Tender, beguiling, suffused with feeling and wit, the remarkable plays of
Thornton Wilder occupy a unique place in American culture. His most celebrated
play, Our Town, has achieved iconic status as an expression of the spirit and
pathos of small-town American life; adapted for the movies and the operatic
stage, it continues to resonate with audiences responding to its formal
elegance, plainspoken poetry, and moving evocation of the inevitability of loss.
Collected Plays & Writings on Theater, the most comprehensive one-volume edition
of Wilder's work ever published, takes the measure of his extraordinary career
as a dramatist by presenting the complete span of his achievement, beginning
with