Thornton Wilder Classic, “Our Town,” Opens April 27 in Westhoff

Date: 4/16/07
Contact: Marc Lebovitz

Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Our Town,” the quintessential American classic, will be presented by Illinois State University’s School of Theatre at 7:30 p.m. April 27 and 28 and May 1 to 5 in Westhoff Theatre. There also will be a 2 p.m. matinee on Sunday, April 29.

Tickets are $12 for the general public, $10 for ISU faculty-staff, $9 for senior citizens and $8 for students. The play is directed by Alec Wild, the new artistic director of the Illinois Shakespeare Festival.

In conjunction with the production, the School of Theatre will host Tappan Wilder, the nephew of the playwright, who will speak at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 1, in the CPA Theatre, and will participate in a talkback in Westhoff Theatre following that evening’s 7:30 performance.

Wilder is the son of Thornton Wilder’s older brother, Amos, and shares executorship of the Thornton Wilder estate with his sister, Catherine. The title of his presentation is “Thornton Wilder and ‘Our Town’ in the Twenty-First Century.”

Set in the fictional town of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, “Our Town” chronicles small-town life at the turn of the 20th century. Guided by the narration of the stage manager, the audience experiences a journey through daily life, love and marriage, and ultimately death. This simple but profound piece highlights the joyous and heartbreaking act of living.

By the time he died in 1975 at the age of 78, Wilder was an American icon and an internationally famous playwright and novelist. To this day, his works are read, performed and appreciated by audiences worldwide. The Pulitzer Prize he won for “Our Town” in 1938 was actually his second. Ten years earlier he won the prize for “The Bridge of San Luis Rey.”

Wilder reworked his other 1938 play, the unsuccessful “The Merchant of Yonkers,” which became the 1955 Broadway hit, “The Matchmaker,” which later became the award-winning Broadway musical, “Hello, Dolly!” In 1942, his “The Skin of Our Teeth” debuted and garnered Wilder his third Pulitzer Prize.