Three Plays

This collection brings together Thornton Wilder’s most significant contributions to the American stage: Our Town, The Skin of Our Teeth, and The Matchmaker. In Our Town, the Stage Manager narrates the daily routines, courtship, and eventual deaths of Emily Webb and George Gibbs in a fictional New Hampshire village. The Skin of Our Teeth utilizes the Antrobus family to track human survival through the Ice Age and global conflict. The Matchmaker follows widow Dolly Levi as she meddles in the romantic affairs of a wealthy merchant.

Students of dramatic structure and writers interested in non-linear storytelling read this volume to study Wilder’s rejection of realistic sets and his use of meta-theatrical devices. The text provides a framework for understanding how minimalist staging shifts focus toward the specific mechanics of community and endurance throughout history. Readers walk away with a technical understanding of the transition from traditional nineteenth-century farce to twentieth-century allegorical drama, along with a perspective on how mundane domestic habits connect to broader geological and historical timelines.