SOURCE: Haberman, Donald. “‘Preparing the Way for Them’: Wilder and the Next Generations.” In Critical Essays on Thornton Wilder, edited by Martin Blank, pp. 129-37. New York: G. K. Hall & Co., 1996.

In the following essay, Haberman examines the legacy of Our Town to modern theater.

I should be very happy if, in the future, some author should feel … indebted to any work of mine.¹

Thornton Wilder probably speaks for every writer when he hopes some work of his might prove useful to a writer who comes after. One of the signs of vitality of writing is its appearance in some new shape or with a new meaning in subsequent writing. Certainly, though, every writer wishes first for his work a continuing life of its own, and in the case of plays the life is obviously in performance.

But if Wilder speaks the wish of all writers, he continues...