1 The Board of Directors of The Thornton Wilder Society in cooperation with The Wilder Family & The Monadnock Center for History and Culture welcome you to The Third International Thornton Wilder Conference Peterborough, New Hampshire July 12-14, 2018 Thornton Wilder had a deep connection to Peterborough, where he worked on an array of projects during nine residences at MacDowell Colony between 1924 and 1953. Here, in addition to his work on the creation of Our Town, he wrote parts of The Bridge of San Luis Rey, launched The Skin of Our Teeth, and began writing his celebrated one-act play The Long Christmas Dinner. In 1960 he received the inaugural Edward MacDowell Medal, an award that has since been given to many of the world’s most notable artists in all media. 2 ȁǤ Ǥ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS he Conference is sonsored by The Thornton Wilder Society in ooeration with The Wilder Family. BOARD IRECTORS HONOR HAIRMAN NEWSLETT ITOR ason . ryer Taan ilder abriel athan President HONOR IRECTORS EVELOPER ar ucker ohn are le oulos Michael reenwald ohn ahr Judith . Hallett rene ewis CONFERENC PLANNING OMMITTEE erryl allquist mily ann ason . ryer incoln Konkle Donald arlies Mary nlish Matthew aire avid Cllough incoln onkle abriel athan oseh oah ray esser dyta . zkowicz azewell hompson Mihelle tahl Dianna ickens am aterston tehen . oewicz WILDE M Susan . Thomas EMERI IRECTORS Taan ilder, Literary Executor Nancy ne osey trb Manager EXECUTIV IRECTOR . D. cClatchy* manda oods Special Projects Mary nlish Michael arer . ynn ousck tee inchell Christoher heatley n memoriam The Thornton Wilder Society has the twofold urpose of spportin efforts that expand the literary leay of hornton ilder and of encorain proets which emphasize the timeless imortance of literature and drama to world ulture. The Wilder Family celebrates hornton ilder as an international playwriht and noelist. hrouh partnerships and collaborations with agents, blishers and ractitioners throughout the world the family seeks to introduce Wilder’s body of work to new audiences encorae sbsidiary works based on his ublished and nblished record, and suport teachin and sholarship in hornton ilder and his family. 3 J. D. McClatchy 1945-2018 Many of us first et J D. McClatchy in that oly place one ight eect to encounter i in rint in the New York Times. To be precise: occasioned by the Centenary of Thornton Wilder’s birth, Sandy (as we quickly learned to call him) penned a “Bookend” tribute to Wilder in the April 13, 1997, Book Review titled “Wilder and the Marvels of the Heart.” Spritely, deeply informed, and not without eotion andy oet and true Man of Letters, saluted a fellow writer he saw as “essentially a moralist,” an artist who “took the given and raised it to the higher leel of reflection And e did it the hard way by tellin the truth.” It bordered on miraculous that Sandy in only this world’s short 24-hour day soe portion of which is supposed to be deoted to slee!) anaed daily to return hone calls open is rearkable Black ook olunteer the internationally-acclaied Chi idd for secial desin serices, and wield his en when is interests and alues coincided with public need So it was that D McClatchy soon found hiself resident of the fledling ornton Wilder ociety adisin on how best to get six of seen Wilder noels back in rint editin te tree-volume Library of America edition of Wilder’s works, and arraning a hapy oe for te ornton Wilder rize in ranslation at the erican cadey of rts and etters—to start a lon list of Thornton Wilder-related deeds, all directly or indirectly benefittin he hornton Wilder ociety. nd ten tere is te Our Town oera With a deep and apropriate bow to Ned ore for a aical score the key to the work are the words that only a oet who understood Wilder so well and so deeply could craft. D andy cClatchy was the complete artist and a beautiful friend We cannot help but iss hi in a secial way wile full of ratitude and wonder for the ifts from is eart that e has left us Taan Wilder 4 SCHEDULE Wednesday, July 11 Opening Night Reception at Keene State College 6:00-8:00 p.m. Featuring award-winning playwright and actor David Greenspan, performing an excerpt from his recent critically acclaimed adaptation of Thornton Wilder’s The Bridge of San Luis Rey. Keene State College | Mountain View Room, 3rd Floor of the Student Center 229 Main Street, Keene, NH 03435 (603) 801-2262 Campus map: https://www.keene.edu/campus/maps/college/ Transportation between Keene and Peterborough will be available. Parking available at 24 Madison Street. All Wilder Conference sessions will be held at The Monadnock Center 19 Grove Street, Peterborough, NH 03458 | (603) 924-3235 Thursday, July 12 Tracy Messer and John Franklin: “Our Town Then and Now I” 8:45-9:00 a.m. Session 1: Life of Wilder 9:00-10:00 a.m. Chair: Jackson R. Bryer, University of Maryland Sarah B. Dorsey, University of North Carolina, Greensboro: “Louise Talma and Thornton Wilder: A Match Made at MacDowell” Sergei Troubetzkoy, Independent Scholar: “Dorothy and Professor Wilder: From University of Chicago Student to Lifelong Friend” Ann Caldwell, Independent Scholar: “Wilder in the West” Break 10:00-10:15 a.m. Session 2: Our Town I 10:15-11:15 a.m. Chair: Park Bucker, University of South Carolina, Sumter Stuart J. Hecht, Boston College: “Celebrating Our Town at 50: My Post-Modern Production…That Worked!” Al Dabiri, University of Missouri: “New Faces in Our Town: Building Community Through Participatory Theatre” Jamall Calloway, Brown University: “‘That’s What It Was to Be Alive’: The Significance of Seconds in Thornton Wilder’s Theology” 5 Session 3: The Novels 11:15-12:15 p.m. Chair: Susan D. Thomas, Independent Scholar Andrew Bolt, ort Hays State niversity: “You, Me, and God: An Address to the Reader in The Bridge of San Luis Rey” Shoshana Greenberg, Independent Scholar: “New Audiences: Bringing Thornton Wilder Into New Spaces” Silas Jones, The College of ew ersey: “George Brush as an American Marxist in Heaven’s My Destination” Lunch Break 12:15-2:00 p.m. Session 4: A Report from the Wilder Collection at Yale’s Beinecke Library 2:00-3:00 p.m. Melissa Barton, Curator, rose Drama, ale Collection of American Literature Monika Lehman, roect Archivist for the Wilder amily Papers Break 3:00-3:15 p.m. Session 5: The Skin of Our Teeth 3:15-4:15 p.m. Chair: Matthew Maguire, ordham University Park Bucker, niversity of South Carolina, Sumter: “The Call of Cain: The Thematic and Structural Relationship Between Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth and Albee’s A Delicate Balance” Stephen J. Rojcewicz, Independent Scholar: “George Antrobus: Genius in a Name” Bonnie Georgette Hamlett, Salem College: “The Evolution of Thornton Wilder’s Stage Manager: Sabina in The Skin of Our Teeth” Session 6: Wilder as Scholar 4:15-5:15 p.m. Chair: Edyta K. Oczkowicz, Salem College Mary English, Montclair State niversity: “Wilder on Greek Tragedy” Ronald J. Quirk, uinnipiac niversity: “Thornton Wilder’s Study of Lope de Vega: New Materials” Joseph P. Cermatori, Skidmore College: “Wilder’s Anachronistic Modernism: Tradition and the Transfiguration of the Commonplace” Dinner Break 5:30-8:00 p.m. “Christmas in July” 8:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m. A reading of The Long Christmas Dinner followed by a discussion of “Wilder and the One-Act Play,” moderated by Carl Forsman, founding Artistic Director of the een Company and former dean of the University of orth Carolina School of the Arts School of rama. 6 Friday, July 13 Tracy Messer and John Franklin: “Our Town Then and Now II” 8:45-9:00 a.m. Session 7: Lesser-known Wilder 9:00-10:00 a.m. Chair: Terryl Hallquist, Vanderbilt University Lincoln Konkle, The College of New Jersey: “Rivers Under the Earth: Wilder’s Psychoanalytic Primer for the Stage” Edyta K. Oczkowicz, Salem College: “Young Wilder’s Journals: The Case of Writing The Acolyte” Thierry Dubost, Université de Caen Normandie: “In Signing Not to Sign: A Budding Playwright at Work on A Doll’s House” Break 10:00-10:15 a.m. Session 8: Our Town II 10:15-11:15 a.m. Chair: Gabriel Nathan, Independent Scholar Nancy Bunge, Michigan State University: “Friedrich Nietzsche Explains Why Our Town Works.” Jan Balakian, Kean University: “Who’s Depressed in Our Town?” Howard R. Wolf, SUNY, Buffalo: “The Concept of ‘Home’ in Our Town, Homecoming, and Other Plays” Session 9: Special Session: “Whither Wilder?” 11:15-12:30 p.m. A discussion of some of the questions that bedevil Wilder on page and stage: Where does Wilder fit in? Does it matter? Chair: Tappan Wilder, The Wilder Family Christopher Benfey, Mt. Holyoke College Carl Forsman, North Carolina School of the Arts David Greenspan, New York City-based actor & playwright Special Session: The State of the Wilder World (Lunch will be provided) 12:30-1:30 p.m. Barbara Hogenson, Literary Agent for the Wilder Estate David Kimple, Samuel French Rosey Strub, Manager, The Wilder Family, LLC Abbie Van Nostrand, Samuel French Tours 2:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. Highlights include a visit to Wilder’s studio at the MacDowell Colony, the cemetery that inspired Act Three of Our Town, and a guided walking tour of Wilder-related sites in Peterborough. Membership meeting, Thornton Wilder Society 5:00 p.m.-6:00 p.m. 7 Dinner Break 6:00 p.m.-7:30 p.m.