William Inge's 1955 play Bus Stop is perhaps best known as an award-winning film starring Marilyn Monroe. Directed by Keith Langsdale, the version staged at West Springfield's Majestic Theater aims to strip the play down to its basic elements and to let the story and characters shine without the flavoring of Hollywood's influence. The play features actors from the Pioneer Valley and surrounding areas, including Theatre Project veteran Amy Rist, who has been cast as leading lady Cherie. Bus Stop involves a host of disparate characters who have been thrown together in a late-night diner in the rural Midwest during a fierce snowstorm. As the characters take refuge from the elements, a new threat brews inside the diner: romance.
March 12-April 5, $19-27, curtain times vary, Majestic Theater, 131 Elm St., West Springfield, (413) 747-7797, www.majestictheater.com.
