Video: Zoey Deutch Discusses Longtime Dream of Performing OUR TOWN

Zoey Deutch has just made her Broadway debut in the new production of Thornton Wilder's Our Town. However, her relationship with the Pulitzer Prize-winning piece dates back years, having first read the play at age 13.

"It means everything to me. It is the dream of my life to play Emily Webb." Deutch shared during a recent interview on CBS Mornings. 

"The piece is simple but so profound," the performer added. "It sat on my night table since I was 13 when I read it. There's no other piece of text that I've read more."

She also revealed that, despite it having first been performed in 1938, they are using the original text, which feels surprisingly modern. "It's a testament to the authenticity of Thornton Wilder's words...he was writing from his heart [and] his truth." Our Town is currently playing at the Barrymore Theatre. Watch the full interview!

About Our Town

The new Broadway production of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town directed by Tony Award-winner Kenny Leon, features 28 actors led by Emmy, Golden Globe & Screen Actors Guild Award-winner Jim Parsons as “Stage Manager”, Zoey Deutch as “Emily Webb”, Katie Holmes as “Mrs. Webb”, Obie & Audelco Award-winner and Drama Desk-nominee Billy Eugene Jones as “Dr. Gibbs”, Tony & Grammy Award-nominee Ephraim Sykes as “George Gibbs”, Tony & Drama Desk Award-nominee and Emmy-Award-winner Richard Thomas as “Mr. Webb”, Tony & Drama Desk-nominee Michelle Wilson as “Mrs. Gibbs”, 2021 Special Tony Award-winner and Drama Desk-nominee Julie Halston as “Mrs. Soames”, Donald Webber Jr. as “Simon Stimpson”, as well as Ephie Aardema, Heather Ayers, Willa Bost, Bobby Daye, Safiya Kaijya Harris, Doron JéPaul, Shyla Lefner, Anthony Michael Lopez, John McGinty, Bryonha Marie, Kevyn Morrow, Hagan Oliveras, Noah Pyzik, Sky Smith, Bill Timoney, Matthew Elijah Webb and Nimene Sierra Wureh.

The design team for Our Town includes scenic design by Tony Award-winner Beowulf Boritt (New York, New York; Act One,), costume design by Tony Award-nominee and Drama Desk Award winner Dede Ayite (Jaja’s African Hair Braiding; Topdog/Underdog), lighting design by Tony  Award-nominee Allen Lee Hughes (Topdog/Underdog; A Soldier’s Play), sound design by Tony  Award-nominee Justin Ellington (Ohio State Murders; for colored girls…) and the dialect coach  will be Kate Wilson (The Shark is Broken, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window). 

Our Town, the timeless drama of life in the mythical village of Grover’s Corners, New  Hampshire, has become an American classic with universal appeal. Thornton Wilder’s most frequently performed play, Our Town appeared on Broadway in 1938 to wide acclaim, and won the Pulitzer Prize. From the very beginning, Our Town has been produced throughout the world. 

Our Town explores the relationship between two young Grover’s Corners neighbors, George  Gibbs and Emily Webb, whose childhood friendship blossoms into romance, and then culminates in marriage. When Emily loses her life in childbirth, the circle of life portrayed in each of the three acts of Our Town–growing up, adulthood, and death–is fully realized. Wilder offers a couple of chairs on a bare stage as the backdrop for an exploration of the universal human experience. The simple story of a love affair is constantly rediscovered because it asks timeless questions about the meaning of love, life, and death. In the final moments of the play,  the recently deceased Emily is granted the opportunity to revisit one day in her life, only to discover that she never fully appreciated all she possessed until she lost it. “Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you,” she says as she takes her place among the dead.