Hello and welcome to this episode of Chronicles, where today we're going to be discussing

Our Town by Thornton Wilder. And to those of you who are unfamiliar with this particular play,

my hook is simple for you, which is to say that this is my favorite play of all time.

That shouldn't be taken as to mean I also think it's the best play ever written, but it is my favourite. And I'm

looking forward to exploring many of the reasons for that as we go through. But let's begin by

talking a little bit about Wilder. So Wilder was a remarkably intelligent man. He was born in

1897 in Madison, Wisconsin, and he was

actually a surviving twin. His other twin was a stillborn, and he had four other siblings.

They traveled a lot. He actually attended an international school in Yan Tai, in China.

And then from there, he went on to get his degree at Yale, studying archaeology and Italian.

He then went on to go to a postgraduate in Rome, where he went on to do further archaeology, and then he went on to do a

master's at Princeton, so an incredible academic pedigree behind him. What's more, as well as

English, obviously. He also spoke French, German, and Spanish. And one of the other interesting

things to note about him was that he was actually a Lieutenant Colonel.

And what's more, of course, a very, very famous writer in his own right.

And Our Town is definitely, I would say, his most famous play.

So shall we begin talking about it?

Every act, every scene, every moment of the play takes place in the fictional town of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire. The play is introduced by the stage manager. It is his play, and the manager is all-knowing.

He recounts the past, he speaks of the present, and he alludes to the future. Of the town's history,

the manager says, the earliest tombstones in the cemetery up there on the mountains, say 1670 to 1680.

They're Grovers and Cartwrights and Gibbses and Herseys.

Same names as are around here now.

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