We kick off our series Granite State Stories with Thornton Wilder's classic book and play of Our Town. Simple and powerful, it's the story of life in the fictional town of Grover's Corner's, New Hampshire. Although Wilder wasn't from New Hampshire, it was his 9 summers he spent at the McDowell Colony in Peterborough that helped inspire Our Town. Wilder paints an idyllic New Hampshire in his masterpiece and Grover's Corners has become almost metaphoric as to how New Hampshire used to be or should be… quant town centers, booming church steeples and townsfolk who are neighborly in the truest form… but does that still exist today? As we grow, as giant McMansions pop up and small towns transform into suburban and urban areas, can we still find that Our Town look, that Our Town feel or that Our Town way in our state? Laura's guests are David Watters, Granite State Stories Scholar, Professor of English at the University of New Hampshire and director of its Center for New England Culture and Tappan Wilder, Nephew and Literary Executor of Thornton Wilder.
*This show was originally broadcast on 8/19/05*
