About the Play:

The Hot L Baltimore has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female/Female Scenes and Female/Male Scenes.

The Hot L Baltimore is a full-length drama by Lanford Wilson. Once there was a railroad and the neighborhood of the railroad terminals bloomed with gracious hotels. used to be the swankiest place in town – now it has a date with the wrecking ball. The societal outcasts who call this place home are now facing eviction and must face a new uncertainty in an already uncertain future. The Hot L Baltimore is perhaps Lanford Wilson's best-known play.

The Hot L Baltimore is a heart-tugging ensemble play about the private lives of the residents of a rundown inner-city hotel. The scene is the lobby of the formerly grand Hotel Baltimore, now so seedy that it has lost the "e" from its flickering neon marquee. As the action unfolds, a community of outcasts, ranging from young to old, from the defiant to the resigned, meet and talk and interact with each other during the course of one day. The drama is of passing events in their lives, of everyday encounters and of the human comedy, with conversations often overlapping into a contrapuntal musical flow. In the resulting mosaic each character emerges clearly and perceptively defined, and the sum total of what they are – or wish they were – becomes a poignant, powerful call to America to recover lost values and to restore itself in its own and the world's eyes. A brilliant Off-Broadway success by an outstanding playwright, The Hot L Baltimore brings compassion, humour and arresting theatricality to its imaginative, touching study of lost souls trapped by society's inexorable decay.

The Hot L Baltimore premiered in 1973 Off-Off-Broadway by the Circle Repertory Company, and then transferred to the Off-Broadway Circle in the Square Downtown. Critics and audiences loved the play, and it was his first major commercial success. The play won multiple awards, including an Obie for best Off Broadway play, and ran for three years. It set an Off-Broadway record of more than 1,600 performances, proving that Lanford Wilson was a commercially viable playwright. Considered one of the great modern American ensemble plays, it has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and is regularly performed in regional, college, and community theatre productions.

Cast: 7 female, 10 male

What people say:

"…as good as you will find in the modern American theater … Wilson's writing is simply superb, a triumph of inspiration and craftsmanship." — Women's Wear Daily

"Mr. Wilson is both funny and sad about today, and the combination is an unbeatable winner ." — The New York Times

"…a warm, intelligent, wonderful evening in the theater." — Village Voice

About the Playwright:

Lanford Wilson (1937-2011) was one of the most distinguished American playwrights of the late 20th century. He was instrumental in drawing attention to Off-Off Broadway, where his first works were staged in the mid-1960s. He was also among the first playwrights to move from that milieu to renown on wider stages, ascending to Off Broadway, and then to Broadway, within a decade of his arrival in New York. His work has also long been a staple of regional theaters throughout the United States. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1980, was elected in 2001 to the Theater Hall of Fame, and in 2004 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.