Great Day in the Morning

Thomas Babe

Play Description

Thomas Babe's study of the Gilded Age is, in the author's words, “a little of this, a little of that, part musical, part tragedy, part melodrama.”

Production Info

Cast: 8 total (4 female, 4 male)
Full Length Drama (about 110 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Period Costumes

Categories: The Plays Tags: 19th Century

Reviews
About the Author(s)
About the Book
Special Notes

Press Quotes

“Thorstein Veblen’s theory of conspicuous consumption would find itself cozily vindicated in Thomas Babe’s GREAT DAY IN THE MORNING, a new play set in the fin de siecle that also manages to pull the chain of the Charles Keatings, Michael Milkens and other bandits of more recent times. Not that the elusive DAY … is that blunt about it or easy to peg. The author himself has called this sprawling opus ‘a little of this, a little of that, part musical, part tragedy, part melodrama’ and he should know. GREAT DAY is all of the above and more, drawing heavily for its inspiration from Elizabeth Wharton Drexel’s book King Lehr and the Gilded Age, but laced also with inventive helpings of Babe’s own brand of vitiating humor and sobering seriousness. The seriousness is personified in the fictionalized Wharton Drexel character, here called Bessie, the young, wealthy, recently widowed Philadelphian who moved to New York in the late 1800s in search of adventure. She found more of it than she bargained for in the shape of a curious new husband: glittery Harry Lehr who sang for his supper at all the ‘A’ parties of New York’s upper crust. To assess that tainted, extravagant whirl, Babe juxtaposes Elizabeth’s innocence with Harry’s decadence, tossing in various examples of the Rich (arrogant Caroline Astor, outree Mrs Stuyvesant Fish) and Famous (a gently wise-cracking Ulysses S Grant).” —Sylvie Drake, Los Angeles Times

“Only Thomas Babe could have written this play, imbued as it is with his special blend of magical realism, energized with his bold theatricality, empowered by his fluid, often poetic language, unabashed in its forays into romanticism and melodrama. It bears the Babe cachet. The playwright gives his imagination free rein, mixing fact, fiction and fantasy … It all works so well … GREAT DAY IN THE MORNING is playwright Babe in sure command of his powers. It glints with shards of coldly glittering brilliance, heartens with pockets of warmth and it always delights the senses …” —Polly Warfield, Drama-Logue

Author(s)

Thomas Babe
Thomas Babe (1941 – 2000) was an American playwright, "one of Joseph Papp's most prolific resident playwrights at the New York Shakespeare Festival," with seven of his plays premiered at the Public Theater. His work during the mid-1970s and through the 1980s explored many elements of American history and cultural mythology. He was fascinated by the concept of the traditional hero figure and the reality behind it. Although he started writing at a young age, Babe did not go into theatre until after earning other degrees at Harvard University, where he was Phi Beta Kappa; Cambridge, and Yale University Law School. Babe's works were regularly produced in New York City by Joseph Papp's Public Theater, as well as by regional theaters across the country. Papp produced a series of his plays in the 1970s and 1980s, including REBEL WOMEN (about the Civil War), TAKEN IN MARRIAGE with Meryl Streep, Colleen Dewhurst, Kathleen Quinlan, Elizabeth Wilson, and Ms. Carter; and BURIED INSIDE EXTRA, a newspaper drama starring Hal Holbrook and Sandy Dennis.

Book Information

Publisher	BPPI
Publication Date	9/1/1998
Pages	88
ISBN	9780881451443

Special Notes

If original stage producers credits appear in bold below, all licensees are required to include them in the following form on the title page in all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play and in all advertising in which the full cast appears in size of type not less than ten percent (10%) of the size of the title of the Play:

Originally produced by South Coast Repertory, Costa Mesa, CA

In addition, the following must appear within all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play:

Great Day in the Morning is produced
by special arrangement with Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NYC
www.broadwayplaypub.com