urTown

by Thornton Wilder

a resource guidecreated by Marissa Porto

Table of Contents1

2

3

4 5

6

7

8 9

10

11

12

Letter from the editor

Synopsis of the play

Author’s biography

US Timeline 1901-1913

Glossary

Pre-reading activities

Post-reading activities

Essential questions

Bibliography

Quotes from the author

A letter from the editor

1

Dear student,

So, you are about to read OUR TOWN for the first time. I will be completely honest and admit here that when I first read OUR TOWN in high school, I hated it. I thought, “How boring?? This play is about people a hundred years ago, living boring lives in the country!” Looking back, I realize now that I had that reaction because I was forced to read it without being given a chance to really see what it is about; the human experience.

This resource guide is my way of trying to make sure that this does not hap-pen to you. That you have the tools and questions to prepare you adequately for reading and understanding this play. Hopefully, you will be able to see it for the masterpiece that it is.

For the record, I saw a production of this show a few years after reading it for the first time and had such an emotional reaction to it, that I now consider it one of my favorite plays. In fact, I cannot even read it now without crying a little bit...

You may not react that strongly to it, but I do hope that you enjoy it!

Good luck, have fun, and enjoy every every minute.

Sincerely,Marissa Porto

What is Our Town about?

“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.”

--Donald Margulies

Our Town won a Pultizer Prize for Drama in 1938. It has also won a Drama Desk Award (1989) and a Tony Award (1989) for

Best Revival.

DID YOU KNOW?

2

The Stage Manager welcomes the audience into the theater as he introduces the people and places of Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire. Gro-ver’s Corners is a quintessential New England town at the turn of the last century. The Stage Manager gives us an over-

view of the town, and then focuses on two neighboring families: the Gibbs and the Webbs. Each family has two children--a boy and a

girl. We are introduced to Emily Webb and George Gibbs who are close friends and witness some child-like flirtation.

In the second act, three years have passed, and Emily and George’s relationship has turned romantic. In this act they are about to be married. In order to see where it all started, the Stage Manager takes us back to the day when Emily and George first admitted

their love over strawberry ice cream sodas.

The third act takes place in the cemetery. Emily died in childbirth, and joins other deceased members of the town. After the funeral the other deceased tell Emily that she can relive a moment in her

life but they warn her against it. She does not listen and decides to relive the morning of her twelfth birthday. Emily soon sees that it

was in fact a bad idea. It is too painful to watch living people take their time on Earth for granted. When Emily returns

to the cemetery, we see George crying over her grave-stone.

Who was Thornton Wilder?

Thornton Wilder was born in Madison, Wisconsin on April 17, 1897. Writing ran in

the family. His father Amos was an editor and journalist and his mother Isabella was a poet. The family lived in Madison until 1906 when

they moved to Hong Kong when Wilder’s father was appointed American consul general. Wilder attended Oberlin College and Yale University and received his master’s degree from Princeton in 1926.

During the 1920’s, to support himself, Wilder taught French and Eng-lish at various schools and wrote scripts for silent films. He wrote his

first novel, The Cabela, in 1926. His second novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927), won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928. His other novels include The Ides of March (1948) and The Eighth Day (1967), for which Wilder was

awarded the 1968 National Book Award. Other novels include: Woman of Andros (1930); Heaven’s My Destination (1935); Theophilus North (1973);

The Alcestiad, or A Life In The Sun (1977).

Though he was a novelist, most people remember Wilder as a play-wright. In addition to Our Town, he wrote The Skin of Our Teeth (1942)

which also won the 1943 Pulitzer Prize in drama. He also wrote The Matchmaker (1954), one of Wilder’s more successful works, which

evolved into the musical comedy Hello, Dolly. Other plays include: An-gel That Troubled the Waters (1928); The Long Christmas Dinner (1931);

Merchant of Yonkers (1939); Childhood (1960); and Infancy (1960).

3

By the time he graduated from college, Wilder had published

more than thirty pieces, including poetry, drama, fiction, non-fiction, theatre reviews, critical reviews and essays, and had won prizes

for fiction, drama and an essay by the time he graduated from col-

lege he had published more than thirty pieces, including poetry, drama, fiction, non-fiction, the-

atre reviews, critical reviews and essays, and had won prizes for

fiction, drama and an essay.

Our Town takes place from 1901 - 1913 in

Grovers Corners, New Hampshire, America.

What was happening in the world from 1901-1913?

4

1901 1903

19081909

1909

19091910 1912

Theodore Roosevelt becomes president after McKinley is

assassinated.

The first silent film debuts, “The Great Train Robbery”. It is 12

minutes long.

Ford Motors produces the first car; the Model T.

The penny is changed to include Lincoln’s profile.

William Taft is elected president

The NAACP is formed.

The Boy Scouts of America are formed.

The Titanic sinks, killing about 1500 people.

What was happening in the world from 1901-1913?

5

1903 1903 19041904

19061907

1908

19121912

1913

The Wright Brothers fly the first plane.

Construction on the Panama Canal begins.

The first ice cream cone is invented.

An earthquake hits San Francisco and kills over 3,000 people.

Okhlaoma becomes a state.

Ford Motors produces the first car; the Model T.

Arizona and New Mexico become states.

The Girl Scouts of America are formed.

Woodrow Wilson is elected president.

hollyhock – a tall widely grown perennial Chinese herb with large coarse rounded leaves and tall spikes of showy flowers

heliotrope – any herbs or shrubs related to forget-me-not flowers

burdock – a coarse herb related to the daisy that has globular flower heads with prickly bracts

phosphate – an bubbly drink of carbonated water with a small amount of phosphoric acid flavored with fruit syrup

highboy – a tall chest of drawers mounted on a base with long legs

savant – a learned person, a scholar

pince-nez – eyeglasses clipped to the nose by a spring

basalt – a dark fine-grained igneous rock

shale – a rock that is formed by the consolidation of clay or mud and is easy to split

outcropping – exposed bedrock

brachycephalic – having a head that is relatively short from front to back or relatively wide from side to side

languid – drooping or flagging from exhaustion

gocart – a stroller

rheumatism – conditions characterized by inflammation or pain in muscles or joints

whooping cough – an infectious bacterial disease affecting mostly children characterized by a convulsive cough

wean – to turn away from something long desired or followed

lumbago – usually painful muscular rheumatism involving the lumbar region

epitaph – an inscription (on a tombstone) in memory of a dead person

What Do These Words Mean?

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6 7

What Can We Do Before We Read Our Town?

Try pantomiming with your class...

�� Stand in a circle with your classmates.�� One person go in the middle of the circle

and begin an action (ie brushing your teeth)

�� Another person joins in the center and asks, “what are you doing?”

�� The original participant in the middle now says something different than what they are

doing (ie jumping rope) �� The second participant now begins doing

that action. �� This pattern continues until everyone has

gone.

Our Town is performed without sets or props.

Instead the actors “pantomime” the objects

around them by using their bodies.

Wilder pantomiming while playing the role of the Stage Manager.

Much of this play deals with rituals in our com-munities; weddings, funerals, etc. The Stage Manager has a line in Act I where he says,

“…people a thousand years from now—this is the way we were in the provinces north of New

York at the beginning of the twentieth century—This is the way we were: in our growing up and

in our marrying and in our living and in our dying.”

Think about what these rituals look like today. Now think about what these rituals might look like in 1,000 years. Find a group of 4 or 5 class-

mates and create a short, silent movement piece to represent what a birth ritual, a wedding ritual, and a death ritual might look like in a thousand

years.

Share it with your classmates. Were there any similarities to our own rituals? Were there simi-

larities to the other groups’ ideas?

We read it, now what?“Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every, every minute?”

--Emily Gibbs

Think of a moment in your life that you may choose to revisit as Emily does in Act III. What day did you choose? Why did you

choose it?

Now take that memory and write about it. Try to be as descriptive as you can. What

did it look like? What did it feel like? What did it taste like? Smell like? And so on. If

you feel comfortable, share your memory with your class.

What was it like to revisit your memory? Did you share any sentiments with Emily?

At its heart, this play could be considered an oral history of characters in this town at this point in time. As a class, come up

with a question that is linked to a memory that would be fun to explore. For example,

“When was the first time you fell in love?” or “Where were you when you first felt like you were not a kid anymore?” Now take it home

and ask a family member or friend the question and record their responses. Bring

in a written transcription of their answer and read them to your class.

Now discuss with your classmates why we tell stories. Why is it important that we do? How are these stories different or similar to

the ones told in Our Town?

In the David Cromer production of Our Town, Emily’s memory literally comes to life in the final moments of the show. A curtain draws back to expose a full set of her childhood house and

Mrs. Webb even cooks bacon on stage!

8Bird’s Eye View of Peterborough, NH; the town

that Grover’s Corners is based on.

We read it, now what?

At the end of Act III, the Stage Manager talks about the time capsule that the town placed into the cor-

nerstone of the bank building.

If you were going to make a time capsule right now, what would you put in it? Write, draw or collage a list of 5 items you would put in to represent your community or yourself at this point in time. What would you want people hundreds of years from

now to know about you?

Discuss with your classmates what you put into the time capsules. Why did we put these things in it?

What does it say about what we value? What is im-portant for us to have remembered?

Write a letter from Emily’s point of view after she has died. The letter should be addressed to

either George or to her son. This letter should contain advice to

George of her son about how to live the rest of their lives. Use the themes of the play as well

as contextual evidence for what Emily might say is most impor-

tant in life.

Time in this play is almost like a character itself and

is often not linear. Take the events of the play and create a timeline from beginning to end, placing the events along

it. Once finished, discuss Wilder’s manipulation of time

with your classmates and how it relates to the theme of

the play.

A still from Cromer’s production of Our Town

A still from a production of Our Town

8 9

What is the point?Essential questions that arise in Our Town

“Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it-

-every, every minute?” --Emily

ARE we capable of appreciat-ing life while we live it?

The Stage Manager thinks that we cannot, “except the saints and poets, maybe”. What do

you think?

“People are meant to go through life two by two. T’ain’t natural to be lonesome.” --Mr.

Gibbs

Is it relationships and human connection that make mean-

ing in our lives? Is it possible to live a happy life alone?

“This is the way we were: in our growing up and in our marrying and in our living and in our dying.” --Stage

Manager

Why are rituals so important to us humans?

Can you think of other essential questions or themes that Wilder brings up in Our Town?

A still from a production of Our Town10

Essential questions that arise in Our TownWhat if I want to know more?

Check out these books:A Vast Landscape: Time in the Novels of Thornton Wilder by

Mary Ellen Walsh

Conversations with Thornton Wilder by Jackson R. Bryer

The Plays of Thornton Wilder: A Critical Study by Donald

Haberman

Or these websites:

http://www.thorntonwilder.com/

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/americancollection/ourtown/ei_wilder.html

http://www.tcnj.edu/~wilder/

Wilder wrote about seven thousand letters, that we

know of. Three volumes of his letters have been pub-lished since his death: The

Selected Letters of Thornton Wilder (2008); A Tour of the

Darkling Plain: The Finnegans Wake Letters of Thornton

Wilder and Adaline Glasheen (2001); and The Letters of

Gertrude Stein & Thornton Wilder(1996).11

Quotes from Thornton Wilder

“When you emphasize place in the theatre, you drag down and

limit and harness time to it. You thrust the

action back into past time, whereas it is pre-cisely the glory of the stage that it is always

‘now’ there.”

“What is the relation between the count-

less ‘unimportant’ de-tails of our daily life, on the one hand, and

the great perspec-tives of time, social history, and current religious ideas, on

the other?”

“Our claim, our hope, our despair are in the

mind- not in things, not in ‘scenery.’…The climax of this play needs only five square feet of boarding and the passion to know what life means to us.”

“It is only in appearance that time is a river. It is rather a vast landscape and it is the eye of the beholder that moves.”

“I am not interested in the ephemeral—such

subjects as the adulter-ies of dentists. I am in-

terested in those things that repeat and repeat and repeat in the lives

of millions.”

On the Stile, Winslow Homer

Soda Fountain from 1899 Wilder on the cover of Time

Original Playbill of Our Town

12

So

whatdid

you

think?

For Teachers:I have designed this resource guide to best prepare students for reading Our Town. However, I do think it could be a

powerful tool to prepare students to see a production or even be in a production as well. However you use it, I hope you enjoy it! Below you will find the stan-dards that this guide accomplishes.

Thank you, Marissa Porto

Standards:NY State Learning

Standards

NY Blueprint Benchmarks

Common Core

Theater Making: ActingBENCHMARK-Students increase their ability as imagina-tive and analytical actors while continuing to participate as collaborative ensemble members-Through sequential and sustained ac-tivities in various theater forms, students improve upon and gain new performance skills

Making Connections Through TheaterBENCHMARK-Students demonstrate a capacity for deep personal connection to theater and a realization of the meaning and messages in theater

NYSTH1:2, 1:3, 1:5, 3:2

CCSRL11.2, 11.3, 11.4CCSSL11.1, 11.3