Bill W. and Dr. Bob at HATTheatre

Bill W. and Dr. Bob, by Samuel Shem and Janet Surrey, recounts the inspiring, and often humorous, true story of Bill Wilson and Dr. Robert Smith, two men whose friendship ultimately led to the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous. Together with their wives, Lois Wilson and Anne Smith, who went on to develop Al-Anon, their discoveries have touched and saved countless lives since the program’s inception. Bill W and Dr. Bob debuted in 2007 with an award-winning run Off-Broadway before moving across the country with record-breaking performances in over 30 states in the U.S, Australia, Canada, and England. During the roaring '20s, New York stockbroker Bill Wilson rides high on money, fame, and booze. In '29, both he and the market crash and he becomes a hopeless drunk. Dr. Bob Smith, a surgeon in Akron, Ohio, and a pillar of the community, has been a secret drunk for thirty years, often going into the operating room hungover and high on sedatives. His family has tried everything to no avail. Through an astonishing series of events involving doctors, ministers, the Oxford Group evangelical movement, and Henrietta Sieberling a scion of the Goodyear Rubber fortune, Bill and Bob meet on Mother's Day of 1935. The two men form a relationship which keeps each sober. Fired up, they seek out a third drunk to see if their program will work for others. Richly textured with the ragtime and jazz of the era, the play tells a magnificent American success story.