WATERFRONT REPORTER*
TERRY MALLOY, a youthful ex-pug, cousin of Johnny Friendly
JOEY DOYLE, activist dockworker (doubles with BARTENDER)
MUTT, a drunken waterfront derelict
waterfront goons
BARNEY
TRUCK
LITTLE FRANKIE
CHARLEY (THE GENT) MALLOY, Terry’s older brother
veteran longshoremen
POP DOYLE
RUNTY NOLAN
MOOSE
LUKE
TOMMY
JIMMY CONROY, Terry’s teenage protégé
FATHER PETE BARRY, waterfront priest
JOHNNY FRIENDLY, “pistol local” union boss
BIG MAC, Johnny’s hiring boss
“J.P.” MORGAN, Johnny’s loan shark
SKINS, Johnny’s bag man (doubles with GLOVER)
EDIE DOYLE, Pop’s daughter
GLOVER, a Crime Commission investigator
FATHER VINCENT O’MARA, senior priest in Fr. Barry’s church
BARTENDER
LONGSHOREMEN
INTERROGATORS’ VOICES (2)
*This play has been staged in two distinctly different ways: with fully realistic sets on Broadway or with stylized realism at the Cleveland Playhouse, and with minimal sets (a series of ramps on a virtually bare stage) at the Renegade Theater in Hoboken, New Jersey, and at Manhattan’s Theater Row Theater. With the latter, to help set the scenes, a Waterfront Reporter was added as intermittent narrator. This role may be eliminated if sets are used, although the Theater Row version is preferred.
The Waterfront Reporter was suggested by director Kelly Patton, whose minimalist approach proved especially effective in the Hoboken and Theater Row productions, where actors were used for minimal scene changes and music was used for segue of scenes and cross-fading of lights.
Although the collaborators worked harmoniously in developing the play, they had a creative difference of opinion regarding the closing scenes. Mr. Silverman prefers to end the play at the end of Scene 12, adding only Father Barry’s monologue which now opens Scene 13. Mr. Schulberg prefers including Scenes 13 and 14, essentially an Epilogue, if it is carefully and feelingly orchestrated.