The Watering Place

{{Short description|Play by Lyle Kessler}}

{{about||the 1777 painting by Thomas Gainsborough|The Watering Place (painting)}}

{{Redirect|Watering place|a facility for spa-goers to 'take the waters'|Destination spa||Watering hole (disambiguation)}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2025}}

{{Infobox play

| name = The Watering Place

| image =

| image_size =

| caption =

| writer = Lyle Kessler

| genre = Drama, Anti-War, Magic Realism

| setting = A house on the edge of an American City

| premiere = Mar 12, 1969

| place = Music Box Theatre

| orig_lang = English

}}

The Watering Place is a play written by Lyle Kessler.Funke, Lewis. "In Place of a Sun" NY Times, Sept 29, 1968, p. D1. His first full length, it debuted on Broadway, starring Shirley Knight and William Devane

Michael Langham, the initial director of the play, and future director at Juilliard, came to its producer Eugene Persson, and begged him to let him direct it. "Langham is known to be choosy and usually Producers hunt him down" an article in New York Magazine said at the time.New York Magazine Jan 20, 1969, p. 59

On February 17, 1969, Alan Schneider took over the role as director for The Watering Place.New York Times February 18th 1968, The opening was delayed until March 6.New York Times February 18, 1968,

The play closed the first day it opened, but Kessler believed the reason for its lack of success on Broadway had more to do with other variables than the merit of the play itself.

"....there were a lot of problems" Kessler said in an interview in 1990, "We'd had a change of directors, some of the casting wasn't right. And at the time, people didn't want to see anything about Vietnam."

Kessler, who went on to write Orphans, won a Rockefeller Foundation grant for The Watering Place.The president's five year review and annual report 1968 p. 111 The play has had segments published in a number of anthologies including Best Plays of 1969-1970 and Monologues--women: 50 speeches from the contemporary theatre, Volume 1Emerson, Robert. Monologues--women: 50 speeches from the contemporary theatre, Volume 1, 1976, p. 21 and memorabilia from the Broadway production are sold on eBay as collectors items.

Langham said The Watering Place is one of the most significant plays about America he has ever read.