Willaim Inge Essay, Research Paper

Word Count: Darren Haviland #12

Math. Ed Soph. ITL 1-2

Born in the USA. Sept 18, 2000

Cum. Ave: 2.9 F-Comp:B.

Inge: Early Success/Surprising Death

Enjoying Inge?s play The Bus Stop I wanting to know more about Inge?s life. So I went to the computer lab and found several web pages about Inge that interested me. Then After reading each one carefully I wanted to write this short story in my own words about Inge?s small town life and surprising death.

William Inge was born in Independence, Kansas, on May 3, 1913. At an early age he wanted to get his first taste of theater. During boy scouts Inge and the troupe held meeting in a two thousand-seat theater. Once a month the scouts were invited to watch the latest play from the balcony.

To my surprise, Inge living in a small town of Independence influenced him to study the living conditions of people in big cities. Inge discovered people who grow up in small towns get to each other better then people in big cities. Because of this, he uses small towns as the setting of his plays. Even the characters came from those small towns just like William?s town of Independence.

After easily passing high school Inge went to University of Kansas at Lawrence. In 1935 he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in speech and drama. After getting his masters degree he landed a job as the drama and music critic for the St. Louis Times. This job gave him the opportunity to meet Tennessee Williams a famous play writer and critic. He invited Inge to attend a production of The Glass Menagerie with him. After watching the play William decided to try play writing himself.

In 1950 Inge?s first successful play was Come Back Little Sheba. After gaining momentum with this play he followed his success with Picnic in 1952, which won many awards. The Bus Stop was Inge?s next astonishing play in 1955. Two years later his next play Top of the Stairs premiered on Broadway. This play was considered to be Inge?s finest Achievement.

His later work was considered failures compared to his early work. Being depressed because of this Inge started showing signs of depression. Not being able to handle failure, William Inge took his own life on June 10, 1973.

Researching this famous play writer really gave me a better understanding of William Inge?s writing style and where his small town setting came from. It?s really depressing to see such a genius play writer kill himself over a couple of bad plays. I feel depression was a common illness in his family but found nothing to prove my theory. I?m really curious about his death so if you know any information about his tragic death please share it with me. This concludes my paper on William Inge thank you for taking the time to listen to the life of this prominent play writer.