Foothill Theatre Arts Presents OUR TOWN

The Pulitzer Prize winning American classic OUR TOWN by Thornton Wilder comes to life in a vibrant new production directed by Bruce McLeod for Foothill Theatre Arts. Proclaimed "One of the finest achievements of the current stage.

A hauntingly beautiful play" by The New York Times when it opened on Broadway in 1938, OUR TOWN has maintained its place in the pantheon of American theatre, cherished for its deft portrayal of life in one small New Hampshire town as a microcosm for universal truths.

OUR TOWN will be presented three weeks only,November 3 through 18 (press opening Friday, Nov. 4), with performances 7:30pm Thursdays, 8pm Fridays & Saturdays, 2pm Sundays at the Lohman Theatre, 12345 El Monte Road, at the bottom of the hill on the Foothill College campus, Los Altos Hills. For tickets ($5 - $20) and information the public can visit www.foothill.edu/theater or call (650) 949-7360.

Fellow playwright Edward Albee referred to OUR TOWN as "The finest serious American play. It is a superbly written, gloriously observed, tough, and breathtaking statement of what it is to be alive, the wonder and hopeless loss of the space between birth and the grave." Foothill's staging maintains the simplicity of style that was the hallmark of the original production, which specifically called for minimal scenery to place the emphasis of the play, as Wilder intended, on the relation between the countless details of everyday interactions and the great perspectives time and social history. However, director Bruce McLeod is adding some inventive new casting and production elements, heightening its relevance to today's audiences.

Foothill has assembled a stellar cast of actors for this production, including professionals drawn from the greater Bay Area, as well as students from the college. The cast includes: Samantha Rose (Emily Webb), Peter Spoelstra(George Gibbs), Carla Befera, (Stage Manager), Tony Silk (Doc Gibbs), Dee Bailey (Mrs. Gibbs), Edie Dwan (Mrs. Webb), and Bill Dwan (Editor Webb) in the principal roles, with a large supporting cast that includes James Hardee(Constable Warren), Sam Woodbury (Howie Newsome), Abbey Eklund (Jo Crowell), Stony Tan (Joe Stoddard),Elyssia Tingley (Mrs. Soames), Richard Horner (Professor Willard/Mr. Morgan), Alexis Standridge (Rebecca Gibbs), MC Smitherman (Sam Craig), Jonathon Wright (Simon Stimson), Autumn Gonzalez (Willa Webb), Lisa Romanovich (Chorister).

Thornton Wilder (1897-1975) is the only writer to win Pulitzer Prizes for both fiction and drama. He received the Pulitzer for his novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927), as well as the plays Our Town (1938) and The Skin of Our Teeth (1942). His works include a series of best-selling novels, and other plays including The Matchmaker, later adapted as the musical Hello Dolly! Wilder was born in Madison, Wisconsin, and spent part of his boyhood in China, but was educated principally in California, graduating from Berkeley High School in 1915. He attended Oberlin College, then transferred to Yale, where he received his BA. Post-graduate studies included a year studying archaeology and Italian at the American Academy in Rome and graduate work in French at Princeton, where he obtained a Master's degree. In 1942, he teamed up with Alfred Hitchcock on the classic psycho-thriller Shadow of a Doubt. He read and spoke German, French, and Spanish, translated and adapted plays by Ibsen, Sartre, and Obey. His scholarship also included sig­nificant research on James Joyce and Lope De Vega.

OUR TOWN opens with the Stage Manager's introduction to Grover's Corners, a fictional town based on Peterborough, New Hampshire where Wilder often spent his summers. The minimalist set suggests Wilder's intention to make Grover's Corners represent all towns. The Stage Manager, played by Wilder himself for two weeks in the 1938 Broadway production, breaks the fourth wall by directly addressing the audience.

OUR TOWN made its debut at Princeton, New Jersey's McCarter Theater, where it received mixed reviews, before ultimately moving to the Henry Miller Theatre in New York City in 1938. In his review in The New York Times, Brooks Atkinson said, "MR. Wilder has transmuted the simple events of human life into universal reverie. He has given familiar facts a deeply moving, philosophical perspective. " Critics praised Wilder's cunningly simple method of reminding his audiences how precious daily life is, and the universality of family, love, and death. OUR TOWN continues to be one of the most produced plays in the world. Productions have included a radio play in 1939 starring Orson Welles as the Stage Manager; a 1940 film adapted by Wilder and featuring William Holden as George Gibbs; and a live musical adaptation for television in 1955 starring Frank Sinatra as the Stage Manager, Paul Newman as George Gibbs, and Eva Marie Saint as Emily. Another 1977 television adaption starred HAl Holbrook as the Stage Manager. OUR TOWN was recreated as a musical in 1987, called Grover's Corners. Notable New York productions include the 1989 Lincoln Center production starring Spaulding Gray, and a 2002 Broadway revival with Paul Newman, which was broadcast as a television adaptation in 2003. It was also turned into an opera in 2006, and choreographed as a ballet in 1994. The most recent major revival was an acclaimed staging at New York's Barrow Street Theatre, which became the longest running production of the play in its history, at 644 performances. The Stage Manager role was portrayed by the director, David Cromer, later replaced by a number of notable actors including Helen Hunt, Michael McKean, and others.

Director Bruce McLeod joined the Foothill College Theatre Arts department in 2007 for the opening of the Lohman Theatre. He is responsible for the Theatre Technology Program and serves as the department's Production Manager and Technical Director. He has worked professionally at several theatres including the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and was the first technical director and production manager for TheatreWorks, where he oversaw site-specific productions of Cabaret (downtown Fire Station, now Avenidas), Macbeth (Baylands Nature Center) and Everyman(various churches). He has a long career as a set and lighting designer in the Bay Area including work with Center Rep, West Bay Opera, Magic Theatre, Eureka Theatre and TheatreWorks. Several of his set designs have received recognition, including the Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award for Sunday in the Park with George and a Theatre Bay Area nomination for the recent Marry Me A Little at TheatreWorks. At Foothill he has directed Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and a critically acclaimed revival of Angels in America: Millennium Approaches.

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