A Local Love Story That Changed the Lives of Millions

In the snapshot taken of them on a flowery lawn in the spring of 1960, Bill and Lois Wilson, the respective co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon Family Groups, look sunny and peaceful, as if they've never had a care in the world. 

But the premiere of Bill & Lois Wilson: In Their Own Words tells the real story. The staging of the couple's letters to one another through their tumultuous and history-changing relationship, shows how the couple's heartbreaking journey led to the formation of a world-wide organization that has helped millions recover from alcoholism.

Bill & Lois Wilson: In Their Own Words, premiering on September 30, is a production of the Bedford Community Theatre and the Stepping Stones Foundation, the former Katonah home of the Wilsons, which has since been converted into a museum, a National Historic landmark and a pilgrimage site for the hundreds of thousands healed by the Wilsons' work. 

The concept for the play came from Annah Perch, the Executive Director of the foundation, and was carefully compiled and edited by Laurie Heffner Lewis of the Bedford Community Theatre. The two Katonah women worked meticulously for months to ensure that their creative collaboration accurately represente the themes and voices of the hundreds of archived letters the Wilsons penned to one another.

The letters are filled with passion, despair and redemption, and span the years from Bill's very first drink as an idealistic 22-year-old soldier prior to the First World War, to his last, 17 years later. 

They reveal the twisting, often painful, journey that lead them to the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous, Al-Anon, and the ubiquitous 12 step method, widely accepted as a significant cultural and social movement of recent times.

"Many people aren't familiar with [Bill and Lois'] work because of the inherent privacy of the organization and its niche audience," says Perch, "but Bill is truly one of the great thinkers of our time."

Despite this relative anonymity, the profound worldwide effect of Bill's work has earned him recognition as one of TIME Magazine's Top 100 Persons of the Century (1999), as well as Aldous Huxley's praise as the "greatest social architect of our time."

The couple's letters are being brought to life for the first time with music by Robert Kessler and Cary Brown, historical recordings of Bill playing the violin, images of the Bedford area in the mid-20th century, and a talented cast of local actors including Maya Kazan, John Jay graduate, Jake H. Lewis, June O'Neill, and Jim Smith.

So whether you are a "friend of Bill W." or just addicted to love, Bill & Lois: In Their Own Words is a must-have fall ticket.  And in a time when most marriages seem to only last from one weekly tabloid edition to the next, Perch agrees, "It's inspiring to hear the story of love lasting through the hardest of hardships…It's proof—it can happen!"

Performances will run from September 30 through October 3 at the Bedford Hills Community House, the meeting place of one of Bill Wilson's first A.A. chapters in the 1940's.  Tickets to the show's opening night on September 30 include a reception and special guest actors Anne Twomey as Older Lois and John Bedford LLoyd as Older Bill.

Though the play will initially run for only four days, it was carefully crafted by Lewis and Perch to be successfully replicated and replayed anywhere, for any audience, as the tenets of Alcoholics Anonymous are.

All proceeds will benefit the Stepping Stones Foundation and its digital archiving project.  Reserved seats are available on a first come first serve basis through the Stepping Stones website, www.steppingstones.org, or by calling (914) 232-4922.