Paul Green

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Green, Paul [Eliot] (1894–1981), North Carolina playwright, professor at the state university, began his career with the Carolina Playmakers and was the author of many one‐act plays about blacks. Collections have been issued as The Lord's Will and Other Carolina Plays (1925), Lonesome Road (1926), and In the Valley (1928). Perhaps the best known of his one‐act plays is Hymn to the Rising Sun (1936), an indictment of prison‐camp conditions. In Abraham's Bosom (1927, Pulitzer Prize) is a long play about the lives of blacks, based on his earlier play (1924) of this title and Your Fiery Furnace (1932). Other full‐length plays include The Field God (1927), about repressed, deeply religious poor whites; Tread the Green Grass (1929), a folk play; Roll, Sweet Chariot (1934), presenting the tragic spirit and philosophy of black people; The House of Connelly (1931), concerned with the decadence of Southern planters; Johnny Johnson (1937), a musical play written with Kurt Weill; The Lost Colony (1937), produced annually on Roanoke Island, a historical pageant of the early settlement there; Native Son (1941), a stage adaptation with Richard Wright of the latter's novel; and The Highland Call (1941), a historical play of life in the Carolinas using folk music; and other so‐called symphonic dramas, including The Common Glory (1947), Faith of Our Fathers (1950), The Confederacy (1958), and The Stephen Foster Story (1959). Out of the South (1939) is a collection of 15 previously published plays; Wide Fields (1928), Salvation on a String (1946), Home to My Valley (1969), and Land of Nod (1976) collect stories. This Body the Earth (1935) is a novel about the tragic lives of sharecroppers. The Hawthorn Tree (1943), Drama and the Weather (1958), and Plough and Furrow (1963) gather essays.

Green, Paul Eliot (1894–1981), American dramatist, born on a farm, who gained a knowledge of Negro folk-life from working in the fields, and used it in his plays. Early in his career he wrote almost 40 one-act plays, mainly produced by the Carolina Playmakers, on the problems of Negroes and poor whites in the American South. His first full-length play In Abraham's Bosom (1926), which deals with the frustrated attempts of an ambitious but illiterate Negro, son of a white man, to start a school for Negro children, culminating in his murder at the hands of an infuriated mob, was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for its imagination, sympathy, and power. Other full-length plays include The Field God (1927), on religious repression, Tread the Green Grass (1929), The House of Connelly (1931), the first independent production by the Group Theatre, Johnny Johnson (1936), with music by Kurt Weill, and an adaptation of Richard Wright's novel Native Son for a production by Orson Welles in 1941. In 1937 Green wrote The Lost Colony (produced at Roanoke Island, NC), the first of 15 ‘symphonic dramas’ celebrating American history, all designed to be performed out-of-doors in specially built amphitheatres and using professionals with local amateurs. They include The Founders (Williamsburg, Va., 1957), Trumpet in the Land (New Philadelphia, Ohio, 1970), and Louisiana Cavalier (Natchitoches, La., 1976). Many of these productions have become annual events in their localities.

Paul Green 1894–1981, American dramatist, b. Lillington, N.C., grad. Univ. of North Carolina, 1921. He is known for his realistic plays depicting the lives of blacks and white tenant farmers. His first full-length play, In Abraham's Bosom (1926; Pulitzer Prize) was followed by such works as The Field God (1927), The House of Connelly (1931), Johnny Johnson (with music by Kurt Weill, 1936), and Native Son (with Richard Wright, 1941). Green also wrote short stories and novels. His essays on the theater were collected in The Hawthorn Tree (1943), Dramatic Heritage (1953), and Drama and the Weather (1958).

Bibliography: See his Five Plays of the South (1963); study by B. H. Clark (1974).