Bus Stop - October 17 - October 29, 2023
Theatre West
Directors
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Frederick Saint John
Director
For many years as member of TW, Frederick has taught workshops, directed Tuesday programs, worked backstage, and is currently serving on the Board as the Tuesday Program Chairperson. He directed last season's hit comedy "A Little Murder Never Hurt Anybody.''. As an actor, one of his favorite roles was the Monster in the Curtain Players Community Theater production of "The House of Frankenstein." William Inge is one of Frederick's favorite playwrights, and as an undergraduate he played Howard in "Picnic" at Ohio Dominican, and in graduate school at Ohio State University played Will in "Bus Stop." Frederick says "I am blessed with a wonderful cast and crew ... As for you,the audience, I hope you enjoy our show as much as I have enjoyed directing it. Thank you for coming today. "
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Jenny Kaupu
Assistant Director
Over the years as an active member of TW, Jenny has worked in all the backstage jobs, taught workshops on acting and production, and been assistant director and director for many Tuesday programs and several main shows. She has enjoyed directing varied genre, among them toe-tapping music ( with the Dancing Arts Club directing teams) of "Love the Wild West" and "Legends of Song and Dance"; the light-hearted comedies "The Bed" and "If a Man Answers"; the deeply moving dramas ''The Jury'' (Twelve Angry Men/Women) and ''Waiting for MacArthur''; and last season's unique melodrama "Males Order Brides."
Director's Note
The idea for BUS STOP came to William Inge while on a bus trip in the early 1950s and took form as a short play called PEOPLE IN THE WIND. While the author's other dramatic projects of that decade - - COME BACK, LITTLE SHEBA (1950), PICNIC (1953), and THE DARK AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS (1957) - -were taking shape, PEOPLE IN THE WIND was transformed into BUS STOP and was produced in 1955.
In its final version, BUS STOP became a charming study of ordinary people in the common pursuit of Love. Inge has transformed the setting into a gallery of familiar characters playing out the hand that fate has dealt them. As they each struggle to discover themselves we become interested in their problems, we laugh at their naivete, and we are warmed by their simple honesty.
Inge minimizes the play's plot in order to let his characters tell their own story. The result is at once inevitable and spontaneous. Inge was a teacher-turned - playwright who is to the Midwest what his mentor, Tennessee Williams, was to the south - a native son turned dramatic biographer.
About his work, Inge wrote. "I have been most concerned with dramatizing something of the dynamism I myself find in human motivations and human behavior. I regard a play as a composition rather than a story, as a distillation of life rather than a narration of it." The author wrote for audiences who, he said, "come to the theatre not to be told something but to find something out for themselves."
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