Our Town

No set. Almost no props. Just people, pretending, and it has wrecked audiences for ninety years.

Thornton Wilder's 1938 Pulitzer Prize winner follows the Gibbs and Webb families through the ordinary business of living in Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, between 1901 and 1913. Daily routines, a courtship, a marriage, a death. The famous choice is to perform it with bare staging and pantomime, which sounds like a gimmick until you watch it work: strip away the scenery and what is left is the thing the play is actually about.

The Town Players chose it deliberately for their 80th season. With the country marking its 250th, they wanted a show about small town America, and specifically about our town, meaning New Canaan.

Peter Green directs, produced by Carin Zakes. Savannah Hall plays Emily Webb and Nick Menedis-Condon plays George Gibbs, with Geoffrey Gilbert and Jessie Gilbert as Doc and Mrs. Gibbs, John Fanelli and Jennifer Prescott as Mr. and Mrs. Webb, and Jonathan Hall as Simon Stimson and Howie Newsome.

Ten performances. Friday 18, Saturday 19, Friday 25 and Saturday 26 September and Friday 2 and Saturday 3 October at 7:30pm, Sunday matinees on 20 and 27 September and 4 October at 2pm, plus one Thursday, 24 September at 7:30pm.

Getting tickets. Booking runs through On The Stage, from the show's own page on the Town Players site. The box office is on 203-594-3636 and they answer email at info@tpnc.org.

Where to go. The Powerhouse Theatre is at 679 South Avenue in New Canaan, tucked into Waveny Park, and it is an easy run in from anywhere in lower Fairfield County.