PFHS to present 'Our Town'
<p>Post Falls Highs' Ethan Payton, left, plays George Gibbs while Katie Pingel plays Rebecca Gibbs in the school's production of "Our Town," which will be presented tonight, Friday and Saturday.</p>
POST FALLS - "Our Town" will come to life starting tonight at Post Falls High.
The school's theater department will present American playwright Thornton Wilder's three-act play tonight, Friday and Saturday. All showings start at 7 p.m.; doors open at 6:15 p.m.
"This brilliantly imaginative play is almost unparalleled," said Linda Fry, PFHS drama instructor. "It has taken a secure place near the top of the list of truly great American plays. It was revived on Broadway and is making a comeback now."
Tickets are $5 and can be purchased at the school or at Super 1 Foods in Post Falls. Tickets will be available at the door if the play is not sold out. Seating is first-come, first-served.
The play won Wilder a Pulitzer Prize in drama in 1938.
"Our Town" is about an average town's citizens in the early 20th Century as depicted through their everyday lives, especially George Gibbs, a doctor's son, and Emily Webb, the daughter of the town's newspaper editor and George's future wife.
Using metatheatrical devices, Wilder sets the play in a 1930s theater. He uses the actions of the stage manager to create the town of Grover's Corners for the audience. Scenes from its history between the years of 1901 and 1913 play out.
"(The play) opened in New York to a critical ovation and had an enormously successful run of 336 performances," Fry said.
The first act is about life in Grover's Corners; the second about love and marriage; the third about what happens after we die.
"It goes through the cycle of life," Fry said. "It centers on valuing things before it's too late."
The students read the story in sophomore English and were interested in acting out the play, Fry said.
"The most challenging part has been for the kids portraying experiences they've not had in life," Fry said, referring to marriage, raising a family and death. "But it's been fun for them to find out traditions such as taking a hat off when entering a building and opening doors for females. We've lost some of that with technology."