About the Play:

Inherit the Wind has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues and Male/Male Scenes.

Inherit the Wind is a full-length drama by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee. In a small town courtroom and with the eyes of the nation upon them, two legal giants face off over a teacher's right to teach evolution to a high school class.  One of the most moving and meaningful plays in American theatre, this classic courtroom drama is based on the famed Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925. As rousing and relevant today as it was when it debuted in 1955, Inherit the Wind is an edge-of-your-seat riveting look at the age-old conflict between science and religion.

Inherit the Wind is based on the 1925 Scopes "Monkey Trial," in which a Tennessee teacher was charged with teaching that man evolved from apes, instead of state-mandated Creationism. The accused was a slight, frightened man who had deliberately broken the law. His trial was a Roman circus. The drama contains a powerful confrontation between two great legal giants of the century: a character based on William Jennings Bryan, who believes only what he reads in the Bible, and another based on Clarence Darrow, who defends science and open intellectual inquiry. Like two bull elephants locked in mortal combat, they bellowed and roared imprecations and abuse. The spectators sat uneasily in the sweltering heat with murder in their hearts, barely able to restrain themselves. At stake was the freedom of every American.

Inherit the Wind premiered in 1955 at the National Theatre on Broadway in New York City. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and  is regularly performed in regional repertory, middle school, high school, college, and community theatre productions.

Cast: 6 female, 21 male, 2 boys, 1 girl, extras (many of the parts can be doubled)

What people say:

"The portrait it draws of an explosive episode in American culture, vigorously written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, remains as fresh as it ever was.... Bursting with vitality… Literature of the stage." — The New York Times

"Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee were classic Broadway scribes who knew how to crank out serious plays for thinking Americans.... Inherit the Wind is a perpetually prescient courtroom battle over the legality of teaching evolution.... We're still arguing this case – all the way to the White House." — Chicago Tribune

"Magnificently written… one of the most exciting dramas of the last decade." — New York News

"“Powerful ... a crackling good courtroom play ... [that] provides two of the juiciest roles in American theater." — Copley News Service

"A tidal wave of a drama… More than any other play in memory based on history and aiming at a contemporary parallel, Inherit the Wind makes its point immediately applicable." — New York World-Telegram & Sun

"Brilliant… a colorful, picturesque and absorbing exciting essay in dramatic Americana…." — New York Post

"A masterpiece. This is the test: to see a play once, twice, three times. And each time to leave the theatre as deeply moved, as enlightened, as lifted up, as magnificently entertained. And as convinced that it is one of the truly great American dramas of this century." — Scripps-Howard

About the Playwright:

Jerome Lawrence (1915-2004) and Robert Edwin Lee (1918-1994) were American writers who worked for Armed Forces Radio during World War II; Lawrence and Lee became the most prolific writing partnership in radio. The duo is perhaps best know for their play, Inherit the Wind, which earned Lawrence and Lee numerous awards in the year after its production. For their work as playwrights, they won two Peabody Awards, the Variety Critics Poll Award, multiple Tony Award nominations, and many more awards.