I have a soft spot for Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, owing to having done two school productions of it in different cities — and honestly, sometimes I think that’s exactly where it was born to live: in school auditoriums, the quiet province of teens learning to deliver a monologue or pretend to cook breakfast, or imagine that a ladder is the windowsill in a second-floor bedroom. It is PERFECT for your drama club. For Broadway, though it’s been done there a few times, I always imagine it being too quaint somehow, or that people will strain to reinvent something that is meant to be spare and plain.
However. Katie Holmes is 45 playing Mrs. Webb. Zoey Deutch is playing Emily at 29, so maybe Mrs. Webb had her at 16? Sure! But Ephraim Sykes, as George, is 39 in real life?!?!? I am going to assume none of that is anything you can see on-stage, in a distracting way. I know they have to play courtship, love, and death, and stage makeup is a wonderful thing… anyway, reviews are mixed, primarily fine, though they’re trending positive enough now. Not sure it’ll sweep the Tonys, but hey, if it keeps this front-of-mind with high school theatre teachers, then yay.
