Their 'Town'

Classic play by Thornton Wilder becomes a PHAMALy affair

Lisa Bornstein, Rocky Mountain News

Published January 9, 2007 at midnight

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When PHAMALy takes to the stage this week with Our Town, the company will be following thousands of productions of the Thornton Wilder play around the world.

For PHAMALy, though, it's a first. The group is performing its first non-musical after 17 seasons, and this is the first time it's done more than one show in a season. In addition, the organization changed its name to reflect the expansion, going from the Physically Handicapped Amateur Musical Actors League to the Physically Handicapped Actors & Musical Artists League.

As its choice, the company chose a script with a long, storied history. Here's a little background on the play, its life and its author:

The plot

The play depicts, in three acts, the minutiae of life, adding up to an expansive sweep, between 1901 and 1913 in the small town of Grover's Corners, N.H. Teens George Gibbs and Emily Webb begin their flirtation, while their mothers fret about the church organist's drinking. George and Emily graduate from high school to marriage, culminating in a stark third act that shows just what all those tiny details meant.

The author

Thornton Wilder was born in Madison, Wis., in 1897 to cultured parents, who took him back and forth to China during his youth while his father was a diplomat. He published (but did not produce) his first play as a student at Yale University, served in World War I, and earned a master's degree in French literature from Princeton University.

Wilder's first success was the 1927 novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey. His summers at the MacDowell artists colony in Peterborough, N.H., are widely cited as the inspiration for Our Town, which debuted in 1938.

A prolific writer, Wilder also made a big impact with The Skin of Our Teeth (1943), a direct response to World War II, and The Merchant of Yonkers (1938), which he revised into The Matchmaker in 1954, the basis for Hello, Dolly!

He died in 1975 in Hamden, Conn., where he lived with his sister, Isabel.

Notable productions

• Broadway premiere: Our Town opened at Henry Miller's Theatre on Feb. 4, 1938, and ran for 336 performances. Frank Craven, an established Broadway star, played the Stage Manager; his son, John Craven, made his Broadway debut as George Gibbs. The play won the Pulitzer Prize for drama that year.

• First film: Most of the Broadway cast was rehired for a 1940 film version, but John Craven was replaced by William Holden. Aaron Copland wrote the score.

• First TV adaptation: Legendary Broadway director José Quintero led this production, featuring Art Carney as the Stage Manager and Kathleen Widdoes as Emily Webb.

• Hal Holbrook as the Stage Manager: One of the best-known productions was this 1977 TV broadcast, with a cast including Ned Beatty, Barbara Bel Geddes, Robby Benson and Charlotte Rae.

• Blue Eyes: Paul Newman returned to Broadway in a fundraiser for the Westport County Playhouse, the theater he and wife, Joanne Woodward, run. Newman won the Tony Award for best actor.

• OT: Our Town: Dominguez High School in Compton, Calif., one of the nation's roughest areas, staged Wilder's play to find what in this lily-white, old-fashioned drama would relate to their lives. The experience was documented in this 2003 film.

Sources: Internet Movie Database, Internet Broadway Database, PBS

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