Final answer:
Thornton Wilder's plays, including 'The Bridge of San Luis Rey,' 'The Skin of Our Teeth,' and 'Our Town,' were commercially successful and earned Pulitzer Prizes, marking significant contributions to American drama along with playwrights like Tennessee Williams and Eugene O'Neill, who also used personal life experiences in their critically acclaimed works.
Step-by-step explanation:
The works of Thornton Wilder, particularly The Bridge of San Luis Rey, The Skin of Our Teeth, and Our Town, are significant in American literature and drama for several reasons. These plays by Wilder were not only commercially successful, earning over $1 million in revenue, but they also received critical acclaim, with Wilder winning Pulitzer Prizes for them. Wilder's contribution to American theater is often compared with that of Tennessee Williams, Eugene O'Neill, and Arthur Miller, who also created impactful and critically lauded works that shaped the landscape of 20th-century American drama.
Each of these playwrights used their personal life experiences to inform their work, often tackling complex themes such as identity, community, and the human condition. With Wilder's plays, audiences were invited to reflect on the profound and existential aspects of everyday life, while Tennessee Williams explored themes of emotional struggle through strong female characters and complex human relationships, as seen in plays like A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
Furthermore, the theater continued to evolve post-9/11 with productions that set new records and pushed boundaries in terms of inclusivity and representation, exemplifying how the medium adapts to social change and continues to engage contemporary audiences on critical issues.