''The Watering Place'' is a play written by
Lyle Kessler.
[Funke, Lewis. "In Place of a Sun" NY Times , Sept 29, 1968 , p. D1.] His first full length,
it debuted on Broadway, starring
Shirley Knight
Shirley Knight Hopkins (July 5, 1936 – April 22, 2020) was an American actress who appeared in more than 50 feature films, television films, television series, and Broadway and Off-Broadway productions in her career, playing leading and charac ...
and
William DevaneMichael Langham
Michael Seymour Langham (22 August 1919 – 15 January 2011) was an English director and actor, who spent much of his career living and working in Canada and the United States.
He was educated at Radley College and studied law at the Universi ...
, the initial director of the play, and future director at
Juilliard, came to its producer
Eugene Persson
Eugene Clair "Gene" Persson (January 12, 1934 – June 6, 2008) was an American actor, theatrical and film producer, best known for his work as the co-producer and co-creator of the original 1967 production of the Broadway musical comedy, ''You ...
, and begged him to let him direct it. "Langham is known to be choosy and usually Producers hunt ''him'' down" an article in New York Magazine said at the time.
On February 17, 1969,
Alan Schneider
Alan Schneider (December 12, 1917 – May 3, 1984) was an American theatre director responsible for more than 100 theatre productions. In 1984 he was honored with a Drama Desk Special Award for serving a wide range of playwrights. He directed th ...
took over the role as director for ''The Watering Place''. The opening was delayed until March 6.
The play closed the first day it opened, but Kessler believed the reason for its lack of success on
Broadway had more to do with other variables than the merit of the play itself.
"....there were a lot of problems" Kessler said in an interview in 1990, "We'd had a change of directors, some of the casting wasn't right. And at the time, people didn't want to see anything about Vietnam."
Kessler, who went on to write ''
Orphans
An orphan (from the el, ορφανός, orphanós) is a child whose parents have died.
In common usage, only a child who has lost both parents due to death is called an orphan. When referring to animals, only the mother's condition is usuall ...
'', won a Rockefeller Foundation grant for The Watering Place. The play has had segments published in a number of anthologies including ''Best Plays of 1969-1970'' and ''Monologues--women: 50 speeches from the contemporary theatre, Volume 1''
[Emerson, Robert. Monologues--women: 50 speeches from the contemporary theatre, Volume 1, 1976 , p. 21] and memorabilia from the Broadway production are sold on eBay as collectors items. Current used copies of ''The Watering Place'' go for as much as 130 dollars online.
Lengham said ''The Watering Place'' is one of the most significant plays about America he has "ever read"
Plot
See also
*
List of plays with anti-war themes
Notes
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Watering Place
Broadway plays
1969 plays
Anti-war plays
Plays by Lyle Kessler