Bab is a 1920 play by Edward Childs Carpenter, based on a 1916 series of magazine stories by Mary Roberts Rinehart, collected into book form in 1917.

The story concerns events in the life of Barbara "Bab" Archibald, a "sub-deb", a girl in the year before she makes her debut in society.

The play was produced by George C. Tyler and Arthur Hopkins, staged by Ignacio Martinetti, with Helen Hayes as the female lead.

It ran three months on Broadway and could have gone longer, but was forced to go on tour by prior scheduling and a lack of unteneted Manhattan theaters.

Lead Supporting Featured Off stage The play was colored by the then recent passage of the Volstead Act, which lent possession of alcohol an illicit air, and mention of drinking a clandestine glamor.

Bab opens her suitcase to show Jane a play she wrote at school, but it turns out to be filled with men's clothing and a whisky bottle.

Bab decides to invent a lover named Harold Valentine, to display her maturity, and enlists Eddie Perkins' help in carrying out the deception.

Eddie, trying to act grownup in front of the girls, smokes a cigar and becomes ill. Carter arrives with a new guest: the young man in the photo!

Mr. Archibald, tipped off by Carter, puts his arm around "Harold" and pronounces him a fine young man, fit for joining a good family.

After a talk, Bab learns Beresford has a contract from the British Government to award to Mr. Archibald's company, but didn't want to seem like he was trying to buy Leila.

Bab maneuvers her father so he no longer can see the doorway; Leila slips out unseen as the motorboat horn sounds.

Proving popular, they were collected into a book called Bab: A Sub-Deb[fn 2] in June 1917, which also included a previously unpublished story, "The G.A.C.".

[9] After a long summer hiatus, the producers scheduled only one tryout for the new cast of Bab, a week-long engagement at the Academy Theatre in Baltimore, starting September 27, 1920.

The local reviewer called the play "so light it is often non-essential" but said it was redeemed by the excellent cast, singling out Hayes, Tom Powers, Percy Haswell, and Sam Edwards.

George C. Tyler decided to replace the underperforming political comedy Poldekin at the Park Theatre,[15] in order to launch Bab on October 18, 1920.

[16][fn 3] The reviewer for The New York Herald expressed admiration for a more complex work than a "flapper" play might suggest, and especially for Helen Hayes, who they estimated must have had seventy percent of spoken lines.

[17] Heywood Broun had fears that Helen Hayes would be trapped by popular parts like this, when her talent suggested she should be playing more challenging roles.

[fn 4] He felt the incidents of the play were more amusing than the whole, and had good words for the performances of Tom Powers, Lillian Ross, and Stephen Davis.

They made a comparison of playwright Edward Childs Carpenter's treatment of adolescence with Booth Tarkington's Seventeen and Clarence and judged the former did well and "crowded a large amount of good fun into his play", though "The whole thing lacks subtlety".

He also cautioned Helen Hayes on the perils of "overstriving" in a part, and suggested she look at her colleague Tom Powers, whose performance was one of masterful understatement.