About the Play:

Bus Stop has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues and Female/Male Scenes.

Bus Stop is a full-length comedy by William Inge. A snowstorm strands a bus outside of Kansas City, and its passengers – including a stubborn, lovesick cowboy and the nightclub singer he hopes to marry – seek shelter and warmth at a roadside diner. The motley crew spends one night together, filled with bluster, heartache, and laughter, searching for love in this classic American comedy. Especially recommended for school and contest use.

Bus Stop is a true ensemble piece featuring eight idiosyncratically fascinating characters in search of personal fulfillment. In the middle of a howling snowstorm, a bus out of Kansas City pulls up at a cheerful roadside diner. All roads are blocked, and four or five weary travelers are going to have to hole up until morning. Cherie, a nightclub singer in a sparkling gown and a seedy fur-trimmed jacket, is the passenger with most to worry about. She's been pursued, made love to and finally kidnapped by a twenty-one-year-old cowboy with a ranch of his own and the romantic methods of an unusually headstrong bull. The belligerent cowhand is right behind her, ready to sling her over his shoulder and carry her, alive and kicking, all the way to Montana. Even as she's ducking out from under his clumsy but confident embraces, and screeching at him fiercely to shut him up, she pauses to furrow her forehead and muse, "Somehow deep inside of me I got a funny feeling I'm gonna end up in Montana …" As a counterpoint to the main romance, the proprietor of the cafe and the bus driver at last find time to develop a friendship of their own; a middle-age scholar comes to terms with himself; and a young girl who works in the cafe also gets her first taste of romance. This beautiful and introspective play reveals the possibility that dignity and grandeur lie in each and every human action.

Bus Stop premiered in 1955 on Broadway at The Music Box Theatre. The opening night starred Albert Salmi as Bo and Kim Stanley as Cherie, and the play was directed by Harold Clurman. It was an immediate commercial and critical success, winning the 1955 Tony Award for Best Play, and was made into a movie starring Marilyn Monroe. The show was revived on Broadway in 1996 and has become a popular choice for school and community theatre productions.

Cast: 3 female, 5 male

What people say:

"…Mr. Inge has put together an uproarious comedy that never strays from the truth." — New York Times

"William Inge should be a great comfort to all of us…he brings to the theatre a kind of warm-hearted compassion, creative vigor, freshness of approach and appreciation of average humanity that can be wonderfully touching and stimulating." — New York Post

"Flawless and formidable … an intimate portrait of a woman left alone, a woman who, despite abandonment, struggles to keep faith in her husband and the private vow they made... a script wherein ideas, scenes, and words flow like water…." — See Magazine

About the Playwright:

William Inge (1913-1973) may justifiably be called the first playwright to examine the American Midwest and its people. He was born in Independence, Kansas, and was educated at the University of Kansas. After working as a teacher and an actor, he became the drama critic for the St. Louis Star-Times. During the 1950s and early '60s, no other American dramatist with the exception of Tennessee Williams could compare with William Inge in his prominence on the Broadway stage and in films. As Tennessee Williams tapped into the mannerisms and neuroses of the American South, Inge did much the same for the Midwest racking up a stunning track record on Broadway – four plays, four hits – and all of his theatrical successes were turned into big-budget Hollywood movies with blue-chip casts. Like Williams, he also occasionally wrote film scripts, and he won an Oscar for Splendor in the Grass.