| The Time of Your Life | |
|---|---|
 First edition 1939 | |
| Written by | William Saroyan |
| Date premiered | October 25, 1939 |
| Place premiered | Booth Theatre New York City,New York, United States |
| Original language | English |
| Genre | Drama |
| Setting | San Francisco bar, October 1939 |
The Time of Your Life is a 1939 five-act play by American playwrightWilliam Saroyan. The play is the first drama to win both thePulitzer Prize for Drama and theNew York Drama Critics Circle Award. The play opened onBroadway in 1939.
The play is set in Nick's Pacific Street Saloon, Restaurant and Entertainment Palace, a run-down dive bar in San Francisco. Much of the action of the play centers around Joe, a young loafer with money who encourages each of the bar's patrons in their eccentricities. Joe helps out a would-be dancer, Harry, and sets up his flunky, Tom, with a prostitute, Kitty Duval. The bar is frequented by a number of colorful characters, including a frenetic young man in love, an old man who looks like Kit Carson, and a wealthy society couple.
Nick's saloon is based on the café operated byIzzy Gomez in San Francisco, which Saroyan frequented.[1]
The play was produced by theTheatre Guild. It premiered onBroadway at theBooth Theatre on October 25, 1939, closed on January 27, 1940, and re-opened at the Guild Theatre on January 29, 1940 to April 6, 1940 and September 23, 1940 to October 19, 1940, for 249 performances.[2] Direction was byEddie Dowling, who also starred as Joe, and William Saroyan. The cast featuredJulie Haydon (Kitty Duval),Celeste Holm (Mary L.), Charles De Sheim (Nick), andGene Kelly (Harry).[2][3]
The Time of Your Life has been revived three times on Broadway: in 1940 with Dowling and Saroyan directing again, in 1969 directed byJohn Hirsch and in 1975 directed byJack O'Brien.
The play was revived on March 17, 1972 at theHuntington Hartford Theater in Los Angeles whereHenry Fonda,Richard Dreyfuss,Ron Thompson,Gloria Grahame,Strother Martin.Jane Alexander,Richard X. Slattery andPepper Martin were among the cast withEdwin Sherin directing.[4]
The play was adapted for film in 1948 withH. C. Potter directingJames Cagney as Joe and his sister,Jeanne Cagney as Kitty Duval. In 1958 an adaptation by A.J. Russell was presented in a live television broadcast directed by Tom Donovan with starsJackie Gleason,Jack Klugman, andDick York for thePlayhouse 90 series.
