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Our Town
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Listen to an analysis of Thornton Wilder's play Our Town
Explore the use of music, theme and variations, and condensed words in Thornton Wilder's Our Town
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Our Town

play by Wilder
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Listen to an analysis of Thornton Wilder's play Our Town
Listen to an analysis of Thornton Wilder's play Our TownLearn about Thornton Wilder's three-act play Our Town (1938), which editor and anthologist Clifton Fadiman describes as a commentary on “the contrast between each tiny moment of our lives and the vast stretches of time and place in which each individual plays his role.” This Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational Corporation film, part 1 of Fadiman's 2-part analysis of the play, was made in 1959.
See all videos for this article
Explore the use of music, theme and variations, and condensed words in Thornton Wilder's Our Town
Explore the use of music, theme and variations, and condensed words in Thornton Wilder's Our TownAmerican editor and anthologist Clifton Fadiman discussing elements of Thornton Wilder's play Our Town (1938)—its use of music, leitmotif, and condensed lines or words. This Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational Corporation film, part 2 of Fadiman's 2-part analysis of the play, was made in 1959.
See all videos for this article

Our Town, drama in three acts by Thornton Wilder, produced and published in 1938. It won a Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1938. The play is considered a classic portrayal of small-town American life.

The play is set in Grover’s Corners, N.H., and features a narrator, the Stage Manager, who sits at the side of the unadorned stage and explains the action. Through flashbacks, dialogue, and direct monologues the other characters reveal themselves to the audience. The main characters are George Gibbs, a doctor’s son, and Emily Webb, daughter of a newspaper editor. The play concerns their courtship and marriage and Emily’s death in childbirth.

Considered enormously innovative for its lack of props and scenery and revered for its sentimental but at bottom realistic depictions of middle-class America, Our Town soon became a staple of American theatre.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Kathleen Kuiper.