What's It All About? A Synopsis of Their Town

Margaret Craig, a single mother who has been struggling to support her 16-year-old daughter, has recently landed a good, solid job: she's been elected town clerk of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire - of Our Town fame. At the same time, the town's new, young mayor, Joe Hersey, who ran on the same ticket with Margaret, wants to further his own career and aid the economy of his beleaguered town by garnering publicity in a sensational way - by performing a legal marriage ceremony for two of the town's lesbian citizens, longtime residents Ginny Gibbs and Eliza Webb.

But the town council president, Lyle Hawkins starts a "Take Back Our Town" movement that threatens Margaret's new job if she doesn't obey the state law against same-sex marriage. Worried about her job and certain that gay marriage has nothing to do with her, Margaret refuses to issue the license. Joe, however, devises another plan, with the help of a gay-rights attorney, to file a lawsuit against the state, using other, more "professional" couples than Ginny and Eliza. The two women turn to Joe's gay brother, Charlie, an out-of-town lawyer, to help them win the right to marry in their town.

But in the meantime, Margaret is drawn deeper and more unwillingly into the issue by a personal crisis that brings home the political issue of equal marriage rights. Leading Margaret in her coming-to-terms process is a statue come-to-life of Thornton Wilder, author of Our Town and creator of Grover's Corners - who was himself, Margaret learns, a closeted homosexual.