The scenic design (by Stephanie Busing) is also single-toned, with a nondescript, upstage edifice filled largely by a scrim or back cloth. With the exception of Our Town‘s Stage Manager, the people of Grover’s Corners (costumes by Sydney Roberts) wear monochromatic dresses, shirts and long and short pants in shades of beige that allow them to pick up a shawl, a vest, a hat or jacket to differentiate between bit parts and larger roles.

What fun! Thankfully, the company is not peopled only by Caucasians. Our Town, directed by David Crowe ( Silent Sky), and The Laramie Project, being directed by Clifton Guterman, share the same acting company, an exercise in stamina and flexibility that Atlanta audiences haven’t enjoyed since the 2014 demise of Georgia Shakespeare. (Note that Our Town, which runs through September 29, will be joined in repertory by The Laramie Project, previewing September 10–12 and opening September 13.) It does so economically - with 10 actors instead of the usual 23, and with a twist - casting a female actor as the Stage Manager, a historically male role. Theatrical Outfit makes an inspiring choice in opening its 43rd season with this certifiable American classic. That’s what makes Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1938 masterpiece so elusive, so eloquent and, ultimately, so moving. Our Town is nothing less than the eternal story of humanity, something that, in eons of existence, we’ve never really quite put our fingers on. “This is the way we were,” the Stage Manager (Mary Lynn Owen) tells us early on, “in our growing-up, in our marrying, in our doctoring, in our living and in our dying.” Mary Lynn Owen, quietly, certifiably in charge as the Stage Manager You can feel it in the electricity that dances through the hall as the performance moves toward its curtain call. You can see it in the way the actors carry themselves.

Our town wilder