I am eternally thankful for the work of Thornton Wilder, who was in my view our greatest playwright. In Our Town and Skin of Our Teeth, Wilder widened the American family drama to universal and spiritual dimensions. His integration of the everyday and the cosmic represented a triumph of playwriting craft. And his risky and innovative approach to theatrical conventions forever changed the American stage. He brought wisdom and insight to our lives, and managed to be both avant-garde and popular at the same time. Although Our Town is routinely subjected to the trials of high school and community theater productions, it still stands as a quintessential American play. Even Wilder’s Merchant of Yonkers, later reworked as The Matchmaker, has an iconic place in American theater as the musical Hello, Dolly. While we desperately need another Thornton Wilder to light up our stages, we will never see another one like him for a long time.
–Hoyt Hilsman is an award-winning screenwriter, critic and former Congressional candidate. He was a critic for Daily Variety and is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post. His novel, 19 Angels, a political thriller, is in development as a feature film.
– Garner Simmons is a writer and filmmaker who lives and works in Los Angeles.
So, really, it is the homo sapien mind I thank for being able to take poems and suttas inside the mouth, onto the tongue, then cooking in the neurological cauldron, and, gracias a diós, for the way those inherited words fly back up and out at the oddest, most perfect times.
– Irene Borger is a writer, teacher, congenital muse, and director of the Alpert Award in the Arts.