Jim Reiter as the Stage Manager. Photo by Brandon Bentley.
When Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Our Town” opened on Broadway in 1938, the world was a very unsettled place. Still reeling from a horrific global war and confronted with increasing Nazi aggression in Europe, audiences for this play must have taken Wilder’s themes to heart: Live your life. Treasure every moment and connection because who knows what the future will bring.
…many fine performances…memorable and time well spent.
Thornton takes us back to 1901 to find a time and place of innocence in the small town of Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire, where everyone knows their neighbors, people work hard, children listen to their parents, and life is routine and simple. Well directed by Rick Wade, Colonial Players’ production of “Our Town” is a play within a play. The Stage Manager, performed by the charming Jim Reiter, narrates throughout, giving the history of the town, introducing guest lecturers, and leading the audience through the story. The events to come are foreshadowed in the Stage Manager’s narration, but also. when he introduces the characters, he explains how they die. For example, the adorable paper boy (Leopold Heimer), who stops to chat with those he meets on the street, will go off to college but die in WWI. We are told that Mrs. Gibbs (Dana Fleischer), cooking and getting her children ready for school, and not three feet in front of us, will die of pneumonia while visiting her sister. Wilder breaks the spell he has cast almost immediately.
There are many fine performances in this production. Emily Webb (Anna Janssen) is well played as an insecure but very intelligent teen who has always loved George Gibbs (Cordell D. Smith). Smith is excellent as a haltingly goofy kid who is kind, sensitive, and sure what he wants to do. Emily and George’s relationship grows from awkward puppy love to marriage, and the actors do an excellent job of taking us on that journey as they mature.
As Emily’s father, Gary Louis Appel is everyone’s dad. He brings humor to the part with facial expressions and his gruff, non-verbal communication, as though grunting is all he can manage in response. George’s father, Dr. Gibbs (Andrew Rappa), reminds us of wise TV dads as he gently chastises his son for not doing his chores. Mrs. Gibbs and Mrs. Webb (Jane Carrigan) are perfect mothers—caring, gentle, in constant motion, cleaning cooking, and taking care of family.
It takes a village to deliver a good show, and the supporting cast is strong. Simon Stimson (Josh Mooney), the heartbreaking church organist and choir master, struggles with his god-awful choir through practices and, again, at Emily and George’s wedding. The choir members are so bad they may have helped drive the very-depressed Stimson to drink. Wally Webb (Cole Skinner) and Rebecca Gibbs (Grace Wenzel) are excellent as George and Emily’s younger siblings. The milk man (Gary Brick), the confused Professor Willard (Greg Anderson), Constable Warren (Fred Taylor), and the gossipy Mrs. Soames (Angela Germanos), who can’t be quiet at the wedding, are also perfectly cast.
Wilder wrote the play to have minimal sets and props to reduce distractions from the action of the play and set designer Laurie Nolan has take this to heart. There are a few tables and chairs and a beautifully painted Americana floor to support the action.
Edward Albee said that “Our Town” is “the greatest American play ever written.” It is timeless in its warnings to all to live in, and appreciate, the moment—and the moments in this production are memorable and time well spent.
Running Time: Approximately two hours with one 15-minute intermission.
Advisory: Features themes of death, grief, and mortality. Includes references to childbirth-related death.
“Our Town” run through October 3, 2026 at The Colonial Players of Annapolis, 108 East Street, Annapolis Md, 21401. For more information and to purchase tickets, call the Box Office at 410-268-7373 or go online.
