First published as a book by Ken Kesey in 1962, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was inspired by Kesey's job as an orderly at a veteran's hospital and by the 1960s counterculture movement touting such themes as freedom, rebellion and fearlessness. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is Dale Wasserman's adaptation of the novel.
The play is told through the eyes of Chief Bromden, an American Indian. It presents Randle Patrick McMurphy, a rebellious inmate of a the psychiatric hospital who fights back against authorities cold attitudes of institutional superiority, personified by Nurse Ratched and her staff. It's the classic antiestablishment tale of one man asserting his individuality in the face of a repressive, conformist system. The play is populated with memorably eccentric characters, which capture the qualities of human nature - playfulness, courage, inspiration, pride, stubbornness -that are universal.

Place : The day room in a ward of a state mental hospital somewhere in the Pacific Northwest