Our Town, the greatest American play, at the Colonial Theatre

Why is Thornton Wilder’s Our Town now recognized as perhaps the greatest American play? It premiered at a theater in Princeton, New Jersey on Jan. 22, 1938, then moved to the Wilbur Theater in Boston before making it onto Broadway in New York.

Elizabeth Howard, columnist for The Laconia Daily Sun and producer and host of the Short Fuse Podcast was in conversation with Bryan Halperin, the co-producer and director of Our Town at the Colonial Theatre, running Nov. 19-21, and Howard Sherman, a theater manager, writer, and the author of Another Day’s Begun: Thornton Wilder’s Our Town in the 21st Century (Methuen Drama, 2021), to learn more about the play.

Thornton Wilder received the Pultizer Prize for literature for The Bridge of San Luis Rey and the Pulitzer for Drama for Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth. His play The Matchmaker became Hello Dolly, and he was awarded the Gold Medal for fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Wilder spent time in Peterborough, New Hampshire as a fellow at the MacDowell Colony (on nine occasions, from 1924 to 1953) where he worked on Our Town. The play’s setting, Grover’s Corners, represents a small New Hampshire town and many believe it is modeled on Peterborough.

Sherman interviewed over 100 artists for his book and learned about their own experience with Our Town. He shares information about productions at Sing Sing Correctional Facility and in Manchester, England after a terrorist event. His insights, through his research and interviews help us understand why a play set in an “all-white, patriarchal, Protestant, semi-rural small town in New England” manages to fill theaters and engage audiences around the world more than eighty years on." Halperin talks about casting for this community production in Laconia, including the selection of Heather Bullimore as the Stage Manager, the most important role in the play.

You can listen to their conversation with Elizabeth Howard on the latest episode of Short Fuse Podcast found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the Arts Fuse or through Simplecast. Tickets for the performances can be purchased at the Colonial Theatre.