The unit on this play will proceed through the following steps.

This unit will heavily use the laserdisk player. Other materials that could be of use could be the recordings, the video tapes, and the printed version.

A Quick and Dirty is a research tactic. Instead of lecturing, I ask you to find this information and present it to the class.

The following are the instructions for doing a Quick and Dirty.

Begin Research

Encyclopedias Go to the Index Volume

Other books Go to the Index first

On-Line search Use your topic as a keyword

The following are the topics for the Quick and Dirty.

The first part of "Our Town," and the longest part, follows the inhabitants through a day, from sun-up to sun-down.

Answer the following questions fully. Use another sheet of paper.

1. Who is the narrator or host of this play?

What, normally, is a Stage Manager's job?

Who does the Stage Manager introduce ?

What is the effect of all that?

What accent does he speak in? Example?

2. What time is the Stage Manager in?

What time will the players be in?

3. What props are on stage?

In most plays, what do the props try to get the audience to do?

What do these props aim to get the audience to do?

What would be the most complicated part of this production?

4. Describe the town in your own words.

5. What does he say about the tombstones?

6. What does the narrator tell you about the Gibb's family and Joe Crowell?

What is the effect of that knowledge?

Having introduced the town and given an overview to life, Wilder now undertakes the main point of his play; the relationship of George and Emily.

Answer the following questions fully. Use another sheet of paper.

1. When do most of the young people get married?

Why do they get married so old?

Why do we wait so long?

Do you think it is better to get married right out of high school or in your twenties?

2. How does this act begin?

Why would the author want to begin it this way?

3. What is happenning at Mrs. Gibbs house?

Why do they talk about the weather?

4. What does Mrs. Gibbs worry about?

How was their wedding worse?

Complete the quote " Everybody has a right to _________________"

Explain it.

How does that apply to another character in the story?

5. What does George want to do?

This Act is one of the most controversial and the most well-written dramatic acts in the history of the American stage. It is well crafted, thoughtful, and not particularly cheery nor depressing.

The dramatic set-up has all the dead, sitting on chairs near their tombstones, watching life without judgement. Imagine a cemetary on Nantucket, where the dead are doing just that.

Answer the following questions fully. Use another sheet of paper.

1. What familiar characters are among the dead?

How do they speak?

2. Complete the quote "It don't do_____________"

Why is that an odd thing to say?

Would your parents say it to you, if you were laughing at the tombstones?

3. Is the Stage Manager very religious?

4. What are the dead doing?

What great thing is coming?

Why doesn't he say it?

Why does the Stage Manager address the audience?

5. Who is Sam Craig?

What contrast does the playwright make when he brings Sam back to the town?

Our Town with its ending, provokes many watchers to think more about the opening to the play.

Answer the following questions fully. Use the group.

1. The themes of this play are birth, love, death, and time.

• How are each of these themes presented in each act? Examples.

• What does the author want you to think about each of these themes?

2. What might the moral of this story be?

3. Knowing what Emily does at the end of the play, how does the Stage Manager do the same thing for the audience?

• In other words, how is the audience in their seats like Emily travelling back to her birthday?

• What emotions should we feel?

4. This story gets remade, in different versions, about every five years. For example, "It's a Wonderful Life" is another version of this story. What other versions of this story do you know?

• How are they similar to Our Town?

• How are they different?

• What is the moral of those other versions?

When most Americans think about the turn of the century in America, they think of Our Town and Norman Rockwell. Both are set in rural New England.

Every painting has a story that goes along with it, especially a Rockwell.

When you look at a painting, ask yourself these questions.

• What are the important details?

What important details are left out?

• What is centered in the painting?

Why?

In your groups, look at and anlayze your paintings according to the following procedure.

Assign roles of Boss and Scribe.

Read the accompanying song lyrics and answer the questions fully. Use another sheet of paper.

• What does Eleanor Rigby do in the church?

Why is that sad?

• Complete the quote " Wearing the face________________________"

Explain.

Who is it for?

• What is Father McKenzie doing?

Why will noone hear it?

Having read the rest of the song, what was his sermon for?

• Where did Eleanor Rigby die?

How was she buried "along with her name"

Why was "no one saved."

• Who is similar to Eleanor Rigby in Our Town?

Match the characteristic on the right to the character on the left.

All are used.

f__Wally Webb a. Visits the town for funeral

d__Doc Gibbs b. Farmer

i__Joe Crowell c. Editor of paper

c__Mr. Webb d. Hospital is named for him

a__Sam Craig e. Died of pneumonia

j__ Mrs. Soames f. Died of Appendicitis

e__Mrs. Gibbs g. Suicide

g__Simon Stimson h. Died in Childbirth

h__Emily Gibbs i. Died in France, in battle

If the statement is True, mark it with a T, if the statement is False, mark it with an F.

T__ Our Town covers fifteen years.

F__ There are a lot of props in the production.

T__ The dead are unemotional.

F__ Women have the right to vote in Grover's Corners.

T__ There are some invisible actors in Our Town

T__ One possible message of Our Town is Carpe Diem (Sieze the Day).

F__ Mrs. Gibbs loves weddings.

F__ Simon Stimson is happy in a small town.

T__ Most people marry as soon as they leave high school, in Grover's Corners.

F__ Emily is 18 when she dies.

T__ Emily initially expects George to be perfect.

F__ Emily dies giving birth to her first child.

F__ The most important person in a wedding is the mother of the bride.

F__ Grover's Corners is in Vermont.

F__ Our Town is often banned from libraries.

Identify the following quotes. Who said them and why are they important?

1. " So I guess this is an important talk we've been having."

2. "...You don't want to be the first to fly in the face of custom."

3. "And still she has to go out in the backyard and chop wood. I suppose she just got tired of asking you."

4. "Blessed be the tie that binds."

5. "Everybody has a right to their own problems."

6. "I can't work tonight. The moonlight is so terrible."

7. "I'd rather have my children healthy than bright."

8. "Mama, I'm going to make speeches all my life."

9. "People are meant to go through life two by two."

10. "Strawberry phosphates...That's what you spend it on."

11. "You've got awful conceited and stuck up and all the girls say so."

The playwright has few props in the play so that the audience has to imagine what the people have. The audience has to supply images from their own pasts and make the play their own.

Pick one of the following scenes and describe the setting if it were to be done today and with all the props in place. Use another sheet of paper.

• Mr. Morgan's Ice Cream Shop

• Gibb's breakfast table

• The funeral

Answer the following questions by marking a number between 1- 10. 10 means you are extremely happy, while 1 means you are heavily bummed.

• How well did you enjoy studying the play? ___

• Compared to other works you have studies, how

hard was "Our Town"? ___

• How important do you feel this play is to the Only the ___

Answer the following questions by marking a number between 1- 10. 10 means you are extremely happy, while 1 means you are heavily bummed.

• How hard were the homeworks? ___

• How hard were the quizzes? ___

Answer these questions with a short phrase or sentence.

• Did you use any other tools (Laserdisc, video, Cliff notes, oral tapes) to help you understand this play?

• What could I do to make this play more interesting or accessible for students?

• Did you write any essays that relate to this play?

Do you have other thoughts or concerns about the class or the work?