By Ryan Leeds on October 23, 2024
By now, we’ve heard the lesson: Screentime is killing us. It’s made us less communicative with each other, more easily distracted, and more reliant on apps, maps, texts, tweets, posts, pokes, likes, loves, gifs, memes, and emojis of every type except the ones on real, live human faces.
TV shows, films, and theater have long spread these themes through much of their content, and when the world halted in 2020, storylines incorporating these themes of disconnection became even more potent and pervasive. It looks like Babs was right: People who need people really are the luckiest people in the world.
Yet it wasn’t the last 25 years of media, a global pandemic, nor even our favorite diva, Barbra Streisand, to remind us of the need for precious interwoven humanity. Long before they came along, we had playwright and novelist Thornton Wilder.
In 1938, his play Our Town premiered, first in Boston and later on Broadway, where it earned a Pulitzer Prize. Since then, numerous Broadway revivals have been mounted, and it has become a favorite option for schools, colleges, and community theaters around the world.
Currently, Kenny Leon and his gifted creative team have infused fresh life into the timeless story of small-town America in a Broadway revival starring Jim Parsons and a stellar cast of actors.
Not much happens in the fictional town of Grover’s Corners, a small enclave in New Hampshire “just across the Massachusetts line.” Parsons plays the nameless, everyman stage manager and serves as the town’s guide. Before introducing us to Dr. Webb (Billy Eugene Jones), his wife (Michelle Wilson), newspaper editor Mr. Webb (Richard Thomas), his wife (Katie Holmes), and both of their families, he gives us the layout of Grover’s Corners, finishing his description with “Nice town, y ‘know what I mean? Nobody very remarkable ever come out of it, s’far as we know.”
As Wilder intended, Parsons breaks the fourth wall, addressing both the audience and the inhabitants of this village. With a mere population of 2,640, according to Professor Willard (Shyla Lefner), it stands to reason that everyone knows one another. (Surprisingly for a small place, Our Town — with a cast of 27 — boasts one of the largest ensembles currently in a Broadway play).
Three acts comprise Our Town: “Everyday Life,” “Romance and Marriage,” and “Death and the Afterlife,” and we are told when the acts begin and end. Constantly, we’re made aware of the fact that we are watching a play, but it’s as though Wilder borrowed a page from Shakespeare’s notion that “all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”
In this production — as in other stagings — the set is minimal, and there are few props. Wilder’s original intent was to “restore significance to the small details of life by removing the scenery. The spectator through lending his imagination to the action restages it inside his own head. In its healthiest ages, the theatre has always exhibited the least scenery.”
Sparse though it may be, Beowulf Boritt’s set, with its rustic walls and vintage hanging lanterns that softly illuminate the theater, is calm and contemplative, setting the tone for the entire show. It is a gentle and humbling reminder that Grover’s Corners is exactly like our own microcosmic communities: vital, but minute, under a sea of stars.
Our Town is a true ensemble piece. There is quiet restraint in all the cast’s actions and a stoic demeanor that suggests they will weather any storm that life throws their way. And although we are told that the story takes place in 1901, Leon throws in contemporary songs and opens the show with some cast members taking selfies of themselves. He’s also diversified this small town. These elements bring a modernity that cause us to see our own lives and communities.
Our Town is not the most dramatic work ever written — nor is this production. It isn’t supposed to be. Instead, it’s a reflection of common people doing common activities, living lives to the best of their abilities, and facing the challenges with a level-headed reality.
Towards the end, Emily Webb (Zoey Deutch) says, “Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? – every, every minute?”
Perhaps that realization is often ignored or lost. What is not lost and fully realized is this stunning production that should make us grateful for the gifts of live theater and the people we most value — if only we’d look up from our phones.
Our Town (★★★★★) plays through Jan. 19, 2025, on Broadway at the Barrymore Theatre, 243 West 47th St. Tickets are $74 to $321. Visit www.ourtownbroadway.com.
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By André Hereford on June 15, 2025 @here4andre
If you don't know or don't recall what a big deal Hunter S. Thompson was, he's here to tell you how big a deal he was -- and why -- in Signature Theatre's The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical, directed by Christopher Ashley.
In fiction, as he apparently was in life, the maverick writer is his own biggest fan, eager to blow his horn in this rock 'n' roll odyssey from Be More Chill creator Joe Iconis, who composed the music and lyrics, and co-wrote the show's book with Gregory S. Moss. Their story takes us through Thompson's unruly journey from middle-class kid in 1940s Louisville, Kentucky, to self-proclaimed major figure in American history, a leading voice of the '60s counterculture movement.
By André Hereford on June 10, 2025 @here4andre
Brent Askari's Andy Warhol in Iran could shift some theatergoers' perspectives on a variety of complicated topics, from the junction of art and commerce, to Western interference in the affairs of modern Iran.
Making its D.C. premiere at Mosaic in a crisply-mounted production directed by Serge Seiden, the tidy two-hander takes on a world of troublesome issues without ever leaving a luxury hotel room in Tehran.
That's where the artist Andy Warhol (Alex Mills) is holed up, having been invited by the wife of the Shah, Empress Farah, to create pop-art portraits of her and the royal family.
By André Hereford on June 22, 2025 @here4andre
Life is a cabaret at the titular bolero bar in GALA Hispanic Theatre's Botiquín de Boleros de Columbia Heights. Of course, for this lively, immersive staging, directed and choreographed by Valeria Cossu, we, the audience, are the patrons at the Columbia Heights Bolero Bar.
Seated at cabaret tables onstage, at stage level, or in regular seats throughout the house, audience members may find themselves in the midst of the action for Rubén Léon's heartfelt backstage musical revue, adapted by GALA artistic director Gustavo Ott.
Formerly a mainstay of D.C.'s diverse Columbia Heights neighborhood, the fictional boîte was "one of the hottest cabarets" in town, we're told. But due to the pandemic, it has sat dormant for years, until now -- now being November 2024, just ahead of a presidential election that will prove particularly pivotal for immigrants like some of the performers who call the club home.
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