our town thornton wilder artist note: John jarvis I first performed in Our Town with Soulpepper at the Royal Alexandra Theatre in 1999 under the inspired direction of Joseph Ziegler. The thrill of telling Thornton Wilder’s unsettling story amidst the history and grandeur of such a wondrous old theatre was inspiring to us all. The sound of the human voice so necessary to the play came easy in that venerable old place – the simple routines of daily life captured in the warmth of a family kitchen, the shuddering heartache of the first love we feel for another, the throat catching, swift, unstoppable passage of time that wraps us in such fits of fear and loss – all of it remains in mind as if it were yesterday. I can still see the silhouette of the wonderful Peter Donaldson, who played the Stage Manager in that production, standing alone in the light, framed only by the gilded edge of the proscenium arch, just his presence and voice revealing the playwright’s observations about the ordinariness of people lives, about their struggle to grasp, if only for a moment, the true extraordinariness of being alive. This seems to me the essence of the story. When Soulpepper moved into its new home the clearest choice to begin the new journey was of course Our Town, with Artistic Director Albert Schultz now taking on the role of the Stage Manager. The play begins this time with Albert’s soft touch of the brick wall that you see at the back of the stage. What you may not know is that there is a company of actors touching that brick wall from the other side at precisely the same moment. It began spontaneously that first night as a way to connect us all to Albert’s voice, to allay our fears, to launch a new home and now, not surprisingly, it’s become a tradition carried out every night to help send us off down the road you are about to travel. “Some of the things they’re going to say maybe’ll hurt your feelings…but that’s the way it is.” I hope you will be as captured as I have been.
John Jarvis, Mr. Webb in Our Town
photo: sandy nicholson
our town Thornton wilder
background notes
usa 1938
Our Town has a long and tender association with Soulpepper. It was first produced in 1999 at the Royal Alexandra Theatre. It was warmly received then and our audience has embraced it every time we bring it back. Perhaps most memorably for us, in 2006 Our Town was the first play ever staged in the Young Centre, with Artistic Director Albert Schultz in the role of the Stage Manager.
Production
cast
Joseph Ziegler Director
Douglas John Alan townsperson
Dominique Matamoros Rebecca gibbs
Shawn Kerwin Set & Costume Designer
Diana Bentley townsperson
Louise Guinard lighting designer
Derek Boyes Joe stoddard
Diego Matamoros professor Willard / townsperson
Jim Neil original sound Designer
Kevin Bundy townsperson / Carter
Jeff Ritches original choir tracks
Owen Cumming Wally webb
Mike Ross Music director
Oliver Dennis Dr. Gibbs
Jason Browning production sound coordinator
Michael Hanrahan Howie Newsome
Marinda de Beer Stage Manager Ashlyn Ireland Assistant stage manager Laurie Merredew Apprentice Stage Manager Kelly McEvenue Alexander coach
John Jarvis Mr. Webb Jeff Lillico george gibbs Toby Malone Sam Craig
Nancy Palk Mrs. Gibbs Krystin Pellerin Emily webb Brenda Robins Mrs. Soames / lady in the balcony Albert Schultz Stage Manager Michael Simpson constable Warren Jane Spidell Mrs. Webb
Our Town is concerned with regular people going about their business, and it pays deep respect to the momentous questions that occupy us all – who should we marry, how can we live peaceably with our families, how can we reconcile our longing for adventure with our need for stability. The play finds poetry and depth in the mundane little tasks that take up our days: making breakfast, reading the paper, preparing for an algebra test. It honours and illuminates the small moments: a lonely choir master walking home drunk again, a milkman dealing with a change in his daily route. Thornton Wilder created Our Town because he was dissatisfied with the state of theatre. He found the plays of his time to be bland, toothless. “The tragic has no heat,” he said, “the comic has no bite and the social criticism fails to indict us with responsibility.” Avoiding grand gestures and heroic figures, Wilder turned his attention to simple working folks living typically anonymous lives and he mined the heat and bite of their experience to create this timeless classic. All of Wilder’s great works, both plays and novels, dealt with the hugeness, and the simplicity, of the everyday. Perhaps he expressed it best in his Pulitzer prize-winning novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey:
“But soon we will die … and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. This is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love. The only survival, the only meaning.”
William Webster Simon stimson Charles Vandervaart Joe Crowell / si crowell
production sponsor
Playwright Biography Born in Madison, Wisconsin in 1897, Thornton Wilder was educated at Oberlin College before earning his Bachelor of Arts at Yale, followed by a Master of Arts at Princeton University. An accomplished playwright and novelist, Wilder was also a successful teacher, scholar, essayist, translator, and screenwriter. Wilder is the only author to win Pulitzer Prizes for both fiction and drama – for his second novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927), and two plays Our Town (1938) and The Skin of Our Teeth (1942). Other notable plays include The Long Christmas Dinner (1931) and The Matchmaker (1954, revised from an earlier work). A celebrated writer whose works continue to be read and produced throughout the world, Thornton Wilder died on December 7, 1975 at the age of 78.
Our Town is produced by special arrangement with Robert A. Freedman Dramatic Agency, Inc. There will be two 15-minute intermission. Approximate running time 2 hours and 20 minutes.
Background Notes by Associate Artist Paula Wing.
soulpepper production J. Andrew Hillman
David Rayfield
associate technical director
head scenic artist
Phil Atfield, Geoff Hughes Joanne Lamberton
Jacqueline Robertson-Cull head of hair & makeup
cutters
Ryan Wilson
Steve Hudak
carpenter
scenic artist
Barbera Cassidy, Janet Pym, Natalie Swiercz
Laura Bolton wig running
sewers/dressers
Greg Chambers
Duncan Johnstone
prop builders
painter
Laura Bolton wig mistress
Katarzyna Chopican millinery
soulpepper thanks: Mar-Lyn Lumber Sales Ltd., Ontario Staging Ltd., Smartrisk.ca, Ben Renzella, PRG Toronto, David Hoekstra, Shawnte Clow (wardrobe co-op student), Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People, JD International. Soulpepper Theatre Company is an active member of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres (pact), the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (tapa) and Theatre Ontario, and engages, under the terms of the Canadian Theatre Agreement, professional artists who are members of Canadian Actors’ Equity Association. Diana Bentley is appearing with the special permission of Canadian Actors' Equity Association.
Polar Securities is proud to be a founding sponsor of Soulpepper Theatre Company and is pleased to support this year’s production of Our Town.
YOUNG CENTRE FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS DISTILLERY HISTORIC DISTRICT