SOURCE: Wilder, Thornton, and John Franchey. “Mr. Wilder Has an Idea.” In Conversations with Thornton Wilder, edited by Jackson R. Bryer, pp. 31-3. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1992.

In the following interview, originally published in the New York Times on 13 August 1939, Wilder discusses the initial reception of Our Town by rural audiences, as well as his own experiences performing the role of the Stage Manager.

Perhaps what the dons label in their seminars “pleasurable recognition” is only a phrase, after all, or at best a mere vanity. Playwright Thornton Wilder, who used to find the term good enough currency in his own classrooms at Chicago University, has a word or two on that very subject.

With a three-week invasion of the Codfish circuit wherein he found himself a playwright-player in Our Town immediately behind him, Professor Wilder admits that none of the eminent success of the tour is...