Summer Brave

Infobox Play
name = Summer Brave


image_size = 150px
caption = Original "Playbill" cover
writer = William Inge
chorus =
characters =
mute =
setting = Kansas
premiere = October 26, 1975
place = ANTA Playhouse
orig_lang = English
series =
subject =
genre = Comedy-drama
web =
playbill =
ibdb_id = 3763
iobdb_id =

"Summer Brave" is a play by William Inge, a revision of his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1953 play "Picnic". Set in a small town in Kansas in the early 1950s, it focuses on Hal Carter, an attractive young stranger who drifts into town just before the annual Labor Day celebration and sets off a chain of events that prompts various residents to reflect on the present and contemplate an unpromising future. Of it, Inge said, "A couple of years after "Picnic" had closed on Broadway, after the film version had made its success, I got the early version out of my files and began to rework it, just for my own satisfaction. "Summer Brave" is the result. I admit that I prefer it to the version of the play that was produced [originally] , but I don't necessarily expect others to agree . . . I feel that it is more humorously true than "Picnic", and it does fulfill my original intentions." [ [http://www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=3763 "Summer Brave" at the Internet Broadway Database] ]

The Broadway production was staged two years after Inge's death. Directed by Michael Montel, it was not a success. After three previews, it opened on October 26, 1975 at the ANTA Playhouse and closed after 18 performances. Ernest Thompson, who later won fame as the writer of "On Golden Pond", starred as Hal Carter. The supporting cast included Nan Martin, Alexis Smith, Jill Eikenberry, Miles Chapin, and Peter Weller.

References

External links

*ibdb|3763
* [http://books.google.com/books?id=1pKYt515GHoC&pg=PT1&lpg=PT1&dq=%22Summer+Brave%22+by+William+Inge&source=web&ots=0Jqyol_cns&sig=nM3rQNT34_o1N3MlLr89LDBFPvY&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result "Summer Brave" at Google Books]
* [http://www.ernestthompson.net/SummerBrave.html "Summer Brave" at ErnestThompson.net]