plays like The Day the Whores Came Out to Play Tennis, as well as the three-act On the Runway of Life, You Never Know What's Coming Off Next. He was inspired to write Indians (1969) after reading a newspaper article of a shooting incident in Saigon. The play first opened in London to mixed reviews, before moving to Broadway. While Clive Barnes described the latter production in The New York Times as "a gentle triumph" and complimented Kopit for attempting a "multilinear epic", his colleague Walter Kerr likened it to "bad burlesque". John Lahr considered Indians to be the "most probing and the most totally theatrical Broadway play of this decade". The play was nominated for three Tony Awards (including for best play), in addition to a Pulitzer Prize for Drama nomination, but ran for only 96 performances. Kopit received $250,000 for the film rights. Wings and Nine Kopit relocated to Vermont in the early 1970s. He ventured into incorporating the carnival aspects of avant-garde theater from the previous decade into plays. He went on to teach at Wesleyan University around 1975. There, he wrote an improvisatory pageant lasting an entire day for the United States Bicentennial titled Lewis and Clark: Lost and Found. However, it came to nothing after the producer failed to raise the necessary funds. During this time, Kopit also created play cycles starting with "The Discovery of America". This was regarded by his friends as his "most imaginative work". After a nine-year hiatus from writing plays, Kopit produced Wings (1978). He was inspired by the recovery experience of his stepfather, who suffered a stroke in 1976 that left him unable to speak. The play debuted at The Public Theater, before shifting to Broadway the following year, where it ran for three months. It received three Tony nominations, with Constance Cummings (who played the main character) winning best actress. She also won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play and an Obie Award for her performance. The play was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, marking the second time Kopit's work was nominated for the award. Kopit worked with Maury Yeston on the musical Nine (1982), which was based on the film 8½ by Federico Fellini. Kopit was responsible for authoring the musical's book, which consisted of the dialogue and parts that were not sung. He revised it up to the time of its