I was so excited to be part of this special evening at the Drama Book Shop on Thursday, January 30th with author Alvin Eng. As a member of the board of the Thornton Wilder Society, I was in discussion with him on his book Our Laundry, Our Town, a memoir that decodes and processes the fractured urban oracle bones of Alvin Eng’s upbringing in Flushing, Queens, in the 1970s. Finding his way in the downtown theater and performance world of Manhattan, he discovered the under-chronicled Chinese influence on Thornton Wilder’s foundational Americana drama, Our Town.
After I finished reading Our Laundry, Our Town, I re-read Our Town. The latter portion of Our Laundry, Our Town is about Our Town and its influence on Eng’s life and work, including a project in China with students to create theater pieces inspired by the time capsule section of the play. Reading Our Town again was a balm, especially in late January 2025. The spirit world, the portal between life and death, it all felt very present. Our Town is such a rich text that I get something new out of it every time I read or see it. Now I will be thinking of it specifically in the context of this current moment and also in the context of its Chinese influences.
Thank you to Alvin Eng for inviting me to be part of this! At some point it will be a podcast episode, so those who couldn’t make it can hear it.
