A Teacher's Guide to Our Town

Thornton Wilder, Amy Jurskis

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780062374332
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Drama
• Index: Literature

For teachers

We know that the Common Core State Standards are encouraging you to reevaluate the books that you assign to your students. To help you decide which books are right for your classroom, each free ebook in this series contains a Common Core–aligned teaching guide and a sample chapter.

This free teaching guide for Our Town by Thornton Wilder is designed to help you put the new Common Core State Standards into practice.

"Taking as his material three periods in the history of a placid New Hampshire town, Mr. Wilder has transmuted the simple events of human life into universal reverie. He has given familiar facts a deeply moving, philosophical perspective.... Our Town is one of the finest achievements of the current stage."—Brooks Atkinson

Our Town was first produced and published in 1938 to wide acclaim. This Pulitzer Prize-winning drama of life in the town of Grover 's Corners, an allegorical representation of all life, has become a classic. It is Thornton Wilder's most renowned and most frequently performed play.

Sample Material

Contents

Act I

CHARACTERS (in the order of their appearance)

STAGE MANAGER

DR. GIBBS

JOE CROWELL

HOWIE NEWSOME

MRS. GIBBS

MRS. WEBB

GEORGE GIBBS

REBECCA GIBBS

WALLY WEBB

EMILY WEBB

PROFESSOR WILLARD

MR. WEBB

WOMAN IN THE BALCONY

MAN IN THE AUDITORIUM

LADY IN THE BOX

SIMON STIMSON

MRS. SOAMES

CONSTABLE WARREN

SI CROWELL

THREE BASEBALL PLAYERS

SAM CRAIG

JOE STODDARD

The entire play takes place in Grover’s Corners,

New Hampshire.

Act I

No curtain.

No scenery.

The audience, arriving, sees an empty stage in half-light. Presently the STAGE MANAGER, hat on and pipe in mouth,

enters and begins placing a table and three chairs downstage left, and a table and three chairs downstage right.

He also places a low bench at the corner of what will be the Webb house, left.

“Left” and “right” are from the point of view of the actor facing the audience. “Up” is toward the back wall.

As the house lights go down he has finished setting the stage and leaning against the right proscenium pillar watches the late arrivals in the audience.

When the auditorium is in complete darkness he speaks:

STAGE MANAGER:

This play is called “Our Town.” It was written by Thornton Wilder; produced and directed by A. . . . (or: produced by A. . . . ; directed by B. . . . ). In it you will see Miss C. . . . ; Miss D. . . . ; Miss E. . . . ; and Mr. F. . . . ; Mr. G. . . . ;

Mr. H. . . . ; and many others. The name of the town is Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire—just across the Massachusetts line: latitude 42 degrees 40 minutes; longitude 70 degrees 37 minutes. The First Act shows a day in our town. The day is May 7, 1901. The time is just before dawn.

A rooster crows.

The sky is beginning to show some streaks of light over in the East there, behind our mount’in.

The morning star always gets wonderful bright the minute before it has to go,—doesn’t it?

He stares at it for a moment, then goes upstage.

Well, I’d better show you how our town lies. Up here—

That is: parallel with the back wall.

is Main Street. Way back there is the railway station; tracks go that way. Polish Town’s across the tracks, and some Canuck families.

Toward the left.

Over there is the Congregational Church; across the street’s the Presbyterian.

Methodist and Unitarian are over there.

Baptist is down in the holla’ by the river.

Catholic Church is over beyond the tracks.

Here’s the Town Hall and Post Office combined; jail’s in the basement.

Bryan once made a speech from these very steps here.

Along here’s a row of stores. Hitching posts and horse blocks in front of them. First automobile’s going to come along in about five years—belonged to Banker Cartwright, our richest citizen . . . lives in the big white house up on the hill.

Here’s the grocery store and here’s Mr. Morgan’s drugstore. Most everybody in town manages to look into those two stores once a day.

Public School’s over yonder. High School’s still farther over. Quarter of ...

Table of contents

• Contents
• Sample Material
• Teacher’s Guide
• Buy the Book
• About the Authors
• Copyright
• About the Publisher