Childhood

Thornton Wilder

Comedy

Characters: 2 male, 3 female

In this provocative, sometimes chilling comedy, Wilder renders a child's-eye view of the grown-up world, as a father, a mother and their three children play a revealing game of make-believe in which the children pretend to be orphans. Startling truths emerge on both sides, as pretense challenges the family to discard the traditional roles of parent, spouse, child, and sibling--blurring the lines between perception and reality, artifice and innocence.

"Wilder has a great fit for comic fantasy. Childhood is Wilder at his best." - New York Daily News