Bus Stop

by William Inge

(A Three Act Romance)

Setting:

The entire play is set inside a street corner restaurant in a small Kansas town about thirty miles west of Kansas City.  The restaurant serves also as an occasional rest stop for the bus lines in the area.  It is a dingy establishment with few modern improvements.

When the curtain opens, it is one A. M. on a night in early March and a near blizzard is raging outside.  Two young women, in uniforms that have lost their starched freshnes, are employed behind the counter.  Elma is a big-eyed girl still in high school.  Grace is a more seasoned character in her early forties.  A bus is expected soon and they are checking, somewhat lacadaisically, the supplies. 

Upon the arrival of the bus and the entry of its passengers, a surprising insight awaits us regarding this play.  It is filled with the "spice" of the differences between us that make us all "human".   Watching the interaction between very different, very strong, personalities is very enlightening.  What we are is not what we show everyone else. 

Story:

This play is Duncan Little Theatre's final production of the season.  The play tells the story of people on a bus marooned overnight in a snow storm in a small town in Kansas at a bus stop cafe run by the proprietor Grace, played by Christine Womack and her teenaged assistant Elma, played by Lori Barker.  Cherie, the songstress chanteuse, played by Jennifer Brown, bursts in the door trying to find a place to hide from a Montana cowboy , Bo Decker, played by Casey Johnson, who has kidnapped her to take her back to his ranch to get married.  Bo's guitar picking sidekick and surrogate father Virgil Blessing, played by Douglas Crook, tries to help the young people.   Dr. Lyman, played by Gary Templeton, as the alcoholic Harvard professor, Will, the town sheriff, played by Phillip Raney, and Carl, the bus driver, played by Duane Paul, complete the characters in the play.

Background:

The play is directed by guest director Paul Armstrong from Stillwater.  Producers are Gary Templeton and Judy Stallons and stage managers are Jonathan Grant and Sharon Burum.  Others on the design team are Angie Burke (costume designer), LaVonna Funkhouser (programs), Floyd Wininger (publicity), and Jessica Stuckert (props).  The play is produced with the assistance of the Oklahoma Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.  Duncan Little Theatre is a founding member of the Oklahoma Community Theatre Association.