“It is a little play about all the biggest things in life.” – Thornton Wilder
The fictional town of Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire, stands in for Everytown, U.S.A. in this quintessential American classic, which celebrated playwright Edward Albee once described as “the greatest American play ever written.”
Our Town depicts the everyday lives of two average American families in the early 20th century to illuminate the timeless and universal themes of young love and the eternal cycle of birth, life and death.
Our Town, Thornton Wilder’s most celebrated dramatic effort, opened on Broadway in 1938 to rave reviews. Audiences sensed the universality of the themes presented in the play, which enabled virtually every theatergoer to participate in the action onstage and identify with the characters. Our Town eventually won Wilder his second Pulitzer Prize, and went on to become one of the most performed American plays of the twentieth century.