BUS STOP

By: William IngeSet Design: Muhammad

H Iqbal

TIME LINE The play was written in 1955 by William Inge.

The 1950's were one of the most prosperous moments in American

History. This is the time period that many of your grandparents

grew up in. Many Americans escaped from the cities and moved to

the suburbs due to an increase in the size of the middle-class.

Bus Stop is a drama, with romantic and some comedic elements.

BACKGROUND

After WWII ended in 1945, the United States experienced a time of economic

prosperity. More Americans were able to purchase homes due to affordable

mortgages. Technological innovation brought about by the war combined with

disposable income allowed families to purchase items such as kitchen appliances

and televisions. People began to see themselves as consumers, buying many of the

products advertised on television and the radio that promised to make lives quick

and easy.

n the 1950s, the American public was also surrounded by crime in the news, and

television and radio often broadcast titillating stories about organized crime and

young offenders. Crime was not just an issue in the big cities, however, and small,

rural towns relied upon their sheriffs to keep the peace and enforce the law.

William Inge, who was born and raised in southeastern

Kansas, once observed that “nowhere can we find a closer

correlation of landscape and character” than here in the

heart of the nation. He saw in Midwesterners a humility and

a quiet, resilient strength that comes from having one’s life

and prosperity depend on the unpredictable extremes of

weather, living under a sky “which can destroy a season’s

crops in a few hours by hail or blizzards or tornadoes, or a

relentlessly burning sun that can desiccate the land like an

Old Testament curse.”

LOCALE

TYPE OF THEATER

A play of this type which

has just one setting, set

inside a local diner, I

would choose a

proscenium stage, which

creates a window around

the performance, giving

the audience a perfect

view.

A freak snowstorm has halted the progress of

the bus, and the eight characters (five on the bus)

have a weather-enforced layover in the diner from

approximately 1 to 5 a.m. Romantic or quasi-

romantic relationships ensue between Grace and

Carl, Professor Lyman and Elma and Cherie and

Bo. Virgil and Will are the older authority figures

outside the relationships.

Environment

“Outside, the powerful, reckless wind comes and goes, blasting against everything in its path, seeming to shake the very foundation of the little restaurant building; then subsiding, leaving a period of uncertain stillness”.

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.

SET ELEMENTS

It is an old establishment with few modern

improvements. It is 1:00 a.m. on a night in early

March and a near blizzard is storming outside.

Inside, by comparison, the scene is warm and

cozy. Two women, in uniforms that have lost their

starched freshness, are employed behind the

counter.

My view of the Set

THE This would be an ideal set for this play. The diner is set in a small town outside of Kansas from the 1950’s. Since the diner is set in rural Kansas, the lighting building fixtures will be a little rugged. Dark walls, with less light illumination would set a perfect tone for this setting

SET DESIGN OF THE DINER

Chrome and dark colors are essential design elements in

a retro-style kitchen.

The walls and fabric used for window treatments should

also be dull and dirty looking. Color schemes for 1950s

diner would compromise of light wall colors and dark floor

tiles.

Appliances were colorful in the 1950s

Kitchen Appliances would include: chrome toaster on

your retro-color Formica counter top, chrome bread box,

tea kettle and vintage electric percolator to your kitchen

accessory display

The floor themes

in diners from the

50’s were bright

and square multi

colored tiles. For

my production I

have chosen to go

with black and

white tiles since our

diner is set in a

rural area with

wood furniture

SET APPLIANCES

While this impression of a spotless diner with chrome fixtures, twirling bar stools, and a polished counter may have been accurate in some parts of the country, the diner from Bus stop is more old fashioned with a raggedy look with modern improvements.

SET FURNITURE

SET FURNITURE

A wooden table is a major

part of a retro kitchen

design. striving for a retro

diner décor, I will place

wooden tables across the

diners to give it more of a

diner-like appearance in the

rural areas.

On those chrome tables, we can place a chrome

napkin holder,  chrome toothpick holder, vintage salt

and pepper shakers, a sugar shaker and old

fashioned straw dispenser