Bus Stop

William Inge’s play Bus Stop (1955) is a drama with tinges of comedy throughout. Set in a diner during a snowstorm in March 1955 in rural Kansas, thirty miles west of Kansas City, it involves a group of people waiting at a bus stop who are forced to seek shelter together against the harsh storm. The ensuing drama involves several romantic entanglements that are born from their impromptu overnight layover in a local diner.

The play opens in the diner. It is one o’clock in the morning, and the owner of the diner, Grace Hoylard, and her teenage waitress, Elma Duckworth, are waiting for the Kansas City-to-Wichita bus to arrive. The local sheriff, Will Masters, enters the scene and tells the two women that due to the blizzard, the roads have been closed, and the bus will have to remain in the parking lot of the diner until further notice. The bus…