What are the three acts of our town?

When Emily loses her life during childbirth, the circle of life portrayed in each of the three acts—childhood, adulthood, and death—is fully realized. Widely considered one of the greatest American plays of all time, Our Town debuted on Broadway in 1938 and continues to be performed daily on stages around the world.

• 1.1 Act I: Daily Life.
• 1.2 Act II: Love and Marriage.
• 1.3 Act III: Death and Eternity.

The Stage Manager starts the show by introducing the play itself and the actors who will be playing various roles. The name of the town is Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire. The day of the first act is May 7, 1901. He points out the highlights of the town, such as the railroad, the churches, post office, and cemetery.

In similar fashion to Acts I and II, the Stage Manager starts Act III with a monologue. He is catching us up on all that has happened in the town of Grover’s Corners.

Our Town is a play that shares the idea that we live life without really appreciating what it has to offer. Once we die, and are able to see what we had, it is really too late. Major themes of the play include mortality, appreciating life, companionship and marriage, love, and the circle of life.

George Gibbs Dr. and Mrs. Gibbs’s son. A decent, upstanding young man, George is a high school baseball star who plans to attend the State Agricultural School after high school.

Afternoon arrives, school lets out, and George Gibbs meets his neighbor Emily Webb outside the gate of her house.

The Stages of Life The division of the play’s narrative action into three acts reflects Wilder’s division of human life into three parts: birth, love and marriage, and death.

Rebecca Gibbs – young girl age 11 to 13. Has a strong sense of energy and wonder about the world. Amazed at the stars and the earth’s place in the galaxy.

The Stage Manager tells us that the first act was called “Daily Life,” and that this second act is entitled “Love and Marriage.” He says that a third act will follow, and that the audience can guess what that act will be about.

Act 2 begins with the Stage Manager announcing that three years have passed. He says the first act was about daily life, and this one is about love and marriage. … Howie and Si talk about how George was a great baseball pitcher, but he’s decided to give up playing to get married.

Mr. Charles Webb The editor and publisher of the Sentinel, the town’s newspaper, and one of its most important citizens. He lives across from the Gibbs family. Mrs.

The Stage Manager introduces Joe Stoddard, the town’s undertaker, who is watching over a freshly dug grave, and Sam Craig, a cousin of Emily Gibbs. We learn that Sam left Grover’s Corners twelve years ago to go west and has returned to town for Emily’s funeral.

Thornton Wilder’s stage drama Our Town (1938) takes place between 1901 and 1913 in Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire, a community that has not produced anyone very “remarkable” (p.

Mrs. Gibbs died of pneumonia in Canton, Ohio while visiting Rebecca and her husband. Mrs. Gibbs greets Emily when she enters the cemetery.

The dead souls in Act III emphasize this theme of transience, disapproving of and chastising the living for their “ignorance” and “blindness.” The dead even view George’s grief and prostration upon Emily’s grave as a pitiable waste of human time.

major conflict Humans constantly struggle to realize that the eternal exists even within ordinary events. climax After dying in childbirth and joining the dead souls in the cemetery, Emily returns to relive a day from her earthly life, which makes her realize how little the living appreciate the value of life.

The moon in Our Town symbolizes beauty and the eternal. This is a bit of a stretch though, because the moon itself may just be the moon.

It is a nice town, the Stage Manager explains, even though “nobody very remarkable ever came out of it ” Tombstone dates, he adds, go back to the 1670s and 80s.

Mrs. Gibbs learns that her $350 legacy helped make George and Emily’s farm a success, but her primary interest as a spirit is in helping Emily develop the patience to look forward to what comes next.

-Quote by the Stage Manager. -Means that dead people, at first, still feel attached to life on earth, but after being dead awhile they get “weaned” away from the earth.

Dr. Gibbs comes down to breakfast in his house and Mrs. Gibbs tells him that she is worried about George getting married so young and feels like crying. The quick transition from George and Emily’s childhood in act one to their marriage in act two underscores the quick passage of time, as does Mrs.

The second act of the play is centered around the creation of a new family through the marriage of George and Emily. Mr. Webb stresses to George that he is a firm believer in the importance of marriage, and Mrs.

Act III is set nine years in the future from Act II, and opens with the stage manager arranging the stage so that it resembles a graveyard. The audience learns about the deaths of several key characters from the play, including Emily, who has died in childbirth, Mrs. Gibbs, and Mrs. Soames.

“Our Town” represents Americana; the small-town life of the early 1900s, it is a world most of us have never experienced. The fictional village of Grover’s Corners contains quaint activities of yesteryear: A doctor walking through town, making house calls.

Characters to be cast are: Rebecca Gibbs (around age 11): George’s younger sister. She is in two scenes in the play; both in Act 1 has about 13 lines in total. She is vivacious and thoughtful.

CharacterDescriptionJoe StoddardJoe Stoddard is the town’s undertaker.Constable WarrenConstable Bill Warren is always seen walking his beat; he knows plenty of local stories but is rarely called on to enforce the law.Mrs. WebbMyrtle Webb, Emily’s and Wally’s mother, was once the second prettiest girl in town.

Who is Sam Craig? Emily Webb’s cousin, who has left Grover’s Corners to travel west, but returns for her funeral in Act III. Though originally from the town, Sam has the air of an outsider.

When Thornton Wilder wrote the play, “Our Town,” in 1938, he set the scene in a fictional town called Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire. The inspiration came when he was staying at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough–a retreat to encourage creativity in resident writers, musicians and artists.

Mrs. Forrest attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and received her undergraduate degree in Choral Music Education. … Forrest teaches general music classes, directs Chorale, Honor Choir, and is the director of the school musical.

Mrs. Webb returns and sends George home so that Emily can come down to breakfast. Mr. Webb makes up another old saying: “No bridegroom should see his father-in-law on the day of the wedding “.

What advice does Mr. Webb give George, both humorous and serious? Give an order and she`ll obey, never let the wife know how much money you have, show her who`s boss; he has to learn himself how to make a marriage work. George and Emily show readers a flashback of sorts.

In the final scene, Emily, who has loved George very deeply, has attained a detachment and serenity that the living do not possess. She can therefore observe George’s grief without any of the passion of the living. She simply comments that the living don’t understand.

Meanwhile, Joe wonders if the dead chose the verses which appear on the tombstones. He reads Simon Stimson’s epitaph and recalls that Simon committed suicide. The epitaph is only a few notes of music which Simon chose before taking his life. Sam asks about Emily’s death and learns that she died during childbirth.

ABWally Webbdies on a camping tripJoe Crowell, Jrdied in FranceMrs. Webbproud of children’s good looksEmily Webbis the brightest girl in school

Stimson, no less—while Rebecca joins George at his upstairs window. The two youngsters stare out at the moon.

Still, with all that she has experienced since the beginning of Act I, she seems to have aged very little from her first appearance onstage, even though she has progressed from schoolgirl to wife and mother.

Emily has died from giving birth to her second child. She goes to the cemetery plot where her body will rest. Emily sits next to Mrs. … Emily wishes to return back to the cemetery.

George W. Gibbs Jr.RankChief Petty OfficerBattles/warsWorld War IIAwardsUnited States Antarctic Expedition Medal