February 2002
This production of Our Town was noted for its age-reversed casting: George and Emily were played by Broadway veterans Tom Ligon and Barbara Andres (both in their sixties) and The Stage Manager was played by 12-year-old Emma Orelove. The remaining characters were played by actors in their early thirties.
The music element was represented by complete underscoring for piano and cello. Musical Director Mary-Mitchell Campbell arranged several versions of the Shaker melody, “Simple Gifts” as well as original compositions, entitled “Themes for Emily and George.” There was also an onstage vocalist who sang an original song at the top of the show and also provided the vocals for the hymns specified in the script by Wilder himself.
The New York Times:
Transport Group’s production of Our Town adds another level of meaning to the play. The distinction of this production is that Emily and George are Barbara Andres and Tom Ligon, both of whom are over 60 and fully gray. It’s as if the boy and girl have within them the middle-aged couple they’re destined to be, as if the gray-haired adults can fulfill the dream of being with their parents in their youth and vigor again but knowing what they know now.
The Hartford Courant:
The revival of Our Town began in the last decade or two, with an increasing number of professional theatres producing the play and discovering the depth of emotion, philosophy and humanity in the work. None are as daring as a recent off-Broadway production by Transport Group.
NY Theatre.com:
A pair of actors in their 60s playing George and Emily? A teenage girl playing The Stage Manager? What’s going on here?! It’s nothing more than Transport Group’s glorious new production of Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize winning classic, Our Town, in which the aforementioned casting becomes the coup that director Jack Cummings III intends it to be, bringing a freshness to this reliable, old chestnut that must be seen to be believed.
