‘Our Town’: Kenny Leon’s Broadway Revival Reinvents Grover’s Corners For the Modern World
variety.comAnna Tingley Kenny Leon, the creative force behind a new revival of “Our Town” on Broadway this fall, wasn’t always a fan of Thornton Wilder’s 1938 play. ”There was no diversity in the town,” the Tony-winning director recalls thinking after seeing a student production in high school. “I just wasn’t drawn to it.
I didn’t see the universal things in it.” Years later, in 2002, when he founded his nonprofit True Colors Theatre Company, his first move was to make “Our Town” look more like most towns in America. “I’m gonna take ‘Our Town’ and put a lot of people in it — different races, different cultures, across genders, everything,” Leon remembers thinking. “I did it, and that’s when I knew it was the greatest play ever written.” But getting that version to Broadway took decades, one that required a sign-off from Wilder’s estate.
Set in a small American town called Grover’s Corners in the early 20th century, the three-part play traces two neighboring families, the Webbs and the Gibbses, over the course of 12 years.
The primary storyline centers on George Gibbs and Emily Webb, who in the first act spark a childhood friendship that evolves into a romance and, ultimately, marriage.
Read more on variety.com
