About the Play:

Hello, Out There has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Male Monologues and Female/Male Scenes.

Hello, Out There is a one-act drama by William Saroyan. The story of a down on his luck gambler who is locked up in a small town Texas prison on a trumped-up charge of rape, and the lynch mob is on the way. The only other person in the building is the naive, young girl cook. Hello, Out There is a powerful tale of two lonely outcasts who find love at the most unlikely of times, in the most unlikely of places.

Hello, Out There is about injustice and decadence in Depression-era America. An itinerant gambler known as Photo Finish is arrested and jailed in a small Texas town and charged with rape of a married women. The charge is a lie. Photo's protestations of innocence are ignored, and he calls out literally and metaphorically for someone to hear him. But the only one who hears his call for justice and understanding is Ethel, a lonely young woman who cooks for the prisoners. The unlikely pair shares a magical bond of loneliness and a desire to escape – he, a prison cell; she, a stifling small town. The two dream plans of escape to a better place, till the husband of the alleged rape victim, comes to kill the young man, with a mob at his heels. Love, poetry, and irony play out in a jail cell in this classic American play.

Hello, Out There premiered in 1941 at the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara, California. It opened on Broadway in 1942 at the Belasco Theatre. Al Pacino made his off-Broadway debut in 1963 at Caffe Cino in Greenwich Village as 'Photo Finish' in a performance that was directed by his acting teacher Charles Laughton. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and is regularly performed in regional, high school, college, fringe, and community theatre productions.

Cast: 2 female, 3 male

What people say:

"Hello Out There, a staple of one-act play competitions, is a well-crafted, wistful exercise about wild and shattered dreams." — Washington Post

"...a durable American one-act drama... The boy, a racetrack gambler who never wins, and the girl, a menial who has never known happiness, are a natural pair of lovers in Saroyan's universe, two vulnerable losers ground down by an unjust, unfeeling world. For a little while, they dream of happiness, but soon, cruel and mean spirits destroy their hope." — Chicago Tribune

"William Saroyan brought unashamed sentiment and inexhaustible compassion to life's underdogs. In this 1945 one-act, two lonely souls meet, improbably and tragically, in a Texas jail." — Chicago Reader

"In just a few minutes onstage, Saroyan creates a vivid world ... it's a sharp scorching experience." — Fresno Bee

About the Playwright:

William Saroyan (1908-1981) was an internationally renowned American writer, playwright, and humanitarian. Hailed as one of America's Greatest Playwrights, in 1939, he was the first American writer to win both the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for his play The Time of Your Life. He famously refused to accept the Pulitzer Prize on the grounds that "Commerce should not patronize art." He achieved great popularity in the thirties, forties, and fifties through his hundreds of short stories, plays, novels, memoirs, and essays. He has been described as "one of the most prominent literary figures of the mid-20th century."