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OUR TOWN ReADING IN L.A.
L.A.’s Huron Substation Playhouse just celebrated the season in their beautiful new venue with a star-studded reading of Our Town. Directed by Jack Serio, the cast included Kaitlyn Dever, Sam Nivola, Melanie Lynskey, Harold Perrineau, Rosemarie DeWitt, John Cho, Abby Ryder Fortson, Riley Hashimoto, Fran Kranz, Julia Duffy, Adam Faison, Regi Davis, Kennedy Tolson, Mathew Elan, Cameron Elie, Joshua Malina, Jeanne Sakata, Hugo Armstrong and Robert Downey, Jr. as the Stage Manager.
Guests left with a copy of the brand new Our Town & the Cosmic One Acts, a special edition from HarperCollins of Thornton Wilder’s beloved masterpiece Our Town, together with three astonishing one-act plays.
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FROM THE ARCHIVES
Thornton Wilder as the Stage Manager at the 1950 production at The College of Wooster. [Click to Enlarge]
About Our Town
The 2022 production at Dallas Theater Center, directed by Tatiana Pandiani. Photo by Imani Thomas.
Our Town explores the relationship between two young Grover’s Corners neighbors, George Gibbs and Emily Webb, whose childhood friendship blossoms into romance, and then culminates in marriage. When Emily looses her life in childbirth, the circle of life portrayed in each of the three acts of Our Town–growing up, adulthood, and death–is fully realized.
Wilder offers a couple of chairs on a bare stage as the backdrop for an exploration of the universal human experience. The simple story of a love affair is constantly rediscovered because it asks timeless questions about the meaning of love, life and death. In the final moments of the play, the recently deceased Emily is granted the opportunity to revisit one day in her life, only to discover that she never fully appreciated all she possessed until she lost it. “Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you,” she says as she takes her place among the dead.
Bringing Our Town to His City: An Interview with Michel Hausmann
What inspired the creation of Our Town (Multilingual)? What made Thornton Wilder’s story the right fit for your company and community?
Michel Hausmann: Being an immigrant has its perks. For one, I didn’t have to read Our Town in high school like everyone else. I encountered it in my 30s and was blown away. Seriously, it might be the best play I’ve ever read. It stuck with me, and I knew I wanted to do something with it. But how do you bring something new to a play that’s been around, loved, and produced for over 80 years? Especially when there have been some spectacular versions, like Gregory Mosher’s at Lincoln Center and Cromer’s recent revival.
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License Our Town
Amateur Productions in the USA, Puerto Rico and Commonwealth Countries:
Concord Theatricals
All Professional Productions; Amateur Productions outside the USA and Commonwealth Countries:
Alan Brodie Representation Ltd.
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