In a New York Times review of Thorton Wilder's play, Our Town, reviewer Brooks Atkinson proclaimed that "Mr. Wilder has transmuted the simple events of human life into universal reveries" (Atkinson 119). Our Town can certainly be considered an example of the universality of time, social history, and religious ideals.
             Thorton Wilder was born in 1897. He was interested in the theater since his childhood. By the time he entered Oberlin College in 1915 he had already written three short plays, or "three minute plays." He completed his undergraduate studies at Yale and began a teaching job at the Lawrenceville School, near Princeton, New Jersey, in 1921. He earned his degree from Princeton University in 1926. Wilder first gained recognition as a novelist. He won his first Pulitzer Prize for The Bridge of San Luis Rey, which he wrote in 1927. In 1938 his famous play, Our Town, was performed. It was a huge success and earned Wilder a second Pulitzer Prize. In 1941 World War II began, and in 1942 Wilder enlisted in the Air Force. Later that year another of his plays, The Skin of Our Teeth was performed, and earned him his third Pulitzer Prize. In 1954 his revised version of Merchant of Yonkers, now called The Matchmaker, was performed at the Edinburgh Festival, and was a huge success. The following year it was a hit in London and New York, and ten years later it became a successful musical, Hello Dolly (Cohn 276). After accomplishing further recognition and fame for numerous more plays, Thorton Wilder died on December 7, 1975, in Hamden Connecticut.
             The very first performance of the play, Our Town, took place at the McCarter Theater in Princeton, New Jersey, on January 22, 1938. It experienced a brief and disastrous run in Boston, but after its first performance in New York, at the Henry Miller Theater on February 4th of the same year, it received overwhelmingly positive reviews. The New...