About the Play:

Splendor in the Grass has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Male/Male Scenes.

Splendor in the Grass is a full-length drama adapted for the stage by F. Andrew Leslie, from the Oscar-winning screenplay by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright William Inge. Set in a small Midwestern city in the 1920's, Splendor in the Grass is a beautiful story of ill-fated young love and the fight to survive and overcome parental expectations, societal repression and the reality of broken dreams. It's a story that could happen almost anywhere at any time, to any of us. Hard decisions, and the consequences of those decisions, love and heartbreak, the confusion of youth and insensitivity of adults... themes that touch all of our lives.

Splendor in the Grass is set in a small Midwestern town in the late 1920s, spanning in time from 1928 to the early 1930s. It is the story of an ill-fated high school romance between Bud Stamper, the star athlete and son of the richest man in town, and Deanie Loomis, a young middle-class girl whose family runs the local mercantile store. Bud is the prize catch in his high-school class, and Deanie is the girl lucky enough to get him. But both Bud and Deanie are disturbed by the powerful feelings that have grown between them, which are turned into torture by the restraints of proper conduct. Mindful of the bad example of his own debauched sister, Bud wants to marry Deanie immediately and go to agricultural school – a hope that is destroyed by his father's ambitions to put Bud through Yale and into the family oil business. Bud and Deanie promise to wait, and Bud decides that it is better for them to see less of each other in the meantime, a turn of events that plunges the unstable Deanie into an emotional crack-up and then commitment to an institution. By the time she is released their world has turned over. The stock market crash has destroyed the Stamper empire and led to suicide for Bud's father; Bud has left Yale and married a young waitress from New Haven; and Deanie has become engaged to a young man she met in the hospital. The time has come for both to start life anew, but to do this means to come to terms with the past, and this Bud and Deanie do in a final, touching scene where old ties are gently broken, and each gains the sureness and strength to move on from disturbing memories to better hopes for what lies ahead.

Splendor in the Grass is honest and affecting story of teenage love, which was produced and directed for the screen by Elia Kazan and featured Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty in the leading roles. It was adapted for the stage in 1966 by F. Andrew Leslie, from the Oscar-winning screenplay by William Inge. The play has become a popular choice for school and community theatre productions.

Cast: 9 female, 10 male

About the Playwright:

F. Andrew Leslie (1927-2015) specialized in stage versions of movies, adapting either the novels from which the films were made or the screenplays themselves. He was associated with the Dramatists Play Service for 30 years until retiring, as its President in 1990. Before joining the Play Service he was an artists representative with a major New York concert management company, an agent at the William Morris Agency, and a manager for the distinguished actor Maurice Evans.

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 1960s, 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.