Anna Miles' radical re-imagination of Thornton Wilder's Our Town ran at the historic Woodland Opera House in Woodland, CA from January 28 - February 20, 2022

A landmark in American drama, Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Our Town tells the story of a small town at the turn of the century, Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire. Narrated by the “Stage Manager”, we follow the Gibbs and Webb families, residents of Grover’s Corners, through twelve years of life changes — from the mundane in Act I, “Daily Life,” to the romantic in Act II, “Love and Marriage,” to the bittersweet in Act III, “Death and Eternity.” The play was revolutionary when it was first produced in 1938, challenging the conventions of realism and theatrical storytelling- this 2022 production honored that traditional of innovation and breathed fresh life and fresh revolution into this old classic, reworking the staging and storytelling to challenge the theatrical conventions of today. While Our Town is often professed to be a play about “universal truths,” a story about “all of America,” there’s only so much limited truth a story about a small white East Coast town in the 1900s can offer modern audiences. But with the help of a dedicated and diverse ensemble of creators, Anna and the Woodland Opera House reckoned with the text to tell a powerful modern tale of the complications of nostalgia and the need to continue always moving forward in our social progress.

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