What can I say, it is the script to Our Town. I have found a couple of places where it differes from the Samuel French script by a sentence or two.

One VERY GOOD difference is that THIS script also has a lot of background on Thornton Wilder and the times that the existed when the play was writen and first produced.

First off, this is not the kind of play anyone would normally expect. While it is composed of the essential characteristic of a play, such as scenes and dialogues, there is a new and different idea mixed into it. The Stage Manager plays a major role in directing the play, organizing which scenes are to come next and cutting short scenes as he feels necessary. The Stage manager can be considered the director of the play. However, the Stage manager fulfills another role. He directly speaks to the audience, informing them about each scene's background or characters. Thus the Stage Manager stands on the border of the stage and the audience, sort of like straddling the border by interacting with the audience and assuming different roles within the play itself. It is truly unique.



What I also like about this book is that it is able to take the cliché concept of "cherish what you have" and present it or argue it in such a manner so that it is refreshing almost. The characters in the play, as normal and everyday as people can get, pass through their lives so fast that they don't seem to realize the importance and value of everyday life. They can, in most aspects, represent who we are. We can easily fit into their shoes and see through their eyes, and so it is fairly easy for readers to understand to treasure everything that they have before them, no matter how small or how big.



Yet this book is boring. Even though the boring, everyday plot plays a crucial role in the development of the overall argument, it is, nevertheless, a boring read. There are no special events or some wowing, crazy, once in a lifetime phenomenon, just everyday, mundane episodes of the average human life.



Overall, it is interesting to analyze and interesting to take apart, but when it comes to the first read, it is a tough trip.

When first reading this play, it may appear to be about nothing more than the every day life in an ordinary town. However, it is much more than that. This town is representative of any little town in all of America and its actions as something that could have been done anywhere. These simple facts expand the scopes of this play to new heights. It is not just a play about the little events that occur in a small time but is rather representative of life as a whole. Each act represents a stage in life: "Daily Life," "Marriage" and "Death." These words take on new meaning though as the daily life seems so dull that no one would ever want to live there, yet hardly anyone leaves; the marriage is somewhat pushed on George and Emily; and finally, Emily dies along with many other characters who are seen as being more "alive" than any of the living characters in this play. It takes on many unique points of view and teaches many lessons, making it necessary to take it apart completely. The most incredible part is that all of this is contained in a book about "nothing."





One major thing that is pointed out in this play is that people walk through life without ever really seeing anything, and this is shown on many an occasion, not really being noticed until it is too late to do anything about. People that are alive do not have the worries that life will be short because they are still living it. They do not worry about spending each second like it was their last because it is not. They live life on a day to day basis, not worrying about whether or not they live it to its fullest because there will always be more time. The worst part is that life could end at any minute. And when that person has not lived a full enough life, they will have no one to blame but themselves for not appreciating it when they had it. It is often said that people do not miss things until they are gone, and this is one more example. If only people could miss it when they still had it, then losing it would not be such a tragedy because they would have been happy either way.

One significant feature of this play is its simplicity in both plot and props. While it carries great meaning throughout, the story does not feature any extreme, earth-shattering events. Instead, it presents the plain, daily occurrences in a normal small town, allowing the reader to follow the story in a simple context. In addition, although the reader undergoes a different experience than the play-goer, it is evident to all that the conspicuous lack of props is a prominent element that further emphasizes the simplicity of the story.



In three acts, Our Town presents a complete view of three different stages of life: daily life, love and marriage, and death. The play focuses on two families, the Gibbs and Webb families, yet it gives a panoramic view of many townspeople's lives in Grover's Corners. More specifically, the play follows the relationship between Emily Webb and George Gibbs. We first witness them in their youth, as they realize their passion for each other. The story then skips forward to their marriage and finally to Emily's death, as she is finally able to witness her life without actually worrying about daily demands. When she is finally allowed to witness life in her town pass by as a spectator, Emily falls into a heavy regret at her wasted life, as she realizes that nobody takes the time to truly look at each other.



Stressing the importance of the simple, daily wonders of the world, Thornton Wilder underscores the appreciation of life due to both its brevity and its inherent beauty. The third act is truly epochal, as it presents the general purpose of the play through the death of Emily; as she relives her 12th birthday, she realizes that no one cares to really appreciate each other or their own lives. Emily, as with every other citizen in town, is too concerned with her own life that she is unable to see the beauty of it, and she ends up missing the most seemingly trivial of things afterwards, such as sleeping and taking baths. Wilder, by contrasting Emily's life with her death, demonstrates the consequences of falling into a state of content and complacency with one's life; instead of blindly following a routinely schedule everyday, Wilder teaches the audience that they must be grateful for the daily wonders of life, as they may be gone the next day.



This is not a good book for those seeking entertaining and action-packed plots. Truthfully, I did not enjoy reading this book until I understood the meaning in the final act. At first glance, the play seems to drag on, depicting the mundane lives of ordinary people. Yet when I got to the third act, I realized that this is exactly how Wilder wanted us to feel: bored in the first two acts at the seemingly simple things in life, yet remorseful in the last act due to the intrinsic ungratefulness of our lives. Anyone looking for play with a relevant, significant message to everyone's lives should pick up this book immediately.

First off, this is not the kind of play anyone would normally expect. While it is composed of the essential characteristic of a play, such as scenes and dialogues, there is a new and different idea mixed into it. The Stage Manager plays a major role in directing the play, organizing which scenes are to come next and cutting short scenes as he feels necessary. The Stage manager can be considered the director of the play. However, the Stage manager fulfills another role. He directly speaks to the audience, informing them about each scene's background or characters. Thus the Stage Manager stands on the border of the stage and the audience, sort of like straddling the border by interacting with the audience and assuming different roles within the play itself. It is truly unique.

What I also like about this book is that it is able to take the cliché concept of "cherish what you have" and present it or argue it in such a manner so that it is refreshing almost. The characters in the play, as normal and everyday as people can get, pass through their lives so fast that they don't seem to realize the importance and value of everyday life. They can, in most aspects, represent who we are. We can easily fit into their shoes and see through their eyes, and so it is fairly easy for readers to understand to treasure everything that they have before them, no matter how small or how big.

Yet this book is boring. Even though the boring, everyday plot plays a crucial role in the development of the overall argument, it is, nevertheless, a boring read. There are no special events or some wowing, crazy, once in a lifetime phenomenon, just everyday, mundane episodes of the average human life.

Overall, it is interesting to analyze and interesting to take apart, but when it comes to the first read, it is a tough trip.

When first reading this play, it may appear to be about nothing more than the every day life in an ordinary town. However, it is much more than that. This town is representative of any little town in all of America and its actions as something that could have been done anywhere. These simple facts expand the scopes of this play to new heights. It is not just a play about the little events that occur in a small time but is rather representative of life as a whole. Each act represents a stage in life: "Daily Life," "Marriage" and "Death." These words take on new meaning though as the daily life seems so dull that no one would ever want to live there, yet hardly anyone leaves; the marriage is somewhat pushed on George and Emily; and finally, Emily dies along with many other characters who are seen as being more "alive" than any of the living characters in this play. It takes on many unique points of view and teaches many lessons, making it necessary to take it apart completely. The most incredible part is that all of this is contained in a book about "nothing."


One major thing that is pointed out in this play is that people walk through life without ever really seeing anything, and this is shown on many an occasion, not really being noticed until it is too late to do anything about. People that are alive do not have the worries that life will be short because they are still living it. They do not worry about spending each second like it was their last because it is not. They live life on a day to day basis, not worrying about whether or not they live it to its fullest because there will always be more time. The worst part is that life could end at any minute. And when that person has not lived a full enough life, they will have no one to blame but themselves for not appreciating it when they had it. It is often said that people do not miss things until they are gone, and this is one more example. If only people could miss it when they still had it, then losing it would not be such a tragedy because they would have been happy either way.

Wilder's Our Town was by far one of the strangest books I have ever read. It was a pretty good book. Set in typical Small Town, USA, Wilder explores how humans understand and under-appreciate the notion of time. The first act is typical, the second act is special, and the third act is monumental. Wilder's style is slightly odd, because when I first read the play, I couldn't completely understand his purpose. It was when I read it the second time I understood that he was criticizing how we as people never understand how to love the lives that we have. It's the lesson we are taught all the time, yet we never seem to take to heart. I know that all plays were meant to be seen rather than read, but this is the only play I've read where I feel that the only way to grasp the author emotion is to actually see the play instead of reading the book. Still, it was worth the read.

One significant feature of this play is its simplicity in both plot and props. While it carries great meaning throughout, the story does not feature any extreme, earth-shattering events. Instead, it presents the plain, daily occurrences in a normal small town, allowing the reader to follow the story in a simple context. In addition, although the reader undergoes a different experience than the play-goer, it is evident to all that the conspicuous lack of props is a prominent element that further emphasizes the simplicity of the story.

In three acts, Our Town presents a complete view of three different stages of life: daily life, love and marriage, and death. The play focuses on two families, the Gibbs and Webb families, yet it gives a panoramic view of many townspeople's lives in Grover's Corners. More specifically, the play follows the relationship between Emily Webb and George Gibbs. We first witness them in their youth, as they realize their passion for each other. The story then skips forward to their marriage and finally to Emily's death, as she is finally able to witness her life without actually worrying about daily demands. When she is finally allowed to witness life in her town pass by as a spectator, Emily falls into a heavy regret at her wasted life, as she realizes that nobody takes the time to truly look at each other.

Stressing the importance of the simple, daily wonders of the world, Thornton Wilder underscores the appreciation of life due to both its brevity and its inherent beauty. The third act is truly epochal, as it presents the general purpose of the play through the death of Emily; as she relives her 12th birthday, she realizes that no one cares to really appreciate each other or their own lives. Emily, as with every other citizen in town, is too concerned with her own life that she is unable to see the beauty of it, and she ends up missing the most seemingly trivial of things afterwards, such as sleeping and taking baths. Wilder, by contrasting Emily's life with her death, demonstrates the consequences of falling into a state of content and complacency with one's life; instead of blindly following a routinely schedule everyday, Wilder teaches the audience that they must be grateful for the daily wonders of life, as they may be gone the next day.

This is not a good book for those seeking entertaining and action-packed plots. Truthfully, I did not enjoy reading this book until I understood the meaning in the final act. At first glance, the play seems to drag on, depicting the mundane lives of ordinary people. Yet when I got to the third act, I realized that this is exactly how Wilder wanted us to feel: bored in the first two acts at the seemingly simple things in life, yet remorseful in the last act due to the intrinsic ungratefulness of our lives. Anyone looking for play with a relevant, significant message to everyone's lives should pick up this book immediately.

Thorton Wilder's short play, "Our Town," follows the lives of two close knit families, experiencing the different stages of life: birth, childhood, adulthood and death. I recommend anyone to read this play just so they can have the opportunity to read about the phases that others go through. For example, the story mentions the common worries, concerns and yearnings of parent Mrs.Gibbs, who wishes to take a break from the stressful life of being a mother yet she is held back by the contrasting wishes and aspirations of her husband. "Our Town" is filled with amusing yet relatable events of being disciplined by your parents, which remind us of our childhood, such as when George is admonished by his father. Another interesting tale unfolds as we witness a young relationship between George and Emily flourish into a marriage. Their entertaining anxieties while dating, and even getting married, are humorous and thought provoking for young readers. Unexpected turns of events and sudden losses conclude the story, leaving an important message for the reader which is, care and treasure your loved ones while you still can.

By reading the titles of the acts in Thornton Wilder's play, Our Town, it is easy to figure out that the play is about "Daily Life", "Love and Marriage", and "Death". Set in the small town of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire at the beginning of the twentieth century, the play depicts the lives of the Webb and Gibbs families. The minimal amount of action throughout the entire play forces the audience members to focus on the characters and give the illusion that Grover's Corners could be any small town in the United States.

It is May 7, 1901 in Grover's Corners and the Stage Manager, the narrator of the play, is watching the inhabitants as they go about their daily lives. In detail, he goes about describing the town because the scenery leaves much to the imagination. From his perspective, there is really nothing special or unique about Grover's Corners. After delivering a woman's twin babies, Dr. Gibbs stops to talk to the paperboy and the milkman to tell them the good news. Everyone knows everything and everyone in Grover's Corners. At Dr. Gibbs house, the audience is introduced to the rest of the Gibbs family, including young George. At the same time the Gibbs family sits down for breakfast, so does the Webb family who lives next door.

Three years later, George Gibbs and Emily Webb are preparing for their wedding day. The Stage Manager shows up a few more times to take the audience back to how George and Emily fell in love and also serves as the minister at their wedding. Godlike in nature, the Stage Manager can stop the action of the play, interact with the characters, and serve as random characters. Even more years fly by in the lives of the inhabitants of Grover's Corners and many changes occur. The final act of the play opens in the town cemetery during the funeral of one of the characters.

From the birth at the beginning of the play to the funeral scene at the end, Wilder helps show the natural flow of life and the inevitability of death that ties everyone together. A microcosm of simpler times, Our Town is a play that can be enjoyed by anyone, anywhere, and at any age.

OUR TOWN gives us American experimental theater in its most easily graspable form. Once you get the general drift of the thing, you remain interested, for Wilder has planned it so. He gives us a little at a time, like a fisherman letting out his reel, slowly, now, then for yards at a time, once we are hooked. The Stage Manager orders the actors about, and we seem to be let into two different worlds at once: the backstage look at the theater, and also, at the same time, God pulling his puppets from one end of the stage (birth) to the other (the tragic death that ends the play). Thornton Wilder, born in Madison, Wisconsin, grew up in China (Shanghai and Hong Kong) and made a study of Eastern religion at Yale, later at Princeton. All his life he remained fascinated by the patterns of things: birth, marriage, death.

OUR TOWN shows us a different view of small town life. Did you ever take an embroidered sampler off the wall and perhaps turned it around so you could see the back side, the knots and tangles, the rough switches, the mistakes hidden from plain sight? It's not a pretty picture, but without the fortification of error, we wouldn't have the homespun homily on the front side, under the glass. "God Bless This Home." In the play OUR TOWN we see, simultaneously, both sides of the picture. It's scary to turn up the rock and see the underside. Live things wriggle there. And death comes quickly too. As George and Emily maneuever through life from childhood to dating to a wedding, the Stage Manager rushes us through, always pulling at another curtain. What comes after love? More love or no love? OUR TOWN is all about sequence, but it illuminates sequence by asking us to imagine all life and death jumbled up on top of one another as though everything were happening at the same time. And yet still, none of us know, for a single second, the whole ecstasy of even one moment of our own lives.

This is another yet highly overrated so called "Modern Classic". It is about the mundane lives of people in a small town called Grover's Corner where nothing of great significance occurs.I give it 5 stars because it can be read in about half an hour which is just about my attention span for Junk posing as 'Literature".

This play is a classic and still done by many H.S. theater groups today. Quick and easy read with very interesting plot twists. Thought provoking!

This play, to me, was very thought provoking and is very easy to read. Granted, the action in this film isn't quite to MacGyvre status. For instance, the main action in the book is a wedding that is hardly developed and twins being born that never really get brought up again. I think this is a very good depiction of small town american life. This plays best attribute is being very simple, easy to read but also brings up a lot of life's questions that all people should ask themselves. This play was extremely good for me to read knowing that I'm going to college next year and knowing that life is going to change drastically.

The characters are far from developed but you get to know them just enough so you know exactly what they're going through. The lack of character development, though, makes the book much more easy to handle. With the void of action in the book, if it went into more (or any for that matter) about the characters, I don't think any sane person would be able to sit down and read it.

"Our Town" could possible have been one of the most well written plays of the 20th century. The play itself appeals to every age and gender group, taking no bias. The play is just a plain, old classic. Thornton Wilder's play portrays a small New Hampshire town going through what every living person goes through, the three acts of life. The play bases itself on the human condition. "Our Town" goes through three acts, birth through death. The way that all the in between are described is amazing. Thornton takes you into many Grover's Corner's families and makes you feel almost as if they were your own. Wilder takes you into the daily lives of people in that small town. Although this book lacks any action, the plot makes up for it in its way to make you feel like you are in the play. The beginning of the play starts with introducing all the characters and showing how there small town is somehow prospering. The play goes into great detail to talk about how everyone in town knows each other and there are only a few main families living there. Each family has grown up with the others and has probably married into one of the others. The next act is bases itself mainly on the time when all the children that were talked about in the first have grown up. Going through weddings and many other things the act shows the closeness and genuine happiness of most of the plays main characters. The last act is mainly based on the death of the town. The last act makes the whole play worth reading. Thornton couldn't have done a better job portraying these small town people as he did. This play is definitely a classic and should be looked at as a masterpiece throughout the rest of time.

As I reflect on the playwright "Our Town," I just want to make clear on how good of a message it gave out. The message that I got from the book was to live life to the fullest. You never know when you're going to die, it could be today, tomorrow, or next year. Life is too short, but over all I felt that the book was a great piece of writing. The playwright was well written and the message was put into the writing very well.

The play "Our Town" was a well written play, and I would recommend anyone to read it. The play is very short and simple yet you get the feel of what life is like for the characters. I felt like I was another person living with them. I liked how Thornton Wilder divided the play up into 3 acts. I like how he had the settings for the acts: act one being the past, act two being the present, and act three being the future. The only downfall for the play was the ending. I have to day I was very disappointed. Why was it that he had the dead people talking? I also wish that Thornton Wilder would have gone into more detail with Act 2 and describing the wedding between Rebecca and George. Everybody has their daily schedules and for people living in the city, their schedule is different from people living in the country. I believe that this play really made me see the insight into how simple life really can be. We take for granted the little things that we have in life. While reading this play I really realized how important having a grounded community. I liked how Thornton Wilder had the people play the roles of people we see in our community everyday. I also liked how he skipped form family to family to let you know what they were going through. The most unique thing I liked was that he was very simple with the stage manager and stage directions. A good book for anyone to review.

Thornton Wilder's play "Our Town" is far from action packed. In fact, one could say there is none. Each action that causes a major turning point is simply skipped and summed up later. For example, both the wedding and the deaths are shown before or after they occur. Act one, pertaining to Daily Life, is a very simplistic look at what everyday life really is. Characters are introduced, but are not overly portrayed. In my eyes, the Stage Director has the most interesting part in this play. Not only does he introduce each scene and explain everything needed outside of the dialogue, he comes off as an all-knowing onlooker. Act two is exclusive to the wedding between George and Emily. Although one confrontation between the two of them is mentioned, once again no real action is used to explain the joining of George and Emily. Act three regards death. The shortest of all three acts, I believe it is easily the most important, and the turning point in the novel to me. Up to now, although dialogue had been well written, this book had not interested me at all. In this final act however, my feelings towards this play became much more favorable.

In an extremely trim 103 pages, common life is summed up. The message at the end, and the way it is projected, truly make this novel the Pulitzer Prize winner it is. Life needs to be looked at daily, not just at the end. Too often do people lye on their deathbeds wishing to change this or that about their pasts. Rather, it is necessary to live the life you have in front of you as each day passes. One of the most interesting ideas mentioned in this novel is that of going back once Emily has died. She is told, and later finds out herself, that knowing the future makes it too easy to notice every aspect of life she had looked over. Life is more than a sum of its parts. We use comparison to weigh the importance of events in our lives. Without the little things in life, the big things would be nothing out of the ordinary.

I would recommend the play Our Town to anyone who likes classic American plays. Its vision of the everyday lives of a classic 1900's seems to catch the reader's eye with every page. Its obscure ending and hints of humor make the play complete, from start to finish. The play also adds a stage manager, who is really the narrator, which gives great detail about the town, and the citizens of it. This helps the reader understand the play much easier. All in all the play is an easy read, and seems as though it would be an easy production, which means I recommend this play to anyone.

I found Our Town to be a very thought provoking story/play. Although it is very short, you learn an incredible amount of information about the lives and characters in the story. I think that although the book was based in a time period alternate from our own, the character and plot development could be closely related to our own lives i.e. (George and Emily growing up and developing a relationship). This book, although fiction accurately portrays and relates to our own lives. The ending, although a tad bit obscure, presents a valid and thought-provoking moral to the readers. Overall, I would rate this book with a three only because of the ending, and the lack of overall content. Otherwise, this book was very interesting to read and I enjoyed it.

As I was reading this book in English class I noticed that it was a great book for high schools to read. It has a strong them of living for the moment. I thought that as a high school student that it was some thing I should take to heart. This book packs a whole lot into a little space. As we read the book, we were assigned parts. I believe that that contributed to my better understanding of the book. I do not know if I will read this book again but I know I would love to go and see the book as a play. All of the stage directions in the book didn't not make sense when we read this book in a circle. Wilder went to great lengths to capture the feeling of the small town feel that makes this book successful. All of the people in the play work perfectly with one another and are well developed given the short length. While this book is a decent story that will make you think, I think it lakes the certain something to make it stand out as a book.

"Our Town" by Thornton Wilder is a play about the lives and deaths of ordinary people in Grover's Corners, a small town in rural New Hampshire. At first, I could not wait to put the book down, but the more i read it the more i realized the significance of the play. The message in "Our Town" is that people should appreciate the details and events of every day life. People take life for granted and should appreciate it more. Although, "Our Town" is not a thriller or an action packed play, it expresses a very important message. Everyone should read this play especially those rebel teenagers who fail to appreciate life and everything they have.

Superficially a folksy, American nostalgia piece, "Our Town" spans the first thirteen years of the twentieth century in the life of Grover's Corners, a small village in rural New Hampshire. It's the archetypal town of the American Mythology: a place where the names on the oldest gravestones are the same as those of the townspeople today; where the doctor delivers twins before breakfast, and is home in time to shoot the breeze with the paperboy; where the kids share an ice-cream soda, their mothers sing in the church choir, and a girl grows up and really does marry the boy nextdoor. The play's fond recollection of an America that never existed was nostalgic even in 1938, yet Wilder's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama became an instant classic and remains one of America's most loved and frequently performed plays. America today is the shambles of a destroyed hope, the stillborn ruins of the way of life "Our Town" imagines but which in reality was never achieved. For those immune to the appeals of the American Dream, or more familiar with the reality of the American Global Empire, the play may seem deliciously rich in unintended irony. You could be forgiven for thinking the American preference for escapist, self-aggrandizing fantasy might account for its enduring appeal. Yet you would be wrong. Scratch the surface and "Our Town" is no quaint tale of hayseed family life. Wilder was an intellectual, an admirer of the avant-garde and the experimental works of James Joyce. Steadfastly minimalist in its presentation, engagingly postmodern in its insistence that we see the cast as actors rather than characters, and more thematically challenging than we are initially led to expect, "Our Town" is a work of social criticism which indicts us with personal responsibility for the way we see our lives. Wilder turns our nostalgia against us, demolishing our vision of the past as a Golden Age, and demanding we live here and now, simply and fully. The play shows ordinary lives in pursuit of universal meaning, and by confronting us with our own mortality it challenges us to explore our small allotment of years in the same way. This isn't so much a play of memories as a play about memory - private and public. It evokes nostalgia to warn against it, and argues instead for an acceptance of transience, a celebration of life while it is lived, and a recognition of that small, unknowable fragment of the self that is eternal. It's with this universalizing, evident in the final act, that "Our Town" transcends twentieth-century America and becomes an enduringly relevant work of art - one about memory, fantasy, and the power and price of both.

Like many other people who have read this (and loved it!), it was required. Actually, we were required to watch a filmed stage version of it - starring Paul Newman as the Stage Manager. I found it very difficult to watch. I was, along with many other students, very bored watching that production. So, I decided to just read the play. (Reading the play was not required.) It was nothing short of fantastic and amazing.

I'm not the kind of person who reads plays and enjoys them. But OUR TOWN read almost like a very reader-friendly novel. And its themes of birth, life, and death have a tendency to reach out and grab the reader like few books I have ever come across. I will definitely be reading this again.

This beloved classic and most frequently performed of Wilder's dramatic works still charms and captivates--despite the decades since its first production in 1938. A simple story, kaleidescopic time (both between and within Acts), basic family values and the modest joys of small town life are the literary elements offered to readers and theatre-goers. Scorning nobles and tradionally heroic figures, Wilder presents ordinary people in the early 20th century--a kinder, gentler time when horses

were being phased out in favor of automobiles. But writers will always cherish the natural progression of the seasons of human existence.

Why are audiences fascinated by the normal,
typical routine in rural New England; what explains the
timeless appeal of this simply-plotted story in three acts: Daily Life, Marriage, Death and Aftermath. Perhaps we are
haunted by the way the Dead (characters in Act 3) speak about and feel for the Living. Do the residents of the graveyard on the hill reveal painful truths about human life and asperations on earth? Why do the Dead mock those still living as blind and ignorant? What are they patiently, quietly waiting for in their
peaceful plots? Is Life just a waste of time, a farce during which we fool ourselves into believing in our own importance?
This tale of Americana belongs to all people, regardless of national origin--by virtue of its poignant insight into the human heart.

I love this play. If there is any piece of literature that I wish that I had written, this is it. The play is broken into three acts - the three phases of life. A birth. A wedding. A funeral. Three things that everyone experiences at some point in their lives. With his unique narrative style, Thornton Wilder weaves a story about life in a small town at the turn of the century. Everything is simple, but so wonderfully complicated. The first time I read this play I wept for an hour. I've never read anything outside of the Bible that better sums up the human condition. Anyone with even a shred of humanity will love this play.

I love this play. If there is any piece of literature that I wish that I had written, this is it. The play is broken into three acts - the three phases of life. A birth. A wedding. A funeral. Three things that everyone experiences at some point in their lives. With his unique narrative style, Thornton Wilder weaves a story about life in a small town at the turn of the century. Everything is simple, but so wonderfully complicated. The first time I read this play I wept for an hour. I've never read anything outside of the Bible that better sums up the human condition. Anyone with even a shred of humanity will love this play.

The "New York Times" review by brooks Atkinson of of Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" in 1938 called it "a hauntingly beautiful play." The play is considered a classic portrayal of small-town American life, set in the town of Grover's Corner, New Hampshire. We follow the lives of George Gibbs, a doctor's son, and Emily Webb, the daughter of the newspaper editor, through their courtship, marriage, and Emily's death in childbirth. However, the style of "Our Town" is sometimes considered more striking than the substance because of its lack of props and scenery. The play features a narrator, the Stage Manager, who sits at the side of the unadorned stage and explains the action to the audience.

It is hard to believe that Wilder's nonrealistic stagecraft was a subject of concern to anyone then or now; I would have thought Shakespeare put that concern to rest in the prologue to "Henry V." I would have said Wilder was simply finding a way to make the setting and scenery irrelevant to his story he was trying to tell, although I also suspect he was trying to set up the impact of the end of the play which takes place in the town's graveyard as Emily and the other characters describe the peace of life after death.

Wilder's makes it clear he is trying to convey the simple sanctity of everyday life, a theme that is certainly found in Wilder's novel "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" (1927), which looked at the lives of five persons who died in the collapse of a bridge in Peru in the 18th century. The key exchange comes between Emily, who asks "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?--every, every minute?" "No," the Stage Manager responds, "The saints and poets, maybe--they do some." Obviously that is the lesson Wilder wants to impart to his audiences and the big question today is whether the frantic change in the pace of life we see a century later has made Wilder's point incomprehensible to most American audience.

"Our Town" is an important American drama, not because it was considered innovative or because it won the Pulitzer Prize, but because it represents the last gasp of American lyricism in the 20th century. World War I transmuted the Realists into the Modernists, writers like Hemingway and Steinbeck, whose response to the horrors of modern warfare was to elevate the subjects of literature to loftier grounds. In a world where men die or are maimed for life by poisonous gas, bombs dropped from airplanes, or machine guns, a new significance of meaning needs to be created. By such standards "Our Town" pales in comparison to the works of Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams, and Arthur Miller. But if you put Wilder's play in historical and cultural perspective, then I think its greatness remains assured.

I have never read a similar play like this before. The thing which makes the book different from other traditional plays isthe fact that Our Twon is being directed by the stage director who breaks up the ficticious performance of the actors. And in those intervenitons the stage manager speaks or explains what is about to happen on the stage. Or sometimes the actors play people in the audience, make suggestions and try to influence the running of the play directed by the stage manager.
There are always actions, and how I can remember, there are never scenes without an intersting action or without an overall theme, like birth or marriage or death. So it turns out to be quite universal. It's varied and never boring.

Let me start off by saying that I love plays and was intrigued to hear that this play did not use props or sets. Thornton Wilder purposely underdeveloped the characters and made it lacking, but this was beyond underdevelopment and lacking -- why bother writing a play? The acts are very short, emotionless, and unmemorable and I hated the characters, because they were uncaring. Why "Our Town" is required reading for high school and America's favorite drama, I do not know - I didn't get anything out of it besides boredom and confusion. I do not recommend it.

First I wasn't too excited as I heard that we had to read a book in our English class. But I still I had to, and so I started reading it. I actually I wanted to read only up to the page that we were assigned to. But after a while I became engrossed in the play. I can't explain why but it touched my own life somehow. I felt as if Wilder had written the play about my own life, any ordinary normal life. He tells us the story about people that live like everyone else and about situations that we are all likely to be in some day or other. After all we are all human beings with different but similar life-styles, thoughts and opinions about something like death, marriage, love happens to all of us and therefore we all have to think about these issues no matter who we are.

Our Town is not just a usual play, it's a play in a play! The stage manager leads us through the performance by giving us information about the little village of Grover's Corner and its inhabitants. Even if I found his speeches and monologues a bit too long, I can say that I liked the book as a whole. Reading it gave me new points of view of our life. I would say it's a play dedicated to life. We should appreciate every moment of it and care for our family and friends, that's the message Thornton Wilder wants to give us. I can recommend it to anybody who doesn't stop reading a book if he doesn't find it thrilling after the first few pages! It's one of the books that are getting better and better the longer you keep on reading. So read it!

It's about normal family life, about being born, getting married and dying. How boring is that if you think about it at first. Just another every-day-story. But the way it is written and being played makes it all up. It is totally different to all the other books I have ever read. I only finished the play because of this very reason. You can imagine your own landscape to the story, you can imagine yourself how "your town" is gonna look like, and that makes it interesting especially for yourself.

This book is read in a really short time but it takes you longer to get over it, meaning Thorton Wilder provokes with his easy sentences heaps of thoughts which you might already have had, but they just get deeper - Anyway, this ordinary town with its ordinary inhabitants shows us life how it is in its roots: Birth-marriage-death. You might think that there's so much more and there is but you have all the freedom to invent it. In this ordinariness you will see your own town, your neighbors, your doctor and maybe even yourself.

I think that Thornton Wilder is a good playwright who understands how to write a story that deals with almost every common people. I think it's a little bit boring when the stage manager talks about the town on the stage. It's o.k. when he said two, three sentences but not page after page, like in act one. Wilder divides the play into three parts (daily life and birth, love and marriage, and death) and I think that these three stages in life are the most important factors in one's biography to make this whole play interesting. He discribes normal life very well.
The 3rd act, where the dead talk together, is very special and I think that is one of the most interesting parts. I like it very much because I think it's something different to talk about. Why don't the living people heed their message?

I can`t say that I find it an outstanding play, but I don`t find it bad either. It deals with an ordinary little town in the USA at the beginning of the last century. It describes everyday life of normal people, their pleasures and their sorrows. This ordinary touch of the play makes it a bit difficult to see a message in the book at first sight. But at the end of the play in the III Act I`ve found a interesting message: We spend and waste our time as though we had a million years to live and don't realize what life really is like!

Our Town excises the fat, breaks down the fourth wall, wrecks havoc with form to say three things, as plainly and as movingly as possible: our time in this world is limited, who you loved and who loved you is all that matters at the end, and that end is inevitable.

Simply beautiful.

Thornton Wilder's play is different. There is no scenary, the first play of that kind. It takes place in a small Anytown, USA named Grover's Corners. It occurs in the early 1900s and has the act names of Daily Life, Love and Marriage, and Death. Half of our English class enjoyed it, but I feel it would be better to watch than read, like most plays. The only question I have for you as you read is, Is it celebrating simple life, or criticizing it?

Our Town is a very unelaborate tale of life, marriage, and death in a small town around the turn of the century. When I first read this years ago, I was surprised how moved I was by such a simply written play, but on reading it a second time, I was bored. It's too straightforward for my taste, and the theme can be summarized quite nicely in a couple words: Carpe diem, or something like that. If you don't feel like you "realize life while [you] live it," then pick up Our Town. If you want to something to think about, maybe you should put it down.

I love this play because it doesn't need fancy sets and costumes to get its point across to the audience. At first glance, it may seem like a simple play describing life in a small town. However, Wilder weaves in some very complex issues. He covers love, family, and death. The audience becomes intimately involved with the characters. Therefore, it is no surprise that this play has survived!

The first two acts of this play sneak up on you. They are endearing, folksy and sweet. Nothing heavy and you're not sure how this play could have become so famous and popular. But boy, the last act hits you with a shot of existential angst stronger than anything else I have ever read. This is one that probably should be read every year for the rest of your life to inspire better living. Read it and see why!

Our Town is, i would guess, the most produced stage play in america. You need no props,no singing,no dancing.It introduced of place,Grovers Corners,N.H. into the lexicon. The play though first produced in the late 1930's takes place in the early part of the 20th century. It tells the tale of two families, the Gibbs and the webbs,in love life and death{Wilder never skirted the issue of death in his writings>}Its timlessness lies in the essence of wilders writings: how the simple ,the mundane taken together make us who we are, and how important the quotidian chores of daily existence are. The heartfelt exclamtion near the end of the play asking if human beings ever realize thier lives before it ends? followed by the wise narrator's some saints and poets has stayed with me since childhood. An easy read, though not a simple one.Is this the great american play? Who knows.It is certainly great and good,and stands up very well almost 70 years later. Essential reading,on anyones list.

This is Thornton Wilder's masterwork--a little play, as he wrote, with all the big things in it; and a big play with all the little things in it. It's a quiet and gentle piece (all to easy to consider "boring," as some have below) which nonetheless packs unspeakable power in its assertion. Life, Wilder argues, is far more precious than we usually make it; we are most often too caught up with the "big" stuff, the scenery of our lives, to notice the small, human details that really do matter. When this play works, it enables us to see life through different eyes than we did before; it shows us something that we already knew but that we did not know that we knew. Earth, you *are* too wonderful for anyone to realize you. Thank you, Mr. Wilder.

Our Town is a play about a little town called Grover's Corners in New Hampshire before the Great Wars. Thornton Wilder is expressing the athmosphere in this town with humor and warmth. He wants to tell us, that there's no need in looking back. You should always look forward into the future. The mean idea of the play is the question about eternal life. Wilder is explaining this question in the third act.

this book is terrible and has no plot it is just some stupid stage maneger talking the whole time

Now, I must admit that I personally thought that the first two acts were very boring. Act One revolved around the average day in a small town in New Hampshire called Grover's Corners. The people are any average people and there is little plot to the first act. In the second act, there is slightly more action when two local people get married. But I did like the end. I wouldn't exactly want to give it away so I won't say anything about Act Three but it is inspirational and it makes you think for a long time after reading it. The small town setting may seem boring, but in my opinion it just gives more meaning to the sending. If it weren't for book reports, I would have never been able to read this classic, and I'm extremely glad I did. Note to ya'll: I gave it four starts because of the first two acts, but the last one makes up for it all.

I just love this play. Right now we are doing this play in our highschool and I am the assisstnat director to it. I would not have ask for a better play to help direct. The first time I read through it I was not so sure about the play, but when we started performing it I really loved it and helped me learn not to take life for granted that anything can happen no matter where you live. Also to learn to appriciate the things we have and not to take them for granted.

I think that this is book book most people either love or hate. Personally, I loved it. The play was so condensed and simple, and yet it held so many important themes within it. After I was finished reading, I had to sit down and think about all the wonderful messages that were conveyed in it.

It is truly impossible to describe such a wonderful play in only 1,000 words. I recently read the play and loved it. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to audition for the play at my high school, and got in. This play really showed me that there is more to life then meets the eye. If there is anyone out there who is not sure whether or not to read this play, please feel free to e-mail me and i will give you more reasons why it is so great!

This book sucked and it was confusing and boring did I mention it sucked!!! You know what I dont even know if you can call it a book it is a piece of F@&$ing trash I think the author should have his hands choped off so he could not write anymore...