Q 01/05

In which New England state does Thornton Wilder set Grover's Corners, the small community at the heart of Our Town?

A) New Hampshire

B) Vermont

C) Massachusetts

D) Rhode Island

Answer · why

A) New Hampshire

New Hampshire gets the credit, yet the town is invented; the Stage Manager even reels off a latitude and longitude for it.

Q 02/05

Which singer played the Stage Manager in a live 1955 television musical of Our Town opposite Eva Marie Saint?

A) Bing Crosby

B) Frank Sinatra

C) Sammy Davis Jr.

D) Dean Martin

Answer · why

B) Frank Sinatra

Frank Sinatra sang most of the songs between the scenes, and it stayed his only dramatic role made for television until 1977.

Q 03/05

What happens differently at the end of the 1940 film of Our Town, a change Thornton Wilder himself approved?

A) George dies too

B) Emily leaves town

C) Emily survives

D) The town burns down

Answer · why

C) Emily survives

Emily survives because the film turns the graveyard act into a dream she wakes from; the playwright agreed that on screen her death would feel disprop...

Q 04/05

What animal is Bessie, who follows milkman Howie Newsome on his rounds in Our Town but is never seen on stage?

A) A cow

B) A horse

C) A donkey

D) A goat

Answer · why

B) A horse

A horse, not a cow: Bessie is mimed like everything else, and she knows the milk route so well that she resists any change to it.

Q 05/05

How are the Gibbs and Webb families connected at the start of Our Town, years before George and Emily wed?

A) Distant cousins

B) Business partners

C) Old college roommates

D) Next-door neighbors

Answer · why

D) Next-door neighbors

Next-door neighbors, with the doctor's household on one side and Mr. Webb's on the other, so George can see Emily at her desk from his own window.