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Preface

JUST FIVE WEEKS before the New York premiere of Our Town, Thornton Wilder’s “new acting version” of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House opened on Broadway, after a highly successful out-of-town run, with a cast of four major stars led by Ruth Gordon as Nora. Both plays were directed and produced by the legendary Jed Harris, and both productions found enormous success with audiences and critics.

What then happened to Thornton Wilder’s first hit on Broadway and his most successful translation-adaptation? The play vanished from sight. This first-ever publication of the script, issued alongside its first production since 1937, by Theatre for a New Audience, returns Wilder’s A Doll’s House to life.

In 1997, at the time of the Thornton Wilder Centenary, Theatre Communications Group issued two volumes composed of Wilder’s published and unpublished one-acts, playlets and miscellaneous dramatic pieces, volumes still very much in print. To the Wilder collection, TCG now adds this third, significant, new title. May its run be as long and exciting.

Finally, we hope the brief Afterword will satisfy reader curiosity about the story of where Wilder’s first success on The Great White Way came from, how it unfolded before audiences, then disappeared, and is now back “in play.”

This volume and its accompanying revival production could not have come about without the enthusiasm, care and feeding provided by Terry Nemeth and Kathy Sova of TCG, and Jeffrey Horowitz and Arin Arbus of Theatre for a New Audience. The Wilder family salutes these gifted theater practitioners, and also thanks Barbara Hogenson, Thornton Wilder’s literary agent; Rosey Strub, who manages Thornton Wilder’s work; and Martha J. Wilson, who oversees the Ruth Gordon archive, for their invaluable contributions. Plaudits aside, I take full responsibility for errors of fact or emphasis, and welcome corrections and comments.

—A. Tappan Wilder

April 2016