About the Play:

Come Back, Little Sheba has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues and Female/Male Scenes.

Come Back, Little Sheba is a full-length drama by William Inge. Marie, an attractive young boarder, gives new meaning to the lives of Doc and Lola Delaney, married for 20 years and grieving their lost hopes and dreams. For Lola, Marie is the child she never had. Doc, a recovering alcoholic, has less than paternal feelings. Come Back, Little Sheba is a story of marital frustration which erupts in violence.

Come Back, Little Sheba tells the story of Lola and Doc Delaney, a Midwestern couple whose relationship has declined after two decades of marriage. How far downhill must a marriage plunge before it crashes at rock bottom? Doc and Lola had an indiscreet affair, she became pregnant and, compelled to marry her, he gave up his medical studies, forfeited his future and settled down to a life of quiet desperation with the simple, desperately lonely Lola, who lost the child but has remained Doc's steadfast if slatternly wife. Lola cries for her lost dog Sheba, a metaphoric scream for her own lost youth that's what gives Inge's play it's sad metaphoric title. Now a chiropractor and recovering alcoholic, Doc's sobriety is tested when Marie, a young college student becomes their boarder bringing new life and long-dormant hostilities to the surface of Doc and Lola's troubled marriage. Come Back, Little Sheba, the heartfelt drama that launched William Inge's career and became a Broadway hit, is a powerful portrayal of flawed humanity and the enduring power of love.

Come Back, Little Sheba was first presented in 1952 at the Booth Theatre in New York City. Shirley Booth won the Tony, New York Drama Critics Award and later the Oscar as Best Actress of The Year for her compelling performance as Lola. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and is regularly performed in regional, college, and community theatre productions.

Cast: 4 female, 4 male

What people say:

"...one of this country's half-dozen greatest playwrights ... worth traveling any distance to see." — Wall Street Journal

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.