Bus Stop (play) - Characters

Characters

Bus Stop is a drama, with romantic and some comedic elements. It is set in a diner in rural Kansas, about 25 miles west of Kansas City, Missouri during a snowstorm from which bus passengers must take shelter. The characters are:

• Grace Hoylard — Owner of the diner, a "grass widow". She is fortyish, and pretty in a fading, hard-bitten way. She has a passionate side to her nature, loving a good fight and the attentions of a good man.
• Elma Duckworth - An intelligent, but naive and impressionable high school girl. She is Grace's waitress.
• Will Masters — The local sheriff. Tough as nails and brusque in manner, but goodhearted and a staunch Christian, described as a "deacon of his church". A highly "moral" man in the general sense of the word.
• Dr. Gerald Lyman — A college philosophy professor who is articulate and charming but cannot hold a position, partially due to his resistance to any kind of authority, and partially due to his unfortunate taste for young women. He also has an obvious drinking problem.
• Cherie — A pretty young woman who comes from a difficult "hill folk" background, and has left her innocence far behind. She is an aspiring nightclub singer, but has never worked in any establishment above the level of "cheap dive".
• Bo Decker — A brash young cowboy with boorish manners that hide a naivete almost as profound as Elma's. He has convinced himself that Cherie will be his bride, though Cherie wants nothing to do with him.
• Virgil Blessing — An older, wiser cowboy who has become a father figure to Bo (who was orphaned at the age of ten) as well as Bo's head ranch hand.
• Carl — The bus driver, who has an ongoing "just passing through" relationship with Grace. As referenced repeatedly, this is purely sexual in nature.