Immerse in the story...
Director's Notes
Program notes from Our Town director, Tim Ocel
“The play is about Mortality.” Thornton Wilder on “Our Town”
“It is the life of a village against the life of the stars.” Thornton Wilder on “Our Town”
“But soon we shall die and all memory of those five will have left the earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.” Thornton Wilder. “The Bridge of San Luis Rey”
Our Town – Grover’s Corners, NH – isn’t everybody’s town: it is OUR town. Every town has its own distinction…
I realize you are viewing the play through contemporary eyes and that the gap between today and the time period of Our Town is well over 100 years. And though the Stage Manager attempts to bridge that divide, she will make no attempt to convince you that Grover’s Corners is a role model of small-town living; she just tells you how it used to be. As the Stage Manager warns us: “Some of the things they’re going to say maybe’ll hurt your feelings – but that’s the way it is.”
Our Town is made up solely of shared relationships. Families/friends/neighbors/citizens: this community believes in the goodness of work, usefulness, and commitment, in protecting each other while respecting each other’s privacy, in forgiving and defending, in the freedom to worship, or not, without judgement. They are proud to be a part of the United States of America.
Thornton Wilder felt neither scenery nor props should ever distract from what is occurring between people, so there is nothing in the visual aspect of the play other than a few simple things to help these relationships and values exist. He wishes the audience to enter the play through their own empathies and abilities to imagine. I agree.
I like that the theater is completely exposed because the actors have no place to hide.
The Stage Manager talks about the Eternal in all human beings, and she doesn’t mean heaven. She means the essence we eventually become after we die - which is determined by the spirit we are when alive. She means Love. This production, along with American Players Theatre, is interested in those essences – the spirit in which lives are lived and relationships shared.
- Tim Ocel, Director of Our Town
Portable Prologue Podcast
Host Orange Schroeder talks to the directors and actors to bring you background information that will make you appreciate each APT performance even more! Listen on Apple Podcast or Spotify! Produced by Buzz Kemper, Audio for the Arts.
Director Tim Ocel joins actor Sarah Day, who portrays the Stage Manager, to discuss the 2023 production of Our Town at American Players Theater in Spring Green, Wisconsin. Enhance your experience and appreciation by listening to this lively interview before or after your theater visit.
Reviews & Features
Review: 'Our Town' at APT slows down for a look at small town life by Lindsay Christians, The Cap Times
Review: APT's "Our Town" finds meaning in the mundane by Tara Awate, The Daily Cardinal
Season Selects: Our Town
Fast Facts
Playing: Hill Theatre | June 23 - September 22
Featuring: Tracy Michelle Arnold, Teri Brown, Nate Burger, Sarah Day, Jim DeVita, Tim Gittings, Kailey Azure Green, Josh Krause, Brian Mani, Jamaque Newberry, Samantha Newcomb, Ronald Román-Meléndez, James Ridge, Jefferson A. Russell
Genre: American Classic
Last Seen at APT: 1992
Go If You Liked: A Raisin in the Sun (2022), A View From the Bridge (2017), Arcadia (2016)
Video
Trailer: Our Town at APT
In Our Living and Our Dying: Our Town in the 21st Century
Behind the Scenes with Sara Becker & Alys Dickerson
Learn how a professional voice and text session works with APT's Director of Voice and Text, Sara Becker, and APT actor and educator Alys Dickerson.