The Dormitory

Drama with humor
By Burton Bumgarner
5 m, 3 w (all play multiple roles)
Eldridge Plays and Musicals

On the campus of a small liberal arts college, one dormitory has served as a home to students for over a hundred years. The play opens in the present when two college freshmen, Jake and Clay, become roommates during the year before the dorm is scheduled to be torn down. Their story is interwoven with a century of college antics and hijinks, hopes and tragedies, as the previous residents act out their moments in the same dorm room. We meet the dormitory's occupants from the early days of the century, the Great Depression, the second World War, the early days of rock and roll, and the turbulent '60s. Each story leaves behind a memento for the puzzled Jake and Clay. Though rules and times change, it becomes clear that the residents have their effects on one another and that history creates the present.