Editing Our Town (section)

==Synopsis==
[[File:Craven-Our-Town-1938.jpg|thumb|260px|[[Frank Craven]] as the Stage Manager in the original Broadway production of ''Our Town'' (1938)]]

===Act I: Daily Life===
The Stage Manager introduces the audience to the small town of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, its geography and main buildings and institutions, as well as the people living there, as morning breaks on May 7, 1901. Joe Crowell delivers the paper to Doc Gibbs, Howie Newsome delivers the milk, and the Webb and Gibbs households send their children (Emily and Wally Webb, George and Rebecca Gibbs) off to school on this beautifully simple morning. 

The Stage Manager introduces Professor Willard, who speaks to the audience about the history of the town. Next, Editor Webb speaks to the audience about the town's socioeconomic status, political and religious demographics, and the accessibility and proliferation (or lack thereof) of culture and art in Grover's Corners. The Stage Manager then leads the audience through a series of pivotal moments throughout the afternoon and evening, revealing the characters' relationships and challenges. 

It is at this time when we are introduced to Simon Stimson, an organist and choir director at the Congregational Church. It is learned from Mrs. Louella Soames that Simon Stimson is an alcoholic when she, Mrs. Gibbs, and Mrs. Webb stop on the corner after choir practice and "gossip like a bunch of old hens," according to Doc Gibbs, discussing Simon's alcoholism. It seems to be a well known fact amongst everyone in town that Simon Stimson has a problem with alcohol; all the characters speak to his issue as if they are aware of it and his having "seen a peck of trouble," a phrase repeated by more than one character throughout the show. While the majority of townsfolk choose to "look the other way," including the town policeman, Constable Warren, it is Mrs. Gibbs who takes Simon's struggles with addiction to heart, and has a conversation with her husband, Doc Gibbs, about Simon's drinking.

Underneath a glowing full moon, Act I ends with siblings George and Rebecca, and Emily gazing out of their respective bedroom windows, enjoying the smell of heliotrope in the "wonderful (or terrible) moonlight," with the self-discovery of Emily and George liking each other, and the realization that they are both straining to grow up in their own way.

The audience is dismissed to the first intermission by the Stage Manager who quips, "That's the end of Act I, folks. You can go and smoke, now. Those that smoke."

===Act II: Love and Marriage===
The Stage Manager sets the scene by explaining three years have passed, and describing the many changes that can take place when "the sun's come up over a thousand times." The Stage Manager notes the themes of Acts I and II - daily life, then marriage - and adds with portent, "There's another act coming after this: I reckon you can guess what that's about."

George and Emily prepare to wed. The day is filled with stress. Howie Newsome is delivering milk in the pouring rain while Si Crowell, younger brother of Joe, laments how George's baseball talents will be squandered. George pays an impulsive and awkward visit to his soon-to-be in-laws. 

Here, the Stage Manager interrupts the scene and takes the audience back a year, to the end of Emily and George's junior year. Emily confronts George about his pride, and over an [[ice cream soda]], they discuss the future and confess their love for each other. George decides not to go to college, as he had planned, but to work and eventually take over his uncle's farm. 

Back in the present, George and Emily say that they are not ready to marry—George to his mother, Emily to her father—but they both calm down and happily go through with the wedding. The Stage Manager, as officiant of the wedding, delivers a monologue on the institution of marriage: "people were made to live two by two" - but concludes, "I've married over two hundred couples in my day. Do I believe in it? I don't know."

Nonetheless, the wedding completes and George and Emily leave, ending Act II, as Mrs. Soames exclaims, "I'm sure they'll be happy. I always say: happiness, that's the great thing! The important thing is to be happy."

===Act III: Death and Eternity===
Nine years have passed. In a lengthy [[monologue]], the Stage Manager discusses eternity ("we all know something is eternal"), focusing attention on the cemetery outside of town, which dates to the 1670s, including people who have died since the wedding -  Mrs. Gibbs ([[pneumonia]], while traveling), Wally Webb (burst appendix, while camping), Mrs. Soames, and Simon Stimson ([[suicide by hanging]]). The Stage Manager posits "the dead don't stay interested in us living people for very long . . . gradually they lose hold of the earth . . . They're waitin'. They're waitin' for something that they feel is comin'. Something important, and great." 

Town undertaker Joe Stoddard is introduced, as is a young man named Sam Craig who has returned to Grover's Corners for his cousin's funeral. That cousin is revealed to be Emily, who died giving birth to her and George's second child. 

Once the funeral ends Emily emerges to join the dead and, after observing the grief of George and Dr. Gibbs, asks Mrs. Gibbs if it is possible to temporarily return. Mrs. Gibbs urges her to forget her life, warning her that being able to see but not interact with her family, all the while knowing what will happen in the future, will cause her too much pain. Ignoring the warnings of Simon, Mrs. Soames, and Mrs. Gibbs ("our life here is to forget all that, and think only of what's ahead"), Emily returns to Earth to relive one day, her 12th birthday. 

She joyfully watches her parents and some of the people of her childhood for the first time in years, but her happiness quickly turns to pain as she realizes how little people appreciate the simple activities of life ("It goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another."). The recognition proves too painful for her ("all that was going on, and we never noticed") and she realizes that every moment of life should be treasured. 

Emily asks the Stage Manager to return her to the dead, then hesitates and in a final monologue says goodbye to mortal life ("Oh earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you"). She asks the Stage Manager if anyone truly understands the value of life while they live it; he responds, "No. The saints and poets, maybe – they do some." 

Emily returns to her grave next to Mrs. Gibbs and watches impassively as George kneels weeping over her. The Stage Manager concludes the play and wishes the audience a good night.