In 1929, famous New York stockbroker Bill Wilson crashes with the stock market and becomes a hopeless drunk. Dr. Bob Smith, a surgeon from Ohio, has also been an alcoholic for thirty years, often going into the operating room with a hangover. Through an astonishing series of events, Bill and Bob meet and form a relationship, each helping to keep the other sober. This is the amazing and often humorous story of the two men who pioneered Alcoholics Anonymous, as well as the story of their wives, who founded Al Anon.

Stephen Bergman (who also writes novels under the name Samuel Shem) and Janet Surrey are on the faculties of the Harvard Medical School and the Stone Center at Wellesley College. Together they have created BILL W. AND DR. BOB, a play richly evocative of the Depression era, which tells a magnificent and classic American success story.

Photo: Robert Krakovski and Patrick Husted. Photo by Charles Erickson