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All Inge Dramas Echo Of Kansas
University Daily Kansan
At least four Broadway hits in the last few years echo the boyhood days in Kansas of one KU alumnus.
Pulitzer prize winning playwright, Bill Inge, class of '35, has used his Kansas background for his successful Broadway plays such as "Come Back, Little Sheba," "Bus Stop," "Picnic," and his latest, "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs."
Mr. Inge was born in Independence May 3, 1913, and spent his boyhood days there. He received his A. B. degree from KU in 1935. In 1955 he gained the KU Alumni Distinguished Service Citation.
He has said that he always had the ambition to be an actor, but gave up the idea after a moment of stage fright in an amateur production of "Our Town" three years after he was graduated from KU.
Mr. Inge first became interested in writing plays when he was working as a music-drama critic on the St. Louis Star-Times in 1944.
After an interview with Tennessee Williams he started toying with the idea of writing plays, and three years later he wrote his first play, "Farther Off From Heaven."
Mr. Inge said in a recent issue of Time magazine, "I seem to return to the Midwest not only because I know it, but because I find the regional speech more lyrical and familiar."
The first play was produced by a company in Dallas but never got to Broadway. He then started working with an earlier story about a black Scotty dog. The finished play was "Come Back, Little Sheba" produced in 1950.
For his second hit, "Picnic," he won the Pulitzer prize, the Donaldson Award, and the Drama Critics Prize in 1953. He returned
to KU in 1955 to help direct the production of "Picnic" put on by the University Theatre.
Mr. Inge said upon a later visit to KU last September that he was very favorably impressed with the new auditorium in the Music and Dramatic Arts Building. He said that the auditorium had one of the newest and finest stages in the country today.
WILLIAM INGE
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Religious Interest Rising
The growth of the University and people's deeper interest in religion have brought about the rise of interest in the religious organizations at KU, said Harold G. Barr; Dean of the School of Religion.
Dean Barr, in explaining the growth of the religious organizations on campus, said KU's growth has made expansion possible for groups that were very small 10 years ago. He also stressed the point that people today take more interest in religious activities than they did a few years ago.
Also the organizations have expanded as regular supervisors have taken over the leadership, Dean Barr said.
"Up to 10 years ago only two or three groups on campus had full time religious directors. Today there are 6 or 7 full time directors for these organizations. The groups that don't have full time supervisors have appointed faculty members to work with them and act as leaders." Dean Barr said.
The Episcopal organization was rather small until about eight years ago, Dean Barr said. About three or four years ago the organization called for a chaplain to help with the work. Today the organization has Canterbury House, the Episcopalian center.
He said the Jewish group had become quite active since World War II. as had the Catholic Newman club.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was a small organization a few years ago, he said, but it has grown to serve a great many students now.
Dean Barr said the Lutheran Student Assn. organization was not as large as a lot of the organizations, but it was very active in "keeping track of the Lutheran students."
Rev. Dale Turner, minister of the Plymouth Congregational Church, has done a lot for KU students, Dean Barr said. "Frobably the largest single group of KU students go to church there because of Rev. Turner's work with the students." Dean Barr said.
Dean Barr said the Student Religious Council is the center of the student religious organizations on campus. He said two representatives of every religious organization on campus make up the council. The group also has five counselors appointed to work with them. One is
appointed by the chancellor, one by the Catholics, one by the Protestants, one by the Jews and one by the KU religious advisers.
The main work of the council, Dean Barr said, was to plan the annual Religious Emphasis Week. The group also meets about once a month to gather ideas, talk over problems and see how they can help each other.
Richard E. Byrd and Floyd Bennett were the first men to fly over the Greenland ice cap. They did it in 1925.