OUR TOWN by Thornton Wilder

Our Town's Stage Manager is one of the most coveted roles in American theatre—the guide, storyteller, and quiet heartbeat of the play. Speaking directly to the audience through much of the show (but also with the actors at times), this character moves effortlessly between narrator and participant, shaping how we see the town, its people, and ourselves. It’s a role that rewards clarity, warmth, intelligence, and confidence rather than showiness. Actors who love connecting with an audience, commanding the stage through quiet presence and voice, and carrying big ideas with ease will find this role deeply satisfying. Exceptional memorization skills are essential for this role.

Emily is the emotional heart of Our Town—bright, curious, thoughtful, and ultimately transformative. This role demands exceptional chemistry: with George, as first love grows into adulthood; with Mrs. Webb, in moments of tenderness and longing; and with the Stage Manager, who becomes her guide across time and understanding. The actor must convincingly portray Emily from adolescence to adulthood (roughly ages 15–28), including a brief return to earlier childhood in Act 3. It’s a rare opportunity to carry the play’s deepest questions about love, memory, and regret. This role requires comfort with pantomime and precise physical storytelling, as Our Town relies on imagined objects and clear, intentional movement rather than realistic props.

Wally Webb is a small role with an outsized emotional impact. Cheerful, affectionate, and full of life, Wally embodies the innocence and vitality of Grover’s Corners. Though his stage time is brief, his presence reverberates powerfully in Act 3, where his fate quietly reshapes how we understand loss, memory, and the fragility of everyday moments. This role is ideal for a young actor who can be natural, open, and truthful. This role requires comfort with pantomime and precise physical storytelling, as Our Town relies on imagined objects and clear, intentional movement rather than realistic props. Children auditioning for Wally should be able to sit still and focused for the duration of Act 3 (approximately 30 minutes).

Mrs. Webb represents the emotional undercurrent of Our Town: love expressed through daily routine, restraint, and sacrifice. Her the quiet cost of caretaking—someone who feels deeply but has learned not to voice every fear or longing. Her Act 2 monologue is one of the play’s most important moments. This role calls for warmth, nuance, and emotional honesty. This role requires comfort with pantomime and precise physical storytelling, as Our Town relies on imagined objects and clear, intentional movement rather than realistic props.

Editor Webb is steadiness personified: principled, observant, and quietly devoted—to his family, his work, and the moral fabric of Grover’s Corners. An expert on all things Grover's Corners, his presence anchors the household and community while modeling a thoughtful, humane masculinity. This role shines in its subtlety: the actor must convey deep love, pride, and concern—especially for Emily—without sentimentality. Editor Webb represents the dignity of ordinary goodness and the weight of responsibility carried without complaint. It’s an ideal role for an actor who excels at restraint, listening, and emotional truth beneath calm surfaces. This role requires comfort with pantomime and precise physical storytelling, as Our Town relies on imagined objects and clear, intentional movement rather than realistic props.

George begins as an awkward, confident-on-the-surface teenager and grows into a man capable of tenderness, humility, and responsibility. This role hinges on authentic chemistry with Emily—first playful, then vulnerable, then deeply human. George must convincingly age from adolescence into adulthood, allowing the audience to witness real emotional growth rather than a sudden transformation. George is charming, energetic, and kind of a goofball. This is a richly rewarding role for an actor unafraid of growth and imperfection. This role requires comfort with pantomime and precise physical storytelling, as Our Town relies on imagined objects and clear, intentional movement rather than realistic props.

This role is small but mighty. Though one of the youngest characters, Rebecca's lines provide key comic relief and she delivers one of Our Town’s most profound insights in her Act 1 monologue, quietly expanding the play from a local story into a meditation on time, space, and eternity. The actor must balance childhood simplicity with an uncanny sense of wonder—never “precocious,” but sincerely curious. This role is perfect for a young performer who speaks with clarity, allowing a single, moonlit moment to resonate as the play's philosophical heart.  This actress will join with the ensemble for Acts 2 and will be in the funeral party in Act 3, as an adult (approximately age 23 in Act 3).

Julia keeps the Gibbs household running with warmth, humor, and common sense—but beneath that steadiness is a life of choices that narrowed over time. She once imagined travel, possibility, something beyond Grover’s Corners. What makes Julia powerful is that her regret never curdles into resentment; it lives quietly alongside deep love for her family and pride in the life she made. This role calls for an actor who can let unspoken longing surface naturally, making the “trip never taken” feel  real. This role requires comfort with pantomime and precise physical storytelling, as Our Town relies on imagined objects and clear, intentional movement rather than realistic props.

Dr. Gibbs is competent, practical, and emotionally reserved—a man who believes deeply in work, responsibility, and providing for his family. His focus on duty often takes precedence over reflection or emotional expression. This role calls for an actor who can convey affection, authority, and restraint. This role requires comfort with pantomime and precise physical storytelling, as Our Town relies on imagined objects and clear, intentional movement rather than realistic props.

Simon Stimson, the choir director, articulates the negative case. He gives voice to the despair which, prior to Act 3, remains largely unspoken. SImon represents the cost of belonging in a place that values normalcy over mercy. Once a visible member of Grover’s Corners, he becomes someone the town whispers about but never truly confronts. His presence forces the audience to reckon with what happens when a community notices suffering but does nothing meaningful to intervene. This role requires bravery, emotional precision, and a refusal to simplify a deeply complicated man. His achingly powerful monologue in Act 3 is widely considered one of the play's most powerful moments.

Howie Newsome is everyday life made visible. As the milkman, he moves through Grover’s Corners as part of its daily rhythm—reliable, friendly, and unassuming. His brief exchanges ground the play in routine, reminding us how much of life is made up of ordinary interactions we barely notice. This role may be small, but it requires ease, natural timing, and authenticity. Played truthfully, Howie becomes part of the town’s pulse—one of the many “background” lives that Our Town insists are anything but insignificant. This role requires comfort with pantomime and precise physical storytelling, as Our Town relies on imagined objects and clear, intentional movement rather than realistic props.

Mrs. Soames is expressive, talkative, and emotionally transparent—often providing genuine comic relief through her earnestness and lack of social filter. A choir member and fixture of town life, she is deeply invested in community rituals, especially the wedding in Act 2. Yet beneath the humor lies real feeling. Her Act 2 monologue, often cited as one of the act’s most memorable moments, captures how overwhelming joy and emotion can become unmanageable. Moments later, her Act 3 appearance, among the Dead, shakes the audience into a sudden awareness that things have changed.

Joe Stoddard is the town’s institutional memory—the voice of record, order, and continuity. As the town caretaker, he plays an important role in establishing the events that occur between Acts 2 and 3.

Constable Warren is Grover’s Corners’ calm, dependable lawman—observant, steady, and quietly authoritative—who maintains order not through force but through familiarity, routine, and an unspoken trust in the community’s shared values in Our Town.

This role will be cast with a child actor. Si/Joe Crowell embodies youthful energy, innocence, and possibility. His appearances are light and natural. This role is ideal for an actor with strong instincts for timing, warmth, and emotional honesty. This role requires comfort with pantomime and precise physical storytelling, as Our Town relies on imagined objects and clear, intentional movement rather than realistic props.

Sam Craig is a quiet, grounded presence who returns to Grover’s Corners in Act 3. As someone who left the town and built a life elsewhere, he represents distance, memory, and the complicated pull of home. His brief exchanges underscore how time changes people—and how returning can never quite restore what’s been lost.

The baseball players appear in Act 2 to jeer George before his wedding to Emily, capturing the self-consciousness, bravado, and cruelty-adjacent humor of adolescent peer pressure. 

The Dead are on onstage for all of Act 3 and are among the most demanding roles in the play. They require stillness, restraint, and deep listening. These characters no longer participate in life but observe it with clarity, having been "weaned away." Their collective presence shapes Act 3's emotional power. Some of the play's other characters (Mrs. Gibbs, Mrs. Soames, Simon, Wally) are among the Dead in Act 3.

Professor Willard provides humor, authority, and a slightly academic remove. He (or she) explains the town’s social and historical makeup, grounding the play in context while maintaining a light, accessible tone. This role suits an actor with strong diction, timing, and ease with direct address as this character starts among the audience and breaks the fourth wall.

Several actors, playing roles such as the Belligerent Man, Woman in the Balcony, and Man at the Back of the Auditorium blur the boundary between the play and the audience. These actors will begin the play in modern dress, scattered among audience members. After their featured moments in Act 1 they will join the rest of the cast onstage. Thornton Wilder's metatheatrical innovations changed American theatre and will be a  defining feature of this production.

 Some actors will be cast as members of the choir and should expect choral work as part of their role; this ensemble sings throughout the production, including "Blest Be the Ties That Bind" and "Art Thou Weary? Art Thou Languid?"