Our Town

Our Town takes place in the fictional town of Grover’s Corner, New Hampshire, and begins on May 7, 1901, with “no curtain [and] [n]o scenery” (3) as the Stage Manager, with his pipe and hat, enters the stage and dawn breaks. He places a few basic props around the stage to set the scenes of Main Street and the Gibbs and Webb houses. Since this is a metatheatrical play, the Stage Manager acts as the narrator and addresses the audience directly as he introduces the play’s setting, speaking about the events as if they occurred in the past. He even pokes fun at them and their odd expectations of what a play should be: “There’s some scenery for those who think they have to have scenery” (5). He describes the town with its six denominational churches, Main Street, Town Hall, Polish Town, Post Office, jail, grocery store and drug store, grade and high schools, the town doctor Doc Gibbs’s house, his wife Mrs Gibbs’s garden, and Mrs Webb’s garden. He describes it as a “nice town” inhabited by the same four families (the Grovers, Cartwrights, Gibbses, and Herseys) since the late 1600s when it was established.