Publisher's Synopsis
Thornton Wilder was unhappy with the 1940 film and 1957 musical versions of Our Town. Before his death, in 1975, he worked with producer Saul Jaffe and director George Schaefer in an attempt to leave behind a definitive version of his masterpiece. The result of that collaboration was broadcast on NBC in 1977, featuring a stellar cast that included Hal Holbrook, Ned Beatty, Sada Thompson, John Houseman, Glynnis O'Connor and Robby Benson, and was such a success that the trustees of Wilder's estate decided to never permit another television version of the play. The author had his definitive version. Since its original production in 1938, Our Town has been produced on stage somewhere every single day, often by school or community theaters drawn to its simple set design, large cast and American themes. Gregory Mosher, who directed the Lincoln Center Theater's stage production, felt that as a result the play had been turned "into a holiday greeting card, reduced by a consensus that it was a superficial, nostalgic, flag-waving poem to a lost America." His production reflect's Wilder's "very particular version of what life in this century had been and might become." The production, featuring Spalding Gray, Frances Conroy, Roberta Maxwell, Penelope Ann Miller and Eric Stoltz, ran on Broadway for 136 performances, and the trustees were so impressed by the Tony Award-winning production that in 1989 they granted permission for its presentation on PBS's Great Performances series.
