Act One, Scene I

Inherit The Wind opens just after dawn on a July day that "promises to be a scorcher." The story centers around a schoolteacher who is on trial for teaching evolution the theory that man evolved from lower primates such as monkeys in his classroom, a violation of Tennessee's Butler Law. The lines are already drawn in this sleepy Southern town of Hillsboro, Tennessee. Creationism or evolution? Religion or science? The local minister's daughter, a young teacher named Rachel, visits her imprisoned colleague, Bert Gates, at the local jail. The Baltimore Herald newspaper has sent E. K. Hornbeck, the country's most famous columnist, to cover the trial, along with the nation's most famous trial lawyer, Henry Drunnmond to defend Bert. The town is abuzz with the impending arrival of the prosecution's lawyer, three-time Presidential candidate and self-proclaimed Bible expert Matthew Harrison Brady. It is clear...