Previous to this week I have only seen the play Our Town one other time. As a young girl my best friend was cast over me as Young Emily, and I was bitterly disappointed. I’m not sure that resentment is the reason I never saw it again but it does feel like the kind of experience Thornton Wilder is trying to portray in his classic play. Fortunately I had the chance to see it in the new production at Hale Center Theatre and it is definitely worthy of your time.

Like I said, Our Town is a classic play written by Wilder in 1938 looking back at the passing of time since 1901. You can imagine that a nostalgic piece from 1938 feels extra nostalgic now all these years later. In fact, the first 2 acts were not engaging me the way I had hoped and it all felt a little cloying and tedious. Then the 3rd act comes up and it makes it all work and packs the emotional wallop I needed to go home satisfied. The play is focusing on the small moments of life (childhood, marriage, and death) but Act 3 is where I connected with the characters and piece and it makes the earlier acts feel more profound and powerful.

Certainly the cast director Dave Tinney has put together can’t be topped. The conceit is this is a play-within-a-play and Michael Hohl acts as our stage manager or narrator. He is warm and endearing and perfect for this role (he reminds me a lot of Richard Thomas who was in the recent revival on Broadway.) We then have Becca Ashton as Emily and Timothy Qusenberry as George, and they have terrific chemistry (especially Qusenberry) and really sell those Act 3 moments. Other stars are the great Jane Luke, Ben Parkes, Sanford Porter, Cecily Ellis-Bills and more. It’s a large cast and they feel like a cohesive group of small town residents. I was particularly moved by Jared Stewart as the troubled Simon Stimson.

Despite having 3 acts this Our Town is just over 2 hours so you get to that Act 3 pretty quickly. The set is simple with projections by Madeline Ashton and sound design by Griffin McMullin. The costumes are period accurate by Kim Wright. I guess it is tradition of this play to have no props, which is the case here. I read that Wilder wanted this because it would make the audience focus on the emotions rather than the items; however, I actually found it to be the reverse. I felt like the act of someone pretending to hold a cup or eat a fake ice cream soda to be more distracting than if they were just doing those things. I’m not sure if that makes sense but suffice it to say that’s not my favorite aspect of this play. I’ve been told some productions don’t even have chairs, which they at least have here.

It is also quite slow those first 2 acts, and I left wondering if it would be better as a one act with just Act 3. However, perhaps then it wouldn’t have the emotional resonance without the build up of the other 2 acts? I’m not sure but just know that you are signing yourself up for a slower, softer paced experience with Our Town, and be ready for the emotion in Act 3. If you can go in with that perspective you’ll have a good experience with this play. It’s certainly executed extremely well by the folks at Hale and it’s always good to cross those classics off of your theatre bucket list. Fortunately you have a long time to see Hale’s Our Town with it running through October 19th but it is on the smaller Beehive Stage so tickets will sell quickly. More information can be found here.

Our Town is a 3-act play written by Thornton Wilder in 1938. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for it and it premiered on Broadway that same year. It has been revived many times including a recent production in 2024 starring Jim Parsons as the stage manager and Richard Thomas as Mr Webb.

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