Maybe you have to have been in more than one production of Our Town to appreciate this as much as I do, but I think it’s just great:
Breakdown
PLEASE NOTE -
This production of OUR TOWN is done without New England dialects of any kind and every effort is made to avoid folksy, twinkly behavior. The characters are straightforward, hard-working people, who keep their complex emotional lives to themselves. It is not the culture of the town to express oneself.
SEEKING:
STAGE MANAGER. An emotionally inscrutable narrator with the authority to stop and start the play at will. (Role will be played by Helen Hunt – SEEKING UNDERSTUDY ONLY)
DOC GIBBS (FRANK), male, 40s. Frank is the (or one of a very few) town doctor in Grover’s Corners. Respected and heeded, he is emotionally distant and secretly afraid that he may have no idea what he’s talking about. Like a lot of people he is unsure how he ended up married with a bunch of kids. Like almost all citizens of Grover’s Corner, he avoids, and is embarrassed by displays of emotion, not least of all, his own.
MRS. GIBBS (JULIA) female 40s. A housewife and mother of 2, Julia is embarrassed that she harbors a secret desire to see Paris, France. Rather than discuss it with her husband (who tends to speak dismissively of anything in which he himself is not interested) she hints at it for many years and dies never having actually stated her wish. She is a thorough and practical wife and mother. Like all parents she is engaged in a lifelong exercise in calculated guessing.
MRS. WEBB (MYRTLE) female, late 30s at beginning of play. A hard-working and effective housewife and mother of 2, Myrtle had no idea she would eventually fail to execute a fairly significant parental duty: that of informing her daughter what to expect on her wedding night. She probably benefits from living in a culture in which a parent’s rightness is rarely questioned.
GEORGE GIBBS ages over the course of the play from 16-30. George is the star athlete in a town of 2,640. He is an ordinary young man of limited intellect and limited observational skills. He is consistently confronted over the course of the play with his own selfishness and self-involvement (which is due to carelessness rather than malice). When pulled off his high horse he has a tendency to shrivel with shame.
EMILY WEBB ages over the course of the play from 14-27. Emily is the smartest girl in her class in a town of 2,640. She should not be theatre girl pretty, as she is the smartest girl in town, not necessarily the prettiest. She has the two conflicting forces that make up an American teenager; self-righteousness and self-loathing. Self-righteousness seems to win out. Nice girl, though. Y’know what I mean?
EDITOR WEBB (CHARLES) male, 40s. The owner and publisher of The Grover’s Corners Sentinel with all the attendant authority that carries. Charles seems a little more interested in the emotional lives of his children than most. One might call him a bit of a smartass.
SIMON STIMSON male, old enough to have seen a peck of trouble. Must play piano. Simon is the organist and choir director of the Congregational Church. He is the town scandal with a commonly known but never spoken of drinking problem. He can only articulate his sadness and rage and isolation after his suicide.
MRS. SOAMES (LOUELLA) female, over 40. A Grover’s Corners woman who attends weddings as it presents an opportunity to publicly display emotion.
HOWIE NEWSOME male, over 25. Howie is the Milkman and the absolute, final, and unimpeachable authority on all things related to the weather in Grover’s Corners
REBECCA GIBBS female, ages from 11 to 25. George’s little sister. She loves money. She worries the moon may crash into the earth. She does not want George to get married. She eventually marries an insurance man in Canton, Ohio.
WALLY WEBB male, 10 or so. A bizarre little boy.
PROFESSOR WILLARD male, 40s. A professor at the local University, Professor Willard is an authority on the geological history of Grover’s Corners. He is not much of a speaker in or out of the classroom.
CONSTABLE WARREN (BILL) male, 40s-50s. An ordinary, efficient but unhurried man. Duties include; checking doors after sundown, flood watch, and dealing with that gang that hangs out down by the gulley.
JOE CROWELL, JR. male, mid teens. A very bright young man who will graduate first in his class, be granted a scholarship to MIT but die in France in WW I. He is resistant to change
SI CROWELL male, mid teens. Si delivers the Grover’s Corners Sentinel in 1904, after his older brother retires. Si, like all the Crowell boys, is resistant to change.
JOE STODDARD male, over 40. Joe is a very typical Grover’s Corners citizen; informed about people’s business, disinterested in emotional displays and therefore expert at circumventing indulgent behavior. The town undertaker
SAM CRAIG male 20s. A Grover’s Corners boy who left town to go out west. Out West it seems, is Buffalo, New York.
The role of the Stage Manager is cast.
