What is Filling Station (ballet)?
{{italictitle}} {{Infobox ballet | name = Filling Station | image = Virgil Thomson by Carl Van Vechten.jpg | image_size = 250px | caption = Virgil Thomson photographed by Carl Van Vechten, June 4, 1947 | choreographer = Lew Christensen | composer = Virgil Thomson | librettist = | based_on = Newspaper report | premiere = November 1937 | place = Hartford, Connecticut | ballet_company = Ballet Caravan | characters = Mac, station attendant<br />Ray, truck driver<br />Roy, truck driver<br />The State Trooper<br />The Motorist<br />The Motorist's Wife<br />The Motorist's Child<br />The Rich Boy<br />The Rich Girl<br />The Gangster | designer = Paul Cadmus | setting = Filling Station contemporary with the date of the ballet's creation | created_for = | genre = Ballet document | type = }} '''''Filling Station''''' is a one-act ballet. The [[libretto]] (story) is based on a newspaper report. Virgil Thomson wrote the music. Lew Christensen [[choreography|choreographed]] (designed) the dances. Christensen performed the role of Mac, the [[filling station]] attendant. Paul Cadmus designed the sets and costumes. The ballet was first performed in Hartford, [[Connecticut]] by Ballet Caravan in November 1937. A performance was given at the Martin Beck Theater in [[New York City]] on May 18, 1939, with Christensen again in the role of the attendant. Mac is a young, good-looking filling station attendant. His evening solitude is broken by two young and greasy but good-natured truck drivers. The State Trooper (policeman) enters in pursuit. He lectures the boys on their disregard for the [[speed limit]]. A brash motorist, his wife, and bratty child interrupt. The Rich Boy and The Rich Girl enter. They are drunken refugees from a country club dance. They rhumba and the others join them. Suddenly, a gangster enters shooting his gun. Mac, the truck drivers, and The State Trooper thwart his attempt to stage a robbery. The Rich Girl how