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P.L.A.Y.<br />
(Performance = Literature + Art + You)<br />
Student Matinee Series<br />
By Thornton Wilder<br />
Directed by Mark Cuddy<br />
Sponsored by<br />
Student Matinee<br />
2006-2007
Table of<br />
Contents<br />
Setting . . . . . . . . 3<br />
Synopsis . . . . . . . 3<br />
About the<br />
Playwright . . . . . . 4<br />
Theatrical<br />
Archaeology . . . . 5<br />
Wilder’s <strong>Theatre</strong>: In<br />
His Own Words . . 6<br />
Wilder’s <strong>Theatre</strong>:<br />
At <strong>Geva</strong> . . . . . . . 7<br />
Redefining<br />
Community . . . . . 8<br />
Further<br />
Explorations . . . 10<br />
Dear Educators,<br />
<strong>Our</strong> <strong>Town</strong> is an enduring American classic, a play that has been performed<br />
worldwide in theatres, community groups and schools in every<br />
decade since its premiere. It’s tempting to think of it as “dangerously”<br />
classic: a piece we stamp as one of those familiar, earnest and<br />
accessible works we already know and know well. But what makes it a<br />
classic, and why is our interest renewed?<br />
“Do I believe in it?” While reading about <strong>Our</strong> <strong>Town</strong> I’ve been struck by<br />
the recurrence of this phrase. In one of Thornton Wilder’s letters<br />
describing his progress writing the play and the “difficult cactus-spined”<br />
third act, he asks himself “First of all: do I believe it?” In Thornton<br />
Wilder’s final script we hear, “But you believe in it, don’t you?” and “Do<br />
I believe in it? I don’t know.”<br />
While few if any since Wilder have called the play “cactus-spined,” it is<br />
valuable to remember that <strong>Our</strong> <strong>Town</strong> is universal and accessible, but<br />
also challenging. The play takes the time to exmaine the familiar in<br />
order to provoke essential, unanswerable questions. If we – students,<br />
teachers, artists, audience and community – slow down to “look at<br />
everything hard enough,” we can connect with much more than our<br />
daily routines. I hope that this play can start that process for your<br />
classroom.<br />
As always, please contact our Education Department with any questions<br />
about the play’s content or context, classroom workshops, talkbacks,<br />
artist visits or curriculum connections. I also encourage you and your<br />
students to share your thoughts, questions, and responses after your<br />
visit to <strong>Geva</strong>. We look forward to sharing <strong>Our</strong> <strong>Town</strong> with you.<br />
Sincerely,<br />
Kathryn Moroney<br />
Associate Director of Education<br />
From the Albert R. Stone Negative Collection, Rochester Museum & Science Center<br />
“Do any human beings ever realize life<br />
while they live it?- Every, every minute?”<br />
Emily Webb<br />
2<br />
Cast of<br />
Characters<br />
Stage Manager<br />
Dr. Gibbs<br />
Joe Crowell<br />
Howie Newsome<br />
Mrs. Gibbs<br />
Mrs. Webb<br />
George Gibbs<br />
Rebecca Gibbs<br />
Wally Webb<br />
Emily Webb<br />
Professor Willard<br />
Mr. Webb<br />
Man in the Balcony<br />
Man in the<br />
Auditorium<br />
Lady in the Box<br />
Simon Stimson<br />
Mrs. Soames<br />
Constable Warren<br />
Si Crowell<br />
Baseball Players<br />
Sam Craig<br />
Joe Stoddard<br />
Assistant Stage<br />
Managers<br />
People of the <strong>Town</strong>
3<br />
If you were<br />
the tour<br />
guide for your<br />
neighborhood,<br />
what would<br />
you show to<br />
visitors? What<br />
are the popular<br />
destinations?<br />
What are<br />
the historic<br />
landmarks?<br />
What locations<br />
are important<br />
to understand<br />
daily life?<br />
Pick a birthday<br />
you would like<br />
to revisit. Why<br />
would you<br />
choose that<br />
year? How<br />
do you think<br />
your perspective<br />
on that day<br />
would be<br />
different now<br />
than it was at<br />
the time?<br />
Setting<br />
The fictional town of Grover’s Corners, New<br />
Hampshire, is based in part on Peterborough,<br />
New Hampshire, where Wilder spent several<br />
summers at the MacDowell Colony. He had<br />
previously used the name for an Ohio town in<br />
his short play Pullman Car Hiawatha. The<br />
coordinates given by the Stage Manager,<br />
“Latitude 42 degrees 40 minutes; Longitude<br />
70 degrees 37 minutes,” actually place the<br />
town off the coast of Cape Cod in the Atlantic<br />
Ocean. Wilder ensured that Grover’s Corners<br />
could not be pinpointed as an existing city,<br />
but is truly “our town,” created as much in<br />
the mind of the audience as in his own.<br />
Synopsis<br />
The first act begins on May 7, 1901, just before dawn. Establishing<br />
the layout of the town, the Stage Manager focuses on the homes<br />
of the Gibbs and Webb families. As the day unfolds we hear bits<br />
of gossip and news about Grover’s Corners. By the second act, the<br />
Stage Manager tells us that "Nature's been pushing and<br />
contriving," and many young people in town are planning<br />
weddings - George Gibbs and Emily Webb among them. It's July<br />
7, 1904, just after high school commencement. Over breakfast Dr.<br />
and Mrs. Gibbs fret that George may not be old enough for<br />
marriage, and they reminisce about their own wedding day. The<br />
Stage Manager takes us back one year to visit a pivotal exchange<br />
between Emily and George when they both realize how much<br />
they care about each other. The second act ends as George and<br />
Emily run up the aisle as husband and wife. The stage changes for<br />
the final act, with rows of chairs representing graves in the<br />
cemetery. Among the dead are several characters introduced in<br />
the previous acts. It's nine years later, the summer of 1913. Emily<br />
has just died in childbirth, and at first she begs for the chance to<br />
revisit her life. She chooses to relive the morning of her twelfth<br />
birthday, but finds it unbearable to see how little her family<br />
appreciated the life they had. Emily says goodbye to Earth and<br />
watches as George grieves at her grave. The Stage Manager<br />
announces that almost everyone is asleep in Grover's Corners. He<br />
takes one final look at the stars and wishes us a good rest, too.<br />
On the wedding<br />
day we hear<br />
some characters’<br />
inner thoughts.<br />
Choose a<br />
character<br />
(fictional or<br />
historic) and<br />
an event that<br />
would make<br />
that person<br />
nervous, and<br />
write the<br />
character’s<br />
thoughts while<br />
preparing for<br />
the occasion.<br />
“Anything serious goin’ on in the world since Wednesday?”<br />
Dr. Gibbs<br />
Peterborough, N.H.
Can you find<br />
elements of<br />
Wilder’s real-life<br />
experiences<br />
in this play?<br />
What might be<br />
informed by his<br />
experiences on<br />
New England<br />
farms? Which<br />
characters or<br />
ideas may<br />
have been<br />
influenced by<br />
his travels<br />
abroad?<br />
About the Playwright<br />
In his quiet way, Thornton Niven Wilder was a revolutionary writer<br />
who experimented boldly with literary forms and themes, from the<br />
beginning to the end of his long career. Deeply immersed in<br />
classical as well as contemporary literature, he often fused the<br />
traditional and the modern in his novels and plays, all the while<br />
exploring the cosmic in the commonplace. In a January 12, 1953,<br />
cover story, Time took note of Wilder’s unique “interplanetary mind”<br />
– his ability to write from a vision that was at once American and<br />
universal.<br />
A pivotal figure in the history of twentieth-century letters, Wilder<br />
was a novelist and playwright whose works continue to be widely<br />
read and produced. He is the only writer to have won the Pulitzer<br />
Prize for both fiction and drama. His second novel, The Bridge Of<br />
San Luis Rey, received the fiction award in 1928, and he won the<br />
prize twice in drama, for <strong>Our</strong> <strong>Town</strong> in 1938 and The Skin Of <strong>Our</strong><br />
Teeth in 1943.<br />
Wilder was born in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1897. The second of five<br />
children, Wilder spent his childhood traveling back and forth to the<br />
Far East, where his father was posted as the United States Consul<br />
General to Hong Kong and Shanghai. A strict Congregationalist with<br />
a Ph.D. in economics from Yale, their father read to his children from<br />
the classics and insisted that they spend their summers working on<br />
farms. Wilder's mother was a cultured, educated woman who<br />
instilled a love of literature, drama and languages in her children.<br />
She was the first woman elected to public office in Hamden,<br />
Connecticut.<br />
In 1915, Wilder enrolled at Oberlin College, where he studied the<br />
Greek and Roman classics. When the family moved to New Haven,<br />
Connecticut, two years later, Wilder followed, transferring to Yale<br />
University. Wilder left school for eight months to serve as a<br />
corporal in the Coast Guard Artillery Corps in World War I. He<br />
returned to complete his B.A. in 1920 and then proceeded to Rome,<br />
where he studied archaeology at the American Academy. Wilder<br />
received his final degree, a master's in French literature, from<br />
Princeton University in 1926, but retained his intellectual curiosity<br />
throughout his life, reading widely in English, French, and German<br />
and conversing in Italian and Spanish. He went on to teach French at<br />
the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, lecture on comparative<br />
literature at the University of Chicago, serve as a visiting professor<br />
at the University of Hawaii, and teach poetry at Harvard University.<br />
Even after he'd achieved publishing success, Wilder considered<br />
himself a teacher first and a writer second.<br />
Sources:<br />
“Afterword” to Perennial Classics Edition of <strong>Our</strong> <strong>Town</strong><br />
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/americancollection/ourtown/ei_wilder.html<br />
“Whenever you come near the human race<br />
there’s layers and layers of nonsense”<br />
Stage Manager<br />
4<br />
What writers<br />
have you studied<br />
who wrote in<br />
multiple forms?<br />
Consider fiction,<br />
drama, journalism,<br />
essays and screenplays.<br />
What skills<br />
are needed for<br />
each form?<br />
Thornton Wilder starring<br />
as the Stage Manager<br />
(College of Wooster)
5<br />
Watch for how<br />
the play moves<br />
from small<br />
details to a<br />
wider view<br />
and back.<br />
Look for large<br />
numbers: when<br />
does Wilder<br />
mention tallies<br />
of hundreds,<br />
thousands, or<br />
millions in<br />
his play?<br />
What would you<br />
place in a time<br />
capsule to share<br />
the important<br />
elements of your<br />
life with a future<br />
archaeologist?<br />
Take a true<br />
personal story<br />
or an example<br />
from history<br />
or literature<br />
and trace<br />
the causeand-effect<br />
of distinct<br />
moments that<br />
led up to<br />
an important<br />
event.<br />
Theatrical Archaeolgy<br />
For a while in Rome I lived among archaeologists, and ever since I<br />
find myself occasionally looking at the things about me as an<br />
archaeologist will look at them a thousand years hence…<br />
An archaeologist’s eyes combine the view of the telescope with the<br />
view of the microscope. He reconstructs the very distant with the<br />
help of the very small.<br />
It was something of this method that I brought to a New Hampshire<br />
village. I spent parts of six summers tutoring at Lake Sunapee and<br />
six at the MacDowell Colony at Peterborough. I took long walks<br />
through scores of upland villages.<br />
And the archaeologist’s and the social historian’s points of view<br />
began to mingle with another unremitting preoccupation which is<br />
the central theme of the play: What is the relation between the<br />
countless unimportant details of our daily life, on the one hand, and<br />
the great perspectives of time, social history, and current religious<br />
ideas, on the other?<br />
Thornton Wilder, A Preface for <strong>Our</strong> <strong>Town</strong><br />
Juxtaposing the small and the immense, the Stage Manager provides<br />
us with a morning scene showing how many bottles of milk each<br />
family takes from the milkman, and minutes later invites Professor<br />
Willard to share that New Hampshire is composed of Devonian<br />
basalt, a rock hundreds of millions of years old. We’re aware of the<br />
world moment to moment, and know that each moment fits in a<br />
picture much larger and older. A time capsule is to be buried in<br />
Grover’s Corners, and the play <strong>Our</strong> <strong>Town</strong> will be placed inside, so<br />
that “people a thousand years from now” can see “the way were – in<br />
our growing up and in our marrying, and in our living and in our<br />
dying.”<br />
In one of his letters Thornton Wilder describes <strong>Our</strong> <strong>Town</strong>: “It’s a<br />
little play with all the big subjects in it; and it’s a big play with all the<br />
little things of life lovingly impressed into it.” He writes that the play<br />
attempts “to find a value above all price for the smallest events in our<br />
daily life.” We are invited to look at the play as an archaeologist<br />
might, piecing together the significance of daily rountines and<br />
common events to unearth larger patterns and values. Director Mark<br />
Cuddy says, “What lifts the play up from a mundane look at every day<br />
life is a quiet celebration of the interconnectedness of us all. <strong>Our</strong><br />
<strong>Town</strong> makes a simple Human Truth out of the Newtonian Scientific<br />
Truth of cause and effect.” The Stage Manager agrees: “You see, we<br />
want to know how all this began – this wedding, this plan to spend a<br />
lifetime together. I’m awfully interested in how big things like<br />
that begin.”<br />
“the life of a village against the life of the stars”<br />
Thornton Wilder on <strong>Our</strong> <strong>Town</strong><br />
Photos from the Albert R. Stone<br />
Negative Collection, Rochester<br />
Museum & Science Center
Wilder’s <strong>Theatre</strong>: In His Own Words<br />
“I’m really stage struck. The stage is<br />
the greatest of all art forms – one in<br />
which society sits shoulder to shoulder<br />
and sees an imaginary story about the<br />
human condition.” Thornton Wilder’s<br />
writing describes both the esteem he<br />
felt toward the theatrical form and the<br />
mistrust he felt toward the productions<br />
of his day.<br />
“The trouble began in the nineteenth<br />
century,” Wilder tells us. “They loaded<br />
the stage with specific objects,<br />
because every concrete object on the<br />
stage fixes and narrows the action to<br />
one moment in time and place… When<br />
you emphasize place in the theatre,<br />
you drag down and limit and harness<br />
time to it. You thrust the action back<br />
into past time, whereas it is precisely<br />
the glory of the stage that it is always<br />
‘now’ there. Under such production<br />
methods the characters are all dead<br />
before the action starts. You don’t<br />
have to pay deeply for your heart’s<br />
participation. No great age in the<br />
theatre ever attempted to capture the<br />
audience’s belief through this kind of<br />
specification and localization. I<br />
became dissatisfied with the theatre<br />
because I was unable to lend credence<br />
to such childish attempts to be ‘real.’”<br />
Source: Thornton Wilder’s American Characteristics and Other Essays<br />
“In its healthiest ages the theatre has<br />
always exhibited the least scenery.”<br />
Wilder references the theatre of the<br />
Greeks, where performers wore large<br />
masks specially designed to project<br />
their voices and tall platform shoes.<br />
He references the Elizabethan stage,<br />
where settings changed without<br />
scenery, and a placard might notify the<br />
audience of the location. He also cites<br />
the conventions of the Chinese stage,<br />
in which established gestures were<br />
interpreted by the audience; for<br />
instance, an actor might stand astride a<br />
stick and it was understood that he had<br />
just mounted a horse. Wilder explains<br />
“I tried to restore significance to the<br />
small details of life by removing<br />
scenery. The spectator through<br />
lending his imagination to the action<br />
restages it inside his own head.”<br />
“The theatre has lagged behind the<br />
other arts in finding the ‘new ways’ to<br />
express how men and women think<br />
and feel in our time. I am not one of<br />
the new dramatists we are looking for.<br />
I wish I were. I hope I have played a<br />
part in preparing the way for them. I<br />
am not an innovator but a re-discoverer<br />
of forgotten goods and I hope a<br />
remover of obtrusive bric-a-brac.”<br />
Model of the set design for <strong>Geva</strong> <strong>Theatre</strong> Center’s production<br />
“There’s some scenery for those who think they<br />
have to have scenery”<br />
Stage Manager<br />
6<br />
Compare: what<br />
do you think<br />
each art form<br />
communicates<br />
about the human<br />
condition?<br />
Consider a novel,<br />
a painting, a<br />
piece of music<br />
or a play, each<br />
taken from<br />
the same<br />
approximate<br />
time period.<br />
Imagine a<br />
production of<br />
<strong>Our</strong> <strong>Town</strong> staged<br />
with all the<br />
period set<br />
pieces and<br />
props suggested<br />
by the text.<br />
Imagine <strong>Our</strong><br />
<strong>Town</strong> staged<br />
with contemporary<br />
scenic elements.<br />
Imagine the<br />
production staged<br />
with no props<br />
or scenery at<br />
all. What is<br />
gained and<br />
lost in each<br />
version?
7<br />
Thornton Wilder<br />
posed the<br />
question: “As<br />
an artist (or<br />
listener or<br />
beholder) which<br />
“truth” do you<br />
prefer – that of<br />
the isolated<br />
occasion, or<br />
that which<br />
includes and<br />
resumes the<br />
innumerable?<br />
Which truth<br />
is more worth<br />
telling?...The<br />
theatre is<br />
admirably fitted<br />
to tell both<br />
truths.” How<br />
does your<br />
class divide?<br />
Split into<br />
groups and<br />
argue for<br />
“both truths.”<br />
In how many<br />
separate time<br />
periods does<br />
this play<br />
exist? In how<br />
many separate<br />
realities? Do<br />
they ever<br />
blur together?<br />
Why would that<br />
serve the play?<br />
Wilder’s <strong>Theatre</strong>: At <strong>Geva</strong><br />
The configuration of the walls and flooring that has been designed<br />
for the <strong>Geva</strong> <strong>Theatre</strong> Center production is meant to evoke an aging<br />
public space, perhaps a theatre, or perhaps a town hall. The only<br />
scenery moved on stage are those items of furniture Wilder<br />
requested in his script: tables, chairs, ladders, and a pair of trellises.<br />
In order to master the requirements of staging real life routines<br />
without using real objects, <strong>Geva</strong>’s cast first practiced all their<br />
activities with the appropriate props. By the time the actors<br />
switched to performing without the objects, they had carefully<br />
studied the sequences of their behavior and the details that would<br />
help them to mime their actions accurately and effectively. The<br />
sound designer also provides information about objects that are not<br />
present on stage, such as the newspapers and milk bottles delivered<br />
in the morning scenes.<br />
Director Mark Cuddy reminds us that, to this<br />
day, “<strong>Our</strong> <strong>Town</strong> is an experimental play –<br />
breaking down stage conventions, playing with<br />
time and space, and connecting the audience in<br />
the present with the characters of the dawning of<br />
the twentieth-century through the theatrical<br />
device of an unnamed interlocutor, the Stage<br />
Manager.” In <strong>Geva</strong>’s production the Stage<br />
Manager and his assistants are costumed in<br />
clothing of the late 1930s, the period when<br />
Wilder wrote the play and it was first performed.<br />
Meanwhile, the inhabitants of Grover’s Corners<br />
are dressed for the earlier years the Stage<br />
Manager describes, beginning in the first act<br />
with 1901.<br />
Designer G.W. Mercier explained that he chose to<br />
costume the cast in a relatively neutral palate of<br />
matching earth tones, keeping in mind that<br />
families in the early part of twentieth-century<br />
might sew countless garments from a single bolt<br />
of fabric. In the same way that memory can<br />
restore color to a photograph taken in black and<br />
white, he hopes that as the audience responds to<br />
the play, the characters will become more and<br />
more vivid.<br />
above right: costume rendering for the Stage Manager;<br />
left: costume rendering for Mrs. Gibbs<br />
“My, wasn’t life awful - and wonderful.”<br />
Mrs. Soames<br />
Who is the<br />
Stage Manager?<br />
What role<br />
does he fill?<br />
What might he<br />
represent?<br />
When you look<br />
at old photos<br />
or watch a<br />
film in black<br />
and white,<br />
does your<br />
mind supply<br />
the colors?
Aside from<br />
your geographic<br />
community, of<br />
how many other<br />
communities are<br />
you a member?<br />
Trace the<br />
geography of<br />
your family<br />
tree. Which<br />
generations<br />
immigrated,<br />
which moved<br />
and which<br />
spent their<br />
lives in<br />
one spot?<br />
Redefining Community<br />
Until fairly recently, any definition of<br />
community was almost entirely<br />
governed by the boundaries of<br />
geography. The physical community<br />
of buildings, landmarks, stores and<br />
streets was what pulled together the<br />
various strands of work and home,<br />
school and play, family and marriage,<br />
birth and death. People in a given<br />
community went to the same schools,<br />
frequented the same stores and<br />
worked in many of the same<br />
vocations. They interacted with one<br />
another on an almost daily basis, playing<br />
as much a part in each others<br />
routines as their own. Such steady<br />
proximity often resulted in neighbors<br />
drawing from a shared collective of<br />
events, both joyous and tragic, as the<br />
basis of many of their memories – in<br />
such small places, words spread<br />
quickly. The citizens of many communities often shared<br />
demographics as well. In <strong>Our</strong> <strong>Town</strong>, Mr. Webb, the editor and<br />
publisher of The Grover’s Corners Sentinel, breaks the population<br />
of the town down into easily-defined categories. Mr. Webb states<br />
that the town is mostly “lower-middle class [with a] sprinkling of<br />
professional men” and then proceeds to neatly divide the town into<br />
political and religious affiliations, divisions most likely similar to any<br />
number of other like-minded towns.<br />
“I guess new people aren’t any better than old ones.”<br />
George Gibbs<br />
From the Albert R. Stone Negative Collection,<br />
Rochester Museum & Science Center<br />
As small towns have become cities and cities have grown<br />
increasingly larger, the concept of a community and what it means<br />
has changed as well. No longer are communities based entirely on<br />
such central physical entities as schools or businesses. As people<br />
move from one area to another with greater frequency – be it out of<br />
economic necessity or for personal preference – the make-up of the<br />
area is altered as well. Where once a place like Grover’s Corners,<br />
New Hampshire might have been “86% Republicans; 6% Democrats;<br />
4% Socialists; rest, indifferent,” it could now, conceivably, be<br />
populated by any number of people who don’t fit into any of the<br />
three identified groups – the “rest” no longer indifferent but rather<br />
larger in number and much more difficult to categorize.<br />
8<br />
Compare the<br />
vital statistics<br />
of Grover’s<br />
Corners with<br />
your town<br />
and with<br />
the nation.
9<br />
The period<br />
Rochester photographs<br />
featured<br />
throughout the<br />
study guide and<br />
in <strong>Geva</strong>’s lobby<br />
are from the<br />
Albert R. Stone<br />
Negative Collection<br />
at the Rochester<br />
Museum & Science<br />
Center. In 1904,<br />
Stone became the<br />
first staff newspaperphotographer<br />
in Rochester; his<br />
son Daniel joined<br />
him at the<br />
Herald in 1928.<br />
The Rochester<br />
Museum &<br />
Science Center’s<br />
Stone collection<br />
houses 13,000 of<br />
their images,<br />
digital access to<br />
which is now<br />
possible on two<br />
sites: the<br />
Rochester Images<br />
site at the<br />
Rochester Public<br />
Library,<br />
http:/www.libraryweb.org/rochimag,<br />
and the new<br />
Rochester Museum<br />
& Science Center<br />
library catalog,<br />
http://rmsc.<br />
libcat.org.<br />
With the pace of modern life<br />
steadily quickening, the world<br />
seems to have contracted<br />
and expanded simultaneously.<br />
Communication with almost<br />
anyone, anywhere and anytime<br />
– via e-mail or phone, for<br />
example – is an everyday<br />
occurrence, something taken<br />
for granted by most of us. This<br />
ease of access has, in many<br />
ways, reconfigured how people<br />
identify themselves and the communities in which they claim<br />
membership. There is the ability, through the internet and its<br />
seemingly infinite number of websites, to seek out others with<br />
similar values, interests and experiences, regardless of<br />
geographic constraints. Virtual communities exist for any<br />
political persuasion or religious belief; for those who have<br />
experienced serious illness; for people who enjoy specific types<br />
of movies or music or books; for those seeking out a romantic<br />
partner or mate. Entrance into these communities is as simple as<br />
a request.<br />
The vastness of the size of the group, however, and the far<br />
reaches of the members’ addresses, often has the dual effect of<br />
uniting people based on their commonalities and yet preventing<br />
them from ever actually meeting one another. What the virtual<br />
communities offer in terms of interests and information they may<br />
lack in the interdependence and empathy found in a physical<br />
community. This anonymity may allow for the sharing of<br />
information otherwise felt to be too personal - necessary,<br />
perhaps, for the connections sought - but also carries with it the<br />
potential discarding of a civility more common to a physical<br />
setting. The citizens of Grover’s Corners may not all truly<br />
appreciate the depth of<br />
choir master Simon<br />
Stimson’s pain, but they<br />
understand it enough to<br />
afford him the courtesy of<br />
handling it in his own way –<br />
a balancing, it seems, of the<br />
private and the public, the<br />
foundation of any<br />
community, physical or<br />
otherwise.<br />
“I never felt so alone in my whole life.”<br />
Emily Webb<br />
From the Albert R. Stone Negative Collection,<br />
Rochester Museum & Science Center<br />
an internet cafe for community use<br />
Are you a<br />
member of an<br />
on-line community?<br />
Do you think<br />
of it differently<br />
than a physical<br />
communinty?<br />
Which one<br />
are you more<br />
likely to consult<br />
when making<br />
a decision?
WILDER’S SHORT PLAYS<br />
Further Explorations<br />
Three of Thornton Wilder’s short plays are particularly useful to explore alongside any study of <strong>Our</strong> <strong>Town</strong>.<br />
These “literary exercises in compressed expression” reveal his bent toward experimentation as well as his<br />
efforts “to capture not verisimilitude but reality.” Both the themes and methods of theatrical expression<br />
prefigure his work in <strong>Our</strong> <strong>Town</strong>.<br />
The Happy Journey from Trenton to Camden utilizes a Stage Manager figure. Ordinary chairs serve as the<br />
family’s Chevrolet, while a cot suffices for the indoor furnishings. The Stage Manager suggests that, in<br />
viewing this car trip, we are witnessing quintessential family life at its most daily moments. The journey has<br />
its short stops, to observe death, to take stock, and to make sure of its direction. The destination is a home<br />
where a life has been lost, but family life goes on; the journey is happy because it continues.<br />
Pullman Car Hiawatha also uses a Stage Manager, who draws outlines of a train car and its compartments<br />
on the stage floor with chalk and passengers enter carrying their own chairs which substitute for berths on<br />
the train. The themes of time, size – from the tiniest town to the entire solar system – death, and repeating<br />
cycles of human activity are all found in this short play. A young woman, Harriet, dies onboard the train,<br />
and her farewell to the earth is a forerunner of Emily’s.<br />
The Long Christmas Dinner, describes the Bayard family’s Christmas gatherings over a period of ninety<br />
years. The play reveals not only the ritual of the holiday, but the patterns and repetitions of successive<br />
generations. Characters are born, age at the dinner table with simple costume adjustments, and leave the<br />
stage when death comes, and mime is used to consume the entire holiday meal.<br />
OTHER SELECTED WORKS<br />
The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Wilder's breakthrough novel, is an examination of the fate of five travelers who<br />
fall to their deaths from a bridge in 18th-century Peru. Seeking to discover meaning in the lives lost, a<br />
scholarly monk named Brother Juniper explores the lives of the five victims. The book earned Wilder his<br />
first Pulitzer Prize. (Originally filmed in 1929, The Bridge of San Luis Rey was released as a new film in<br />
2004 starring Robert De Niro, Kathy Bates, and Harvey Keitel.)<br />
Theophilus North was the last of Wilder's works published during his lifetime. The novel is partly<br />
autobiographical and partly the imagined adventure of his twin brother who died at birth. Setting out to see<br />
the world in the summer of 1926, Theophilus gets as far as Newport, Rhode Island, before his car breaks<br />
down. Theophilus takes jobs in the elegant mansions along Ocean Drive, just as Wilder himself did in the<br />
same decade. <strong>Geva</strong> <strong>Theatre</strong> Center premiered the novel’s stage adaptation by Matthew Burnett during<br />
the 2002-03 season.<br />
The Skin of <strong>Our</strong> Teeth is the story of a family whose members are simultaneously typical Americans living<br />
in a present-day New Jersey suburb and Adam, Eve, Lilith, Cain and a daughter who survive the Ice Age, the<br />
Flood (as in the book of Genesis in the Bible) and War (as in WWII). Wilder compresses long expanses of<br />
time to establish the ongoing struggles of humanity. As in <strong>Our</strong> <strong>Town</strong>, characters address the audience,<br />
backstage crew enter and speak, and the set is minimal or symbolic.<br />
American Characteristics and Other Essays provides Wilder’s own insights into the observations and<br />
motivations that informed much of his writing.<br />
10
11<br />
Staff<br />
Skip Greer<br />
Director of<br />
Education/Artist<br />
in Residence<br />
Kathryn Moroney<br />
Associate Director<br />
of Education<br />
Eric Evans<br />
Education<br />
Administrator<br />
Arthur Brown<br />
Christopher Gurr<br />
Conservatory<br />
Associates<br />
Arthur Brown<br />
Jack Langerak<br />
Brigitt Markusfeld<br />
<strong>Our</strong> <strong>Town</strong><br />
Artist Educators<br />
Marge Betley<br />
Literary<br />
Manager/Resident<br />
Dramaturg<br />
April Donahower<br />
Associate<br />
Dramaturg<br />
Mark Cuddy<br />
Artistic Director<br />
John Quinlivan<br />
Managing Director<br />
Nan Hildebrandt<br />
Executive Director<br />
OUR TOWN ON FILM<br />
1940: The first film version features members of the original stage<br />
cast and an altered ending in which Emily lives.<br />
1977: This version features Hal Holbrook and is the version<br />
excerpted in the OT: our town documentary.<br />
1989: This film documents the Broadway production that won the<br />
Tony Award for best revival. Spalding Gray leads the cast.<br />
2003: The most recent film features a Tony-nominated stage<br />
production captured for television, with Paul Newman in the role<br />
of the Stage Manager.<br />
OT: our town (2002) features a performance of Wilder’s play by<br />
students of Dominguez High School in Compton, California, which<br />
had not produced a play in 20 years. This documentary chronicles<br />
the month and a half before their opening night. In the process it<br />
records the students’ own daily rituals and relationships with their<br />
families and communities, love, marriage and death and discovers<br />
the enduring resonances of Wilder’s work.<br />
LITERARY CONNECTIONS<br />
Any study of Elizabethean, Greek, Noh or Chinese drama will<br />
provide an opportunity to compare and contrast the theatrical<br />
conventions that Wilder employs in <strong>Our</strong> <strong>Town</strong>. Luigi Pirandello’s<br />
drama Six Characters in Search of an Author breaks the<br />
conventions of realism in theatre and also provides fruitful<br />
comparison. Among the many writers that Wilder read and admired,<br />
Dante, Jane Austen, Gertrude Stein and James Joyce are<br />
particularly notable relative to his work on <strong>Our</strong> <strong>Town</strong>. For more<br />
background on connections to their work, please contact <strong>Geva</strong>’s<br />
Education Department.<br />
<strong>Geva</strong> <strong>Theatre</strong> Center<br />
gratefully acknowledges donors supporting<br />
Student Matinee performances of<br />
<strong>Our</strong> <strong>Town</strong> &<br />
<strong>Our</strong> <strong>Town</strong> in the Classroom<br />
The Conable Family Foundation<br />
Barbara & Jack Kraushaar<br />
Rochester Area Community Foundation<br />
Fine and Performing Arts Fund<br />
Sherwin Weinstein & Linda Cornell Weinstein<br />
St. John Fisher College<br />
Louis S. and Molly B. Wolk Foundation<br />
“The morning star always gets wonderful bright<br />
the moment before it has to go, doesn’t it?”<br />
Stage Manager<br />
Education<br />
Partners<br />
Major Support From:<br />
Ameriprise Financial<br />
Services, Inc.<br />
Cornell/Weinstein<br />
Family Foundation<br />
The Davenport-Hatch<br />
Foundation<br />
The Fine and Performing<br />
Arts Fund at RACF<br />
The Flanders Group<br />
Gannett Foundation<br />
Dawn & Jacques Lipson,<br />
M.D<br />
Hon. Elizabeth W. Pine<br />
Williams Saunders<br />
Time Warner Cable<br />
Xerox Corporation<br />
With Additional<br />
Support From:<br />
Ames-Amzalak<br />
Memorial Trust<br />
Mr. and Mrs. Allen Boucher<br />
Joe Eduardo<br />
Michael and Joanna<br />
Grosodonia<br />
Insero & Company<br />
Ann M. Mayer<br />
Mrs. Eleanor Morris<br />
Panther Graphics, Inc.<br />
Riedman Foundation<br />
Fred and Floy Willmott<br />
Foundation
Tickets Available for<br />
Public Performances<br />
February 13th thru March 25th<br />
Recommended for ages 12+<br />
Tickets available by calling (585) 232-<strong>Geva</strong> (4382)<br />
or online at www.gevatheatre.org<br />
75 Woodbury Boulevard<br />
Rochester, New York 14607<br />
Box Office: (585) 232-<strong>Geva</strong> (4382)<br />
Education Department: (585) 232-1366, ext. 3058<br />
www.gevatheatre.org