Off the Main Road by William Inge

(2)
Productions (3)
Drama
|
90 - 100 minutes
5 W, 6 M,  (10-13 actors possible: 4-5 W, 6-8 M)
Content Notes: Some adult content
Set: Single set, a cottage at an off-season resort in 1966.

Faye Garrit believes in hiding things. That's why after an incident with her abusive ex-baseball-player husband, she covers her black eye with makeup and lies low at an off-season resort, seeking to ease her creeping sense of aimlessness with pills and people. But everyone seems to reflect her stifled longing, from her serious teenage daughter, who struggles to reconcile first love with faith, to her friend Jimmy, who avoids the subject of love altogether as a gay man in 1960s Missouri. Faye can't hide forever, from her dangerous husband or her own desires, and she may not be able to control what happens when she's found. William Inge deploys the fierce empathy for his characters that makes him an essential American playwright in this passionate, newly-discovered drama.

Pricing Information

Min. Performance Fee* $85
Standard Edition $12.99
eScript Digital Edition $17.5
Stage Manager Edition $24.99

*The per performance fee begins at $85. Your per performance fee will be provided during the ordering process.

eScript Digital Editions are not printable.eScript Printable Editions are available as cast sets with performances only. See "eScript Details" below for more information.

Play Details

Faye Garrit believes in hiding things. That's why after an incident with her abusive ex-baseball-player husband, she covers her black eye with makeup and lies low at an off-season resort, seeking to ease her creeping sense of aimlessness with pills and people. But everyone seems to reflect her stifled longing, from her serious teenage daughter, who struggles to reconcile first love with faith, to her friend Jimmy, who avoids the subject of love altogether as a gay man in 1960s Missouri. Faye can't hide forever, from her dangerous husband or her own desires, and she may not be able to control what happens when she's found. William Inge deploys the fierce empathy for his characters that makes him an essential American playwright in this passionate, newly-discovered drama.

  • Drama
  • |
  • 90 - 100 minutes
  • 5 W, 6 M,  (10-13 actors possible: 4-5 W, 6-8 M)
  • Content Notes: Some adult content
  • Set: Single set, a cottage at an off-season resort in 1966.
  • Standard Edition ISBN: 978-1-68069-058-3

Published Reviews

"Set in the Midwest in 1966, Off the Main Road is at once a period piece and contemporarily relevant, the roles are meaty, and the language and ideas are elevated. Rich in its portrayal of the opportunities and limitations on women's lives in the period between the Eisenhower 1950s and the feminism coming in the 1970s."

Albany Times Union

"Inge is superlative at exploring the obsessions and blind spots in mother-daughter relationships; the play is filled with dialogue that is at times painfully insightful, often probing the vulnerability of American illusions."

The Arts Fuse

"For admirers of Inge, a chronicler of desperate American lives. . . . Off the Main Road provides a highly legible map of its creator's abiding preoccupations."

The New York Times

"Inge was always a master of the English language and in this play he is on top of his game. . . . Even as characters hold back they reveal more than they realize."

The Berkshire Edge

"Faye Garrit is an immediately recognizable William Inge woman: anxious, unmoored and yearning for something more. . . . [Inge provides] insight into three generations of women in a changing mid-century America."

Variety

Production History

MAY 04, 2018 - MAY 05, 2018
LakeVille High School Drama Club
Otisville, MI United States
LakeVille High School Drama Club Otisville, MI United States
NOV 10, 2017 - NOV 19, 2017
Curtain Calls Theatre
Creve Coeur, MO United States
Curtain Calls Theatre Creve Coeur, MO United States
JUN 30, 2015 - JUL 17, 2015
Williamstown Theatre Festival
Williamstown, MA United States
Williamstown Theatre Festival Williamstown, MA United States
No upcoming productions.
JUN 30, 2015 - JUL 17, 2015
Williamstown Theatre Festival
Williamstown, MA United States
Williamstown Theatre Festival Williamstown, MA United States

eScript Details

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