If you could seal up a single day from your old hometown into a time capsule for a hundred years, what would it look like?

For some folks, small-town life is not it. The kids I teach, plenty of them want out as soon as possible. But it’s also been my experience that plenty of them stay, and plenty of them that leave come back like swallows to Capistrano. Small Town, USA, isn’t perfect, but it isn’t always the dead zone people would make it out to be. It’s where our roots have crawled into the earth, reaching back for generations out of memory. It’s the ideal foundation. It’s the dream. And it’s the focus of Thornton Wilder’s classic play, Our Town.

This week, Kristin Benson and I discuss what made it such a classic play, why it faded from our high school theaters, and why now may be the perfect time for its return.

Second Stage is a Free Zone Radio production. You can find our show on Spotify alongside our other podcast, With Honors

on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0881bUWWdgkBdGzHlPNToi?si=b510a0cd363a4320

on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/with-honors/id1797115480

on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCweufFHJbylu4tR598SDj5w

Also, throw some love at our brotherly podcast with Coach Haston, A Deadman’s Books. He’s on Spotify at https://open.spotify.com/show/4HtulwbO10pOjV5hbdWOty?si=a23d92c90128476e

and Apple Podcasts at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-deadmans-books/id1795582942

as well as Haston Curation, on Spotify at https://open.spotify.com/show/3O8GDUtqshbxFF7gU2FMwM?si=d15c2539fadd40fc

This episode's music features “Caught in the Middle” by Amarent and “Flea Bop” by Mr. Smith, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit secondstagepodcast.substack.com