Our Town
by Thornton Wilder
More from the Director:
Our school just studied the ground-breaking musical Hamilton as part of our summer One School, One Book program. We've studied how the musical dispels cultural baggage to bring history alive for everyone. So through the example of Hamilton, the students are studying Our Town to find out how our commonalities—our families, our histories, and indeed, our town, Napa, connect with Thornton Wilder's characters from 1901.

We've used colorblind casting for our production. Our cast is Black, Latino, Anglo, Asian-Pacific, Indian, Native American. We are Catholic, Jewish, Mormon, Protestant. We are gay and straight. And yet, Our Town resonates with each of us.

Coincidentally, Leslie Odom, Jr. (the original Aaron Burr from Hamilton) recently played George Gibbs in a benefit performance of Our Town. In his book Failing Upward, Odom struggles to reconcile being an actor of color playing a famous "white" role, and writes there are "more than enough cognates in the Universal language of the heart and the language of our shared humanity to bring a collective light of truth to Our Town. The new emotional depths and possibilities came as somewhat of a revelation to me, and I couldn’t wait for the opportunity to test the limits once more."

We're also proud to have had the opportunity to work with Tappan Wilder, nephew of Thornton Wilder and literary executor of the Wilder estate. His participation with the students helped to give us deeper understanding of Our Town's place in the 21st century.

Satya Green-Cardona as Emily Webb
Jadyn Satten as George Gibbs
Mr. James Day '72 as the Stage Manager

Arianna Alexander
Jeremiah Alexander
Sarah Barba
Matthew Breneisen
Esther Cottrell
Lexi deLeuze
Aidan Dolinar
Natalie Ervin
Alexandra Gouveia
Feras Halabi
Melissa Hallam
James Huber
Mia Johnson
George Khoury
Emma Jane Knigge
Piper Knutson
Juliana Kunst
Benjamin Levy
Taya Madsen
Beata Neidhoefer
Alegra Negrete
Katie O'Neill
Grace Richmond
Harrison Schaufel
Amina Schnebelt
Gretchen Wahle
Belle Wells

Thornton Wilder (1897–1975) was a pivotal figure in the lit­erary history of the twentieth-century. He is the only writer to win Pulitzer Prizes for both fiction and drama. He received the Pulitzer for his novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927) and the plays Our Town (1938) and The Skin of Our Teeth (1942). His other best-selling nov­els include The Cabala, The Woman of Andros, Heaven’s My Destination, The Ides of March, The Eighth Day and Theophilus North. His other major dramas include The Matchmaker (adapted as the musical Hello, Dolly!) and The Alcestiad. The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden, Pullman Car Hiawatha, and The Long Christmas Dinner are among his well-known shorter plays.

More can be found at thorntonwilder.com