Children’s Shakespeare Theatre Presents: Our Town by Thornton Wilder

Thornton Wilder’s classic paean to the beauties and sorrows of being human comes to the stage of Children’s Shakespeare Theatre starting January 30, 2026.   CST’s cast of sixteen children between the ages of eight and fourteen are excited to tell the story of life in the small town of Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire in the early 1900s where 25 cents was a big allowance, and the milkman still delivered milk each day to his customers.

In the context of life in the early 1900s, Emily Webb (Nora Maloney) and George Gibbs (Aaron Benjamin) become high school sweethearts and marry before Emily dies in childbirth. The play ends with the citizens who’ve passed away commenting on how those who still live deal with their lives. It has been a great journey for the children in the cast who are excited to bring the story to an audience.

As a Shakespeare Company, CST takes pride in its rare non-Shakespearean offerings. Our Town was described by playwright Edward Albee as “the greatest American play ever written,” and no less than Britain’s Guardian called it “America’s answer to Shakespeare,” premiering on Broadway in 1938. It has since become one of the most produced plays in the modern global repertoire, “not for its American-ness” says the Guardian, but because it’s “…about mortality, about the brevity of human life and Wilder’s charge to the audience to appreciate what they have while they have it.”

CST Managing Director Grey Johnson directs a cast which also includes Owen Oh as the Stage Manager, Declan Amendolia as Doc Gibbs, Alexander Josuweit as Mr. Webb, Ruth Benjamin as Mrs. Webb, and Stella Mattii as Mrs. Gibbs, as well as Eva Barak, Adelia Brasor, Colette Dickey, Gala Giuliani, Levon Goldberg, Zoe Lenchner, Sofia Panzera, Ezra Vaughan, and Elliot Zimbler. It is Assistant Directed by Lily Monday and Emilia Falkner, with costumes by Maggie Young.

The cast and company of Children’s Shakespeare Theatre come from New York and New Jersey and include homeschooled students, along with students from Nyack Middle School, South Orangetown Middle School, Lewis F. Cole Middle School, Elisabeth Morrow School, Upper Nyack Elementary School, Cottage Lane Elementary, Liberty Elementary, Valley Cottage Elementary, Primoris Academy, Green Meadow Waldorf School and Windward School.