About the Play:

Great Solo Town is a full-length comedic drama by Thomas Babe. The play takes place on the night Bobby Kennedy was shot. Great Solo Town is an inventive, funny, and ultimately moving play that focuses on the sobering moment when a group of lively, rebellious young people learn of the assassination of Robert Kennedy.

Great Solo Town is comprised of two distinctly separate yet interconnected acts, in which a group of high-spirited young people learn first of the shooting, and then the death, of Robert Kennedy. The action begins in a park, where several teenagers – male and female – talk tough; rail against their parents; and experiment with drugs and sex. Their actions seem almost aimless and random on this warm spring night, until the news that Kennedy has been gunned down leaves them stunned—and unable to comprehend the meaning of this awful act. In the second act a young couple go home together, joined by another boy. Sex is on their minds, but they are distracted by the droning TV set which monitors the ebbing life of the mortally wounded Kennedy. When word of his death finally comes their emotions give way at last in a flood of anger and confused bitterness. But, as they reach out to console and somehow reassure each other, the young couple decide that it is love, rather than mere sex, which draws them together. And as the other boy leaves they prepare to go to bed – hopeful of a meaningful and lasting relationship, but also fearful and unsure that this can be possible in a world so filled with sudden violence and mindless destructiveness.

Great Solo Town was originally written for a group of young actors at the Yale Drama School and premiered in 1977 at the Yale Cabaret in New Haven, Connecticut. It was then successfully produced in in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

Cast: 4 female, 5 male

About the Playwright:

Thomas Babe (1941-2000) was an American playwright who achieved a cult status with uncompromising studies of human relationships that provided rich roles for actors. He was educated at Harvard College, Cambridge University, and Yale University Law School. He began writing for the theatre in the 1960s and was one of Joseph Papp's most prolific resident playwrights at the New York Shakespeare Festival. His wide-ranging plays have been performed in many other theaters throughout the United States and in Canada, England, Ireland, Germany and Holland. In his later years, he taught playwriting at New York University.