About the Play:

Look Homeward, Angel has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues and Female/Male Scenes.

Look Homeward, Angel is a full-length drama adapted for the stage by Ketti Frings, from the first and largely autobiographical novel of the same name by Thomas Wolfe. Tells the emotional story of Eugene Gant, whose overbearing mother forces her often drunk and unhappy husband and three children into helping her run "Dixieland" a seedy North Carolina boardinghouse, nearly crushing his dream to go to college and become a writer.

Look Homeward, Angel examines the life of a young man growing up in a small town in the mountains of North Carolina during the early part of the 20th century. Brimming with fascinating and colourful characters, this powerful and vital play captures the sardonic humour and the grief, both private and universal, of Thomas Wolfe's novel about a youth coming of age. Concentrating on the last third of Wolfe's story, the play vividly portrays the indomitable Eliza Gant who runs a boarding house to pay the bills and is obsessed by her material holdings. Imprisoned by his failures, her alcoholic husband runs a marble sculpture shop, where his prized possession, a statue of an angel, is kept. All of her children have given up dreams of begin able to afford independent lives, except emerging young writer Eugene, who is restless to experience life and longs to go to college. A 17-year old boy trying to find his way, a beautiful stranger's arrival at the boarding house, and a family that might just remember how to love one another before it is too late. This powerful drama is lit from within by the love of art for art's sake, and devotion to family and home. An authentic American classic, Look Homeward, Angel is a masterful example of how literature can be effectively adapted for the stage.

Look Homeward, Angel premiered in 1957 on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, ran for 564 performances, and received six Tony Award nominations. For this play, Ketti Frings received the Pulitzer Prize in Drama, the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, and was named by the Los Angeles Times as "Woman of the Year." The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and is regularly performed in repertory, high school, college, and community theatre productions.

Cast: 8 female, 10 male

What people say:

"One of the finest plays in American dramatic literature." — The New York Post

"The simple power of storytelling is clearly demonstrated in Ketti Frings' clever stage adaptation of Thomas Wolfe's classic autobiographical novel, Look Homeward, Angel. ...the adaptation was successful in distilling the essence of Wolfe's wonderful but sprawling novel." — Backstage

About the Playwright:

Ketti Frings (1909-1981) was an American author, playwright, and screenwriter. A Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, she produced an impressive number of plays, novels, and screenplays during her 35-year career, but Look Homeward Angel, her adaptation of Thomas Wolfe's autobiographical novel, remains the work for which she is best known.

Thomas Clayton Wolfe (1900-1938) was a major American novelist of the early 20th century who wrote four lengthy novels, plus many short stories, dramatic works and novellas. He is known for mixing highly original, poetic, rhapsodic, and impressionistic prose with autobiographical writing. His influence extends to the writings of famous Beat writer Jack Kerouac, authors Ray Bradbury and Philip Roth among others.