• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.155-167
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• 2020

The stage manager role of "Our Town"(1938), a representative work of Thornton Wilder(1897-1975), is a unique theatrical device that presents a wide range of interesting and diverse perspectives in the actor's acting approach, the director's stage-shape methodology, and the audience's theater experience. Why did Wilder call stage manager role a stage manager, not just a simple narrator? Because "Our Town" intentionally lacks the basic elements that dramas must have, it needed a more self-reliant and omnipotent role in creating the margins of dramatic writing, including boldly omitted time and space, with infinite imagination. For this reason, stage manager role plays a much more complex and multi-functional role than a narrator. In response, this paper accurately articulates the concept of theatrical style and theatrical convention on the premise of the stage manager role in "Our Town," followed by making theatrical convention, the director of scene progress and scene change, the messenger of the writer's thoughts, and dramatic rhythm control.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.297-304
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to examine the characteristics and theatricality of everyday plays in Thornton Wilder's Our Town, and to re-examine this work that makes us recognize the importance of everyday life in the COVID-19 era. This work seeks to find a certain value in very trivial events with the subject matter of everyday life such as birth, love and marriage, and death. Grovers Corners, the background of this work, symbolizes the town and the universe where everyone lives today, and the action spans from 1901 to 1913, and this action shows universality in everyday life that takes place even today. Wilder won a second Pulitzer Prize for this work and is a leading figure in non-realist theater. Using an empty stage as the basic frame, this work shows theatricalism, a theory that acknowledges that the action on the stage is not true and shows that fact to the audience. In addition, he leads actors to act with mime instead of props, stimulating the audience's imagination and making them think of props that are not on stage as if they really exist. This work is an everyday play that makes people realize the importance of everyday life, and it has the effect of creating an opportunity for the audience to reflect on the play and life while keeping a distance.