Hannah Boreal Kanengieter is Cherie and Jackson Palmer is Bo in the Rep's production of "Bus Stop."
(Terry Cyr photo)

Montana Repertory Theatre brings "Bus Stop," William Inge's life-affirming comedy, to stages across the state this month.

As down-home characters interact in a street-corner restaurant during the course of a turbulent night, extraordinary qualities are revealed in seemingly ordinary people. Characters confront their own motivations, romance blossoms, and love banishes loneliness.

As Inge demonstrates in this winning tale, a lot can happen in a single night.

"Bus Stop" was made into a film in 1956 starring Marilynn Monroe and Don Murray. The play was Inge's biggest hit and his only out-and-out comedy.

"Bus Stop" truly exemplifies America's postwar awakening and introduces characters that have since become new cultural icons," says Greg Johnson, artistic director of the Rep. He believes Inge's American masterpiece "still speaks to us in the new century."

The play is rich with character and plot and delivers the compelling message that "we're all in this together."

"Bus Stop" shows that our lives are truly intertwined, that we affect each other in subtle and profound ways as we go about our daily lives," says Johnson. "Few playwrights are able to make the everyday universal and the commonplace the stuff of great theatre. Inge is one of these playwrights."

Johnson suggests that audiences "will find in him, as we have, a font of insight, tenderness, soulful understanding, great heart, and rollicking, life-affirming humor."

Jere Hodgin directs the production, which opens in Missoula and visits six other Montana communities before touring nationally from February-April.

On stage
Missoula: 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays, through Feb. 5 (no show Feb. 4), at the Montana Theatre in the University of Montana's PARTV Center (243-4581 or www.montanarep.org)

Plains: 7 p.m. Jan. 31 at the high school gym (826-3150 or 826-3600)

Helena: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 7 at the Myrna Loy Center (443-0287 or www.myrnaloycenter.com)

Lewistown: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 8 at Fergus High School Performing Arts Center (538-2410)

Great Falls: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 9 at the Mansfield Theater (455-8514 or ticketing.greatfallsmt.net)

Butte: 8 p.m. Feb. 10 at the Mother Lode Theatre (723-3602 or www.buttearts.org)

Billings: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 11 at the Alberta Bair Theater (877-321-2074, 256-6052 or www.albertabairtheater.org)



(click on photo to see more at LIVELYTIMES.COM)