Key themes
- The ordinary life as the extraordinary thing we take for granted
- What the dead see looking back — and what we cannot see looking forward
- Stage Manager as a guide between the living and the dead
About this book
The Stage Manager introduces the town of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, and its inhabitants — particularly two neighbouring families — across three acts covering 1901 to 1913. Wilder's Pulitzer Prize-winning play strips away theatrical illusion entirely, using a bare stage and narration to make visible what we take for granted in ordinary life until it is gone.
Published in 1938, Our Town won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and is one of the most performed plays in American theatrical history. Wilder wrote it while teaching at the University of Chicago, reportedly dissatisfied with the illusionism of contemporary theatre.
Discussion questions
- The play uses no sets, no props, minimal stage furniture. What does this theatrical stripping-away achieve — and why does the absence of illusion make the ordinary more rather than less visible?
- The Stage Manager addresses the audience directly and knows both the past and the future. How does Wilder use this omniscient, extra-dramatic figure — and what does the audience gain by being addressed this way?
- Emily's return from the dead in Act Three is the play's emotional climax. What does she discover — and why is it so devastating?
- The play is often described as sentimental. How do you respond to this critique — does Our Town earn its emotion?
- Our Town is one of the most produced American plays. What does it speak to across eighty years — and does anything in it feel dated?
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