 1
7:00 p.m., Joseph Stein Stage
Our Town is
a three act play by Thornton Wilder which is, perhaps, the most frequently
produced play by an American playwright. The play is set in the fictional
community of Grover's Corners, modeled after several New
Hampshire towns in the Mount
Monadnock region: Jaffrey, Peterborough, Dublin, and others.
Using meta-theatrical devices, the play is set in a 1930's theater.
Through the actions of the Stage Manager the town of Grover's Corners
is created for the audience and scenes from its history between
the years of 1901 and 1913 play out. Wilder, in his 30s, began
this play before his time at the MacDowell
Colony in Peterborough in June, 1937, one of many locations
where Wilder worked on the play. The third act was drafted entirely
in one day during a visit to Zurich in September of 1937 after
a long evening walk in the rain with a friend.
Our Town is a story of character development that details
the interactions between citizens of an everyday town in the early
20th century through their everyday lives (particularly the lives
of George Gibbs, a doctor's son, and Emily Webb, the daughter of
a newspaper editor). Our Town was first performed at the
McCarter Theater in Princeton, New
Jersey on January 22, 1938. It next opened at the Wilbur
Theater in Boston on
January 25, 1938. Its New
York City debut was at Henry
Miller's Theatre, and later moved to the Morosco
Theatre. The play was produced and directed by Jed
Harris. It won
the Pulitzer
Prize for Drama in 1938.
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