Inge began as a drama critic at the "St. Louis Star-Times" in 1943. With Tennessee Williams's encouragement, Inge wrote his first play, "Farther Off from Heaven" (1947), which was staged at Margo Jones' Theatre '47 in Dallas, Texas. As a teacher at Washington University in St. Louis between 1946 and 1949, he wrote "Come Back, Little Sheba". It ran on Broadway for 190 performances in 1950, winning Tony Awards for Shirley Booth and Sidney Blackmer. (The 1952 film adaptation won both an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Shirley Booth. Willy van Hemert directed a 1955 adaptation for Dutch television, and NBC aired another TV production in 1977.) During his time teaching at Washington University, Inge's struggles with alcoholism became more acute; in 1947, he joined Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). It was through AA that Inge met the wife of a member of his AA group whose name was Lola and, who through name as well as personal characteristics, was the person upon whom one of the lead characters in "Come Back, Little Sheba", "Lola", was based. Even as "Come Back, Little Sheba" was in a pre-Broadway run in early 1950, Inge was filled with some doubt as to its success. He expressed in a letter to his sponsor in Alcoholics Anonymous, "If "Sheba" makes it in Hartford I guess it will go on to Broadway and if it doesn't I suppose I'll be back in St. Louis. If it does make it to Broadway, I don't know when I'll be back." Inge never had to return to St. Louis.