Summary

Act I, Part 1

When the audience arrives, the stage is empty, and the Stage Manager begins to arrange tables and chairs. When the audience is quiet and seated, the Stage Manager explains that the play is called Our Town and takes place in Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire. It is May 7, 1901. The Stage Manager gestures this way and that, pointing out where the churches are, as well as the town hall and post office combined, from which William Jennings Bryan once made a speech. He points out that the first automobile will arrive in five years, thanks to the richest resident, Banker Cartwright. The Stage Manager points out the grocery store, Morgan’s drugstore, public school, high school, Doctor Frank Gibbs’s house, and the house of Mr. and Mrs. Webb. Mr. Webb is the editor of the twice-weekly newspaper Sentinel...