OUR TOWN by Thornton Wilder

Described as one of “the greatest American plays ever written,” Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Our Town tells the story of daily life in the small town of Grover’s Corners, NH. Travelling across three acts that envelop a decade of the town’s day-to-day, at first glance, Our Town appears to be a simple, innocuous portrait of life in a small town. But as events unfold—we witness an ordinary day, a wedding, and a death—the play builds to a soaring exploration of human existence: its boundless trials, joys, questions, and certainties. Our Town is every town.

The people of Grover’s Corners know and enjoy many pleasures: taking in the sunrise over local mountains, noticing the birds, watching the changing seasons. Wilder wanted the play to show “the life of a village against the life of the stars,” which in turn positions “the trivial details of human life in reference to a vast perspective of time, of social history, and of religious ideas.” From this perspective, Wilder offered that the play’s story “is an attempt to find a value above all price for the smallest events of our daily life.”

The play’s three acts are narrated throughout by an omniscient character called the “Stage Manager,” who describes the lives of two families in particular, the Webbs and the Gibbses. Their children, Emily & George, fall in love, marry, and eventually—in one of the most famous scenes in American theater—die.  

Widely produced in the U.S. and also abroad, this Pulitzer Prize-winning play is not only an American classic but a classic of world literature. As the character of Emily offers in her final luminous epiphany—in wisdom she has gained through suffering: “Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?” Our Town is every town.

CAST:

• Zuhaib Abdi
• Daisy Bermeo
• Cate Causey-Mullaney
• Douglas Cox
• Natalie Criego
• Grant Davis
• Joshua Dykhoff
• Brennan Hafermann
• McKayla Henderson
• Chloe Hines
• Hattie Johnson
• Lily Kleinschmit
• Zeke Martinez
• Robin Patterson
• Talia Rhodes
• Mamawa Sannoh
• Rob Winder
• Derrick Yalartai

DIRECTED BY DR. IRMA MAYORGA, THEATER FACULTY

STAGE MANAGER - MXY ZAFINANDRO, NHCC STUDENT

SCENIC & LIGHTING DESIGN + TECHNICAL DIRECTION - LISA KUDAS, THEATER FACULTY

SOUND DESIGNER - TOM SHERMAN, GUEST ARTIST

• Discussions of mortality, loss during childbirth, death, and grief
• Representations and discussions of alcoholism
• Discussions of death by suicide
• Flashing lights and stage haze/fog will be used in this production

Parental guidance is advised for teen/youth audience members due to the play's complex and mature themes concerning death, loss, and grief. 

We do not recommend attendance by children under the age of 12. Due to the play's intensity and need for quiet moments, we do not recommend attending with toddlers and/or infants.

Approximately 120 minutes.

MAKE A TICKET RESERVATION (link forthcoming from IT)

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• Please know: no one will be turned away because of an inability to pay the suggested donation.
• No payment of any kind is required to make ticket reservations! Suggested admission is collected at our theater Box Office on the day of attendance.
• On-site Box Office will open approximately 30 minutes before each performance. The Box Office will be located in the lobby of the NHCC Fine Arts Center.
• All suggested admissions collected for NHCC Department of Theater productions are used exclusively to help to sustain the Department of Theater’s creative work with NHCC students.
• General admission seating upon arrival. 

Please plan to arrive early to the performance in order to check-in and find your seating. Arrivals after the performance has begun will be seated in the theater at the discretion of house managers.