Thornton Niven Wilder (1897-1975) was an enormously influential American playwright, novelist, translator, and man of letters. He spent part of his childhood in China, where his father was a diplomat. Wilder and his four siblings were all highly educated and accomplished; several were writers and teachers. Although Wilder never married, he remained devoted to his family for his entire life, and he supported them with generous financial assistance (including building a lavish house for his mother and sisters). Educated at Yale and Princeton, Wilder was proficient in four languages, and he was a popular and respected teacher (of everything from French to poetry to English literature) at various institutions, including the Thacher School, Harvard University, and the University of Chicago.
His 1927 novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey earned him his first Pulitzer Prize (for fiction). He went on to win two more Pulitzer Prizes (for drama) for his plays Our Town (1938) and The Skin of Our Teeth (1942). His play The Matchmaker (1954) was eventually made into the enormously popular musical Hello, Dolly! (1964). Wilder was a prolific author who wrote many other plays, short stories, and essays, as well as lengthy entries in his private journals and hundreds of letters to his many friends, including Ernest Hemmingway, Walt Disney, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Mia Farrow.
Walter Matthau and Barbara Streisand in Hello Dolly!
Despite his many accomplishments, however, Wilder is probably best remembered for his plays, especially Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth. Many theatre historians and reviewers believe that on any given day, one of these two plays is being performed somewhere in the United States. The contemporary playwright Paula Vogel (herself the winner of numerous awards, including the 1998 Pulitzer for Drama) wrote in her foreword to the 2003 edition of The Skin of Our Teeth that “For an American dramatist, all roads lead back to Thornton Wilder.”
Original Broadway Production 1942 Skin of Our Teeth Handbill.
Certainly Wilder’s influence on American playwriting cannot be overstated, but it is his enduring appeal with audiences of all ages that sets him apart from many other American playwrights. His humor, his wit, and his indomitable optimism about the ability of human beings to survive against all odds continue to speak to us today. Wilder’s optimism was grounded in realism; he was clear-eyed about human frailty, and this pragmatism rendered his plays relevant as well as hopeful. Indeed, Wilder’s plays have never not felt relevant; and as long as we continue to need our faith in humanity restored, we will find ourselves turning to his all-too-human characters, over and over again, with fondness and also with gratitude.
FUN FACTS ABOUT
The Skin Of Our Teeth
Thornton Wilder remains the only author who has won Pulitzer Prizes for both fiction and drama.