Inheritors

Play

Writers: Susan Glaspell

Overview

Show Information

Category
Play
Number of Acts
4
First Produced
1921
Genres
Drama
Settings
Period, Multiple Settings
Time & Place
A farmhouse and a college campus in the Midwest, 1879 & 1920
Cast Size
large
Licensor
None/royalty-free
Ideal for
College/University, Community Theatre, Regional Theatre, Ensemble Cast
Casting Notes
Mostly male cast
Includes young adult, elderly, mature adult, adult characters

Synopsis

In 1879, an idealistic farmer named Silas Morton had big dreams for the land his family pioneered. Determined to give future generations the education he never got, he founded Morton College on his hilltop. 40 years later, Felix Fejevary the Second, son of Silas Morton’s close friend, is head of Morton’s board of trustees. He has big dreams, too - to turn Morton College into an elite university. But the state funding he needs is threatened when Madeline Morton, Fejevary’s niece and Morton’s granddaughter, is arrested while protesting alongside two Hindu students on campus. Amid intense anti-radical sentiment during the height of the first Red Scare, Madeline’s activism could cost her freedom, unless she’s willing to let her powerful uncle exert his influence. One of America’s earliest contemporary historical dramas, Glaspell wrote Inheritors contemporaneously as a vigorous defense of individual ideals and freedom of speech.

Lead Characters


Inheritors guide sections