OUR TOWN
by THORNTON WILDER
"It is a little play about all the biggest things in life." Thornton Wilder
"Our Town" describes the everyday lives of two average American families in the early 20th Century to illuminate the timelessness and universal themes of young love and the eternal cycle of birth, life and death." (www.weathervaneplayhouse.com)
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1938, Our Town may be the most popular American play ever written. It explores traditional American values of religion, community, family and the simple pleasures of life, while employing innovative elements such as minimalist stage sets, a Stage Manager who narrates and controls the action, and a character who speaks from the grave. Although the setting, characters, and events are commonplace, Our Town addresses such universal themes as mortality, the human condition, and the value of everyday life. Wilder wrote, "Our Town is not offered as a picture of life in a New Hampshire village; or as a speculation about the conditions of life after death ..... It is an attempt to find a value above all price for the smallest events in our daily life" Our Town may be the most frequently staged American play of the twentieth century. It is continually in production at regional, community and college theatres, was filmed with most of the original Broadway cast, and has been televised more than once.
Emily: Oh earth, you are too wonderful for anybody to ever realize you.
Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? – every,
every minute?
Stage Manager: No. The saints and poets, maybe – they do some.
News supplied by Grace College.