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NYTimes
New York Times
12 Dec 2024
Erik Piepenburg


NextImg:In ‘Our Town,’ the Characters Are Fictional. The Smells Are Real.

The curtain had just come down on a recent Wednesday matinee of the Broadway revival of “Our Town,” Thornton Wilder’s 1938 play set in a small New Hampshire town. But cast and crew members were already in the basement of the Ethel Barrymore Theater, lining up to assemble BLTs.

The fixings were arrayed on a table: hot bacon, romaine hearts and tomato slices, white toast, mayonnaise (traditional and vegan) and, for iconoclasts, honey mustard and avocado. There were noisy debates about whether crispy or chewy bacon makes a superior sandwich.

There was consensus on one matter. “What’s better than bacon?” barked Julie Halston, one of the show’s 28 actors. “Nothing.”

This was not a catered meal or a special occasion. It was a BLT Wednesday, and the bacon had been fried up in the wings, just steps away from the actors as they performed the play’s final stretch. To add a sense memory, two pounds of bacon are fried at every performance.

ImageThree people make themselves BLTs at a long table.
The “Our Town” cast members (from left) Heather Ayers, Hagan Oliveras and Greg Wood assembled BLTs after a recent Wednesday matinee.Credit...Jonah Rosenberg for The New York Times

Kenny Leon, who directed the show, said he was inspired by David Cromer’s 2009 Off Broadway revival of “Our Town,” which featured the onstage cooking of bacon during the same third-act scene, when the ghost of Emily, a leading character, visits her childhood home at breakfast time.


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