"On The Bum, or The Next Train Through" by Neal Bell

The Story of the Play

On The Bum, or The Next Train Through is a very clever play written by contemporary American playwright Neal Bell. The play premiered in New York in 1992.  Its story takes place in 1938, a time when the Great Depression had caused hardship on a massive scale across the American population, yet this play is filled with bright, witty characters and is rich with comical scenes.  It tells a story of a young woman, Eleanor Ames, who is struggling to start an acting career in New York.  Before Eleanor gets her chance to open in a play on Broadway, the producers declare bankruptcy and the show folds in rehearsal.  On the same day that this door closes for Eleanor another – albeit very different door – opens.  She is presented with the option of taking an acting job for the WPA at a salary of twenty three dollars a week if only she can get herself to the Midwest to the tiny fictional town of “Bumfork.’  There a local woman has written a play about a time many years before when the Bum River flooded and destroyed much of the town. It’s not what Eleanor had in mind when she dreamed of becoming an actor, but, without a penny in her pocket, she hops a freight train to Bumfork, meets the few other WPA theatre workers who will be rehearsing the play as well as a number of the town’s citizens.  Eleanor learns a little about the real history of this town flood and a lot about how risky choices made by a few people of wealth can create a calamity for others who have little means to cope.

 

Playwright– Neal Bell

Neal Bell’s plays have been produced Off-Broadway in New York as well as in Regional Theatres across the U.S.  His other works include Two Small Bodies, Raw Youth, Spatter Pattern, Cold Sweat, Ready  for the River, Ragged Dick, Somewhere In The Pacific, Monster, and, his recently premiered work, Now You See Me.  He is the recipient of an Obie Award as well as grants from both the Rockefeller and Guggenheim Foundations.

 

The Actors in Rehearsal

 

 

 

 

The Art of Costuming

 

 

 

 

Setting the Scene

 

 

 

 

Dress Rehearsal 

 

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