The Time of Your Life is a 1939 five-act play by American playwright William Saroyan

William Saroyan

William Saroyan was an Armenian American dramatist and author. The setting of many of his stories and plays is the center of Armenian-American life in California in his native Fresno.-Early years:...

. The play is the first drama to win both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama

Pulitzer Prize for Drama

The Pulitzer Prize for Drama was first awarded in 1918.From 1918 to 2006, the Drama Prize was unlike the majority of the other Pulitzer Prizes: during these years, the eligibility period for the drama prize ran from March 2 to March 1, to reflect the Broadway 'season' rather than the calendar year...

 and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. The play opened 25 October 1939 at the Booth Theatre

Booth Theatre

The Booth Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 222 West 45th Street in midtown-Manhattan, New York City.Architect Henry B. Herts designed the Booth and its companion Shubert Theatre as a back-to-back pair sharing a Venetian Renaissance-style façade...

 in New York City. It was produced by the Theatre Guild

Theatre Guild

The Theatre Guild is a theatrical society founded in New York City in 1918 by Lawrence Langner, Philip Moeller, Helen Westley and Theresa Helburn. Langner's wife, Armina Marshall, then served as a co-director. It evolved out of the work of the Washington Square Players.Its original purpose was to...

 and with staging by Eddie Dowling

Eddie Dowling

Eddie Dowling was an American actor, screenwriter, playwright, director, producer, songwriter and composer....

, who also starred as Joe, and William Saroyan.
Main characters

• Joe, a loafer with money and a good heart
• Tom, his admirer, disciple, errand boy, stooge and friend
• Kitty Duval, a young streetwalker who longs for a better life
• Nick, owner of Nick's Pacific Street Saloon, Restaurant and Entertainment Palace
• Arab, an Eastern philosopher and harmonica-player
• Kit Carson, an old Indian-fighter
• McCarthy, an intelligent and well-read longshoreman
• Krupp, his boyhood friend, a waterfront cop who hates his job but doesn't know what else to do instead
• Harry, a natural born hoofer who wants to make people laugh but can't
• Wesley, a colored boy who plays a mean and melancholy boogie-woogie piano
• Willie, a marble-game maniac
• Dudley, a young man in love
• Elsie, a nurse, the one he loves
• Lorene, an unattractive woman
• Mary L., an unhappy woman of quality and great beauty
• Blick, a heel

Minor characters

• A Newsboy
• A Drunkard
• Nick's Ma
• Sailor
• Killer, a streetwalker
• Killer's sidekick
• Society Gentleman
• Society Lady
• Cops

The play is set in Nick's Pacific Street Saloon, Restaurant and Entertainment Palace, a run down dive bar in San Francisco.