York Times called it "one of the finest achievements of the current stage... Although Thorton Wilder is celebrated chiefly for his fiction, it will be necessary now to reckon with him as a dramatist... He has given familiar facts a deeply moving, philosophical perspective" (Atkinson 119). The reviewer further praised the play's use of a bare stage, the omniscient Stage Manager, and the many unconventional elements, saying, "The whole effect gives ten times as much 'theater' as conventional scenery would give" (Atkinson 120). Our Town was adapted for a film version in 1940 and was also made into a musical called Grover's Corners in 1987. To this day it continues to be one of the most frequently performed plays of the century.
             The events throughout the play are simple and average in themselves, but when combined into a greater story, symbolize the greater meaning of human life in general. After the Stage Manager's introduction, we see a usual day unfold in the first act. In Act I we see how the Gibbs and Webb families, who are neighbors, operate on a day-to-day basis. The mothers send the children off to school and go about their work around the house, and the fathers discuss their fields of work. Dr. Gibbs is the town physician and Mr. Webb is the publisher and editor of the Grover's Corners local paper, the Sentine
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