My first theater job after I got out of the hospital that repaired my skull fracture, was Bus Stop in 1979.
Bus Stop is a 1955 play by American playwright William Inge. Produced on Broadway, it was nominated for four Tony awards in 1956.
The play is set in a diner about twenty-five miles west of Kansas City. A freak snowstorm has halted the bus, and the eight characters (five from the bus) have a weather-enforced layover in the diner from about 1 am to 5 am.
Among the quasi-romantic relationships are Professor Lyman and Elma.
Elma Duckworth is intelligent, but naive and impressionable girl working as a waitress at the diner.
Dr. Gerald Lyman is a college philosophy professor who is articulate and charming but cannot hold a position, partially due to his resistance to any kind of authority, and partially due to his taste for young women. He also has a drinking problem.
I don't drink but I have played several alcoholic characters in plays (Bus Stop, Rain, and Anything Goes) and in one student film, The Grandfather Paradox.
