Robert Robison of Island Lake, Illinois, shown here in a scene from last year's production of Love/SIck, will play the role of George Gibbs in Our Town
MONMOUTH, ILLINOIS (November 13, 2025) — Every day of the year, Thornton Wilder's Our Town is performed somewhere in the US.
For November 21-23, that somewhere will be our town, as the Monmouth College theatre department and the Buchanan Center for the Arts stage a joint production of the 1938 Pulitzer Prize-winning classic in Wells Theater.
"It's one of the most important plays in American theatre history," said Monmouth theatre professor Todd Quick, who will direct the production, which was last staged at Monmouth sixty years after it was written.
The college is producing the show with support from the Buchanan Center for the Arts, as well as United Way of Greater Warren County and the Galesburg Community Foundation.
If Robert Robison ('27) of Island Lake, Illinois — who plays one of the main characters, George Gibbs — had to choose, it would be the one play he'd return to time and again.
"If I could only do one play for the rest of my life, it would be Our Town," he said. "It's my favorite play in the world. We were originally going to do another play in November. I was talking to my friend, and he asked, 'Are you going to audition for Our Town?' I said, 'What! We're doing Our Town? Are you kidding me?' I'm so excited to play George. I get to be this weird, awkward, shy guy. I love it so much."
Abby Zayas ('27) of Normal, Illinois — who'll share the stage manager role with Monmouth resident Howard Moffet and is also the dramaturg for the production — had never seen Our Town on stage, but the English major has become a huge fan of the script.
"I was familiar with it by proxy, and now I see why people love it so much," she said. "There's a beautiful line in the play where Emily asks the stage manager, 'Does anyone ever realize life while they live it every, every minute?' The stage manager says, 'No. Saints and poets maybe they do some.' And I get to say that line!"
A universal plot
Emily Webb is the love interest of Robison's character, and Our Town follows the Webb and Gibbs families in the fictional community of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, from 1901 to 1913, ultimately exploring universal themes of life, love, and death.
Universal indeed, said Quick.
"I think we can all recognize our community in this play," he said. "We're going to exploit that by working with the Warren County History Museum to add some Monmouth-specific pieces to the lobby display. But even without that, people will see Monmouth in Our Town."
"Professor Quick says Our Town is 'deceptively complicated' — that there's more to it than small-town American life," said Robison. "And that's true. There's all these other layers."
"There's a strong sense of community in the show, and of existing in the community," said Zayas. "There's delivering the milk and delivering the paper — things the audience can recognize. They can see themselves as a kid, or as a mother trying to cajole her kids out of bed, or falling in love. The heart of the show reflects things that don't change, even as the world around us does."
Zayas said that community vibe is even present within the cast and crew.
"There's a lot of community members in the show, and it's a really good mix of people," she said. "All the people like being with each other, and those relationships translate to the stage. . . Everyone just seems so invested in this. Scene Three is brutal in the sense of being tragic, and there are people crying, myself included. Even though we're just acting it out, it gets very emotional, very quickly."
No props, just acting
Quick also noted Our Town was written as "a minimalist production, which in the 1930s was revolutionary. But that style has had staying power. People realized Wilder was really onto something with this."
"We have two platforms, a table and chairs, a ladder/trellis, and that's pretty much it," said Zayas.
And there's a reason for that, said Robison.
"It's scary not to have the props. There's nothing to play off except each other. But that's the whole point."
In other words, the minimalist nature asks the actors to, well, act.
"There's a lot of pantomime involved," said Zayas. "There's a scene where they're making breakfast, but there's nothing on the set, no props. They're making eggs, making bacon, starting the coffee. And they're wonderful at it. They're really getting it down."
"There's a scene when I'm with Eric (Pio), who plays my dad," said Robison. "Even though he's only a few feet away from me, he's supposed to be downstairs and I'm way upstairs. I got direction from Professor Quick, who said, 'Make the house bigger.' I've never had to do that before. You have to think about how to do that."
"Sound becomes very important," said Zayas. "You have a train whistle, or the sound of a ball hitting a glove when George is playing catch."
Monmouth College will present Our Town at 7:30PM, November 21-22, and at 2PM, November 22-23, in Wells Theater on campus. Tickets, which are selling out quickly, can be purchased online at purplepass.com/organizer/61829.
