When Emily Gibbs returns to Grover’s Corner on a brief visit from heaven, she chooses to view her 12th birthday party rather than an exceptional event. These pre-political ties allow the civic institutions of Grover’s Corners to flourish, and with perspective, Wilder’s characters realize this. They live a full life until Emily dies while giving birth to their second child.Īt the core of Our Town is Wilder’s conviction that the ties the citizens of Grover’s Corners have with each other are the key to their happiness. He becomes a local farmer and marries Emily. But George, despite being a doctor’s son, does not leave Grover’s Corners and go off to college. He has a very different idea of success. The romantic lovers in the play are George Gibbs, son of the town doctor, and Emily Webb, his high school sweetheart. A Stage Manager introduces the audience to Wilder’s principal characters, then lets them speak on their own. Our Town is presented on a bare stage with no scenery and few props. For Wilder, the values of Grover’s Corners are the values that sustain America. It was the play’s hopefulness, and this year, as the New Hampshire primary draws near, Our Town deserves a second look.Īt the core of Wilder’s depiction of Grover’s Corners is the same kind of belief in the basic decency of people that we see in Frank Capra’s portrayal of Bedford Falls in his 1946 film, It’s a Wonderful Life.

Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Our Town, with its story of fictional Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire in the years prior to World War I, was nostalgic about an America that had ceased to exist long before the play debuted on Broadway in 1938. But it wasn’t only its nostalgia that drew audiences to Our Town during the Great Depression.

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