Cast Set for Alley Theatre's World Premiere of Thornton Wilder's Unfinished Play THE EMPORIUM

Alley Theatre has revealed the cast of Thornton Wilder’s The Emporium. Directed by Melrose and completed by Kirk Lynn, this existential play asks the question - if life is a job interview, do we qualify for our existence?

While Thornton Wilder wrote many of the most revered novels in the American literary canon, Wilder only wrote two full-length plays: Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth.  Both plays won Pulitzer Prizes. Thorton Wilder spent two decades writing a third full-length play called The Emporium that was never completed... until now.  The Emporiumwas an "unfinished" play but not for a lack of material. The play has nine scenes and Wilder wrote multiple versions of each scene. The Wilder estate permitted Lynn to create a "finished" version of the script for production but only after Lynn thoroughly studied Wilder’s papers at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. 

Lynn shared his insights, “In 2018, I decided to read everything by Thornton Wilder. I finished his plays and novels and was working my way through his journals when I came across two scenes from an unfinished play: The Emporium. The journals described years and years of work, so I knew more scenes existed somewhere. At Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale, there were more than 300 pages of his unfinished script in Wilder’s papers. Working on The Emporium gifted me access to Wilder’s methods and his spirit.” 

This world premiere work follows the journey of a young man from an orphanage who is adopted by a farmer but runs away to the big city only to discover all this is only a metaphor. 

In writing The Emporium, Wilder was inspired by Kafka's novel The Castle, in which a land surveyor attempts to gain access to a castle sitting at the center of town, only to be blocked at every turn. Wilder changed the central metaphor from a land surveyor to the runaway son of a farmer and a castle to a grand department store.

This will be the second time the Alley premieres a completed posthumous work of a Pulitzer Prize winner. In 1998, the Alley produced the world premiere of a lost Tennessee Williams play, Not About Nightingales, which went on to a successful Broadway run.

“I'm extremely proud to be carrying the torch of the Alley’s legacy by doing the world premiere of a play by another great American playwright,” remarked Melrose. “We did a workshop of The Emporium in the 2022 Alley All New Festival. Watching audiences delight in Wilder's inventiveness, language, and metaphors was so exciting. It was like watching audiences discover the brilliance of Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth for the first time. We knew we had to share this with our audiences and do a full production of it. This play is charming and delightful and will be remembered for a long time.”

Thornton Wilder’s The Emporium cast includes Resident Acting Company members Elizabeth Bunch as Miss Coley, Shawn Hamilton as Mr. Benjamin, David Rainey as Mr. Foster, and Christopher Salazar as John.

Rounding out the cast is Shawn Sides as Mrs. Frisbee, Raven Justine Troup as Laurencia, and Sally Wingert as Bernice. All actors are reprising their roles from the Alley All New Festival workshop in 2022. 

The creative team includes Scenic Designer Michael Locher, Costume Designer Raquel Barreto, Lighting Designer Cat Tate Starmer, Sound Designer Yezminne Zepeda, Stage Manager Jocelyn A. Tompson, and Assistant Stage Manager Brandon Clark.
 

TICKETS: 

Performances of Thornton Wilder’s The Emporium begin Friday, May 10 and run through Sunday, June 2 in the Neuhaus Theatre. Tickets are now on sale, starting at $51. Discounted tickets are available for military, seniors, educators and any student, regardless of age, with a valid ID for designated performances in designated sections. Tickets can be ordered online (alleytheatre.org) or by phone (713.220.5700). 

Photo credit: Rob Melrose

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