pre-Broadway run in early 1950, Inge was filled with some doubt as to its success. He expressed in a letter to his sponsor in Alcoholics Anonymous, "If Sheba makes it in Hartford I guess it will go on to Broadway and if it doesn't I suppose I'll be back in St. Louis. If it does make it to Broadway, I don't know when I'll be back." Inge never had to return to St. Louis. In 1953, Inge received a Pulitzer Prize for Picnic, a play based on women he had known as a small child: When I was a boy in Kansas, my mother had a boarding house. There were three women school teachers living in the house. I was four years old, and they were nice to me. I liked them. I saw their attempts, and, even as a child, I sensed every woman’s failure. I began to sense the sorrow and the emptiness in their lives, and it touched me. Picnic had a successful Broadway run from February 19, 1953, to April 10, 1954. A film adaptation made in 1955 was directed by Joshua Logan and won two Academy Awards. In 1953, Inge's short play Glory in the Flower was telecast on Omnibus with a cast of Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, and James Dean. In 1955, his play Bus Stop premiered. Inge's inspiration of boy-pursuing-girl came from a similar situation he'd seen on a bus trip to Kansas City. Nominated for four Tony Awards including Best Play, it was made into a 1956 film starring Marilyn Monroe. In 1957 he wrote The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, an expansion of his earlier Farther Off from Heaven. The play was nominated for five Tony Awards, including Best Play, and was adapted as a film in 1960. His 1959 play A Loss of Roses, with Carol Haney, Warren Beatty, and Betty Field, was filmed as The Stripper (1963), with Joanne Woodward, Richard Beymer, and Claire Trevor, and a popular Jerry Goldsmith score. Natural Affection had the misfortune to open on Broadway during the 1962 New York City newspaper strike, which lasted from December 8, 1962, until April 1, 1963. Thus, few were aware of the play, and fewer bought tickets. It lasted only 36 performances, from January 31, 1963, to March 2, 1963. What theatergoers missed was a drama exploring themes of fragmented families and random violence. As