Our Town was first produced at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey in 1938 and, in spite of some hiccups during those previews, moved to New York, where it proved a tremendous success. At that time, Thornton Wilder was already a well-established writer—he had written several novels and many short plays, among them Pullman Car Hiawatha—but the reception of Our Town pushed him to new heights: it won him his second Pulitzer Prize (his first for drama) and ensured that he would remain one of the most famous American playwrights of the twentieth century.
Our Town was also adapted into a film in 1940 by Sol Lesser—although Wilder agreed to a substantial change in the ending. Two TV...
