Our Town
“Indeed the play’s success across cultural borders around the world attests to its being something much greater than an American play: it is a play that captures the universal experience of being alive.”
This timeless drama of life in the mythical village of Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire, has become an American classic with universal appeal. Thornton Wilder’s most frequently performed play, Our Town appeared on Broadway in 1938 to wide acclaim, and won the Pulitzer Prize. From the very beginning, Our Town has been produced throughout the world.
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.
From the blog:
New Podcast: Our Town like you've never heard it before
Leslie Odom, Jr. | On Playing George in Our Town
This Play Is Called Our Town: 80 Years in Grover’s Corners
A Terrorized British City Turns to an All-American Play for Healing
Theatre comes to The Public: Bringing Our Town(s) Together
Thornton Wilder’s “Quiet Masterpiece” - Interview with Molly Smith
Photos
Videos
OUR TOWN Wilder Moment - an excerpt from the 2022 short documentary Thornton Wilder: It’s Time. To watch the full film about Wilder’s life and works, click HERE.
Tappan Wilder on the new edition of OUR TOWN
Tappan Wilder on the legacy of OUR TOWN
Our Town, directed by David Cromer, featured on CBS Sunday Morning
TDF goes back stage with Keith Perry, who has appeared in more performances of Our Town than any other actor in history.
LICENSING
Amateur Productions in the USA, Puerto Rico and Commonwealth Countries:
Samuel French Inc.
All Professional Productions; Amateur Productions outside the USA and Commonwealth Countries:
Alan Brodie Representation Ltd.
PURCHASE
Thornton Wilder: Collected Plays and Writings on Theater, published by the Library of America
LICENSE OUR TOWN (MULTILINGUAL)
On November 5, 2020, Samuel French and Concord Theatricals will published a first: the Our Town Acting Edition in three languages, English, Spanish, and Creole. To mark this occasion, we asked theatre journalist Mark Blankenship to interview four members of Miami New Drama's world premiere trilingual production of Our Town: Actors Keith Randolph Smith (Spike Lee’s Malcolm X, Broadway’s Fences, King Hedley II) and Thallis Santesteban who played the Stage Manager and Emily, respectively; Obie Award-winning set and costume designer Arnulfo Maldonado; and Michel Hausmann, Founding Artistic Director of Miami New Drama and the director of this remarkable production. Listen below.