biography
| name: |
Green, Paul (Eliot)
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1894–1981)
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| biography:
| Playwright, born near Lillington, North Carolina, USA. After interrupting his studies at the University of North Carolina, where he was a student of Frederick Koch, for service in World War 1, he began to write plays about Southern rural people, often dealing with the problems of African-American as well as white poor folk. He won a Pulitzer for In Abraham's Bosom (1926), which ends in a lynching. His anti-war play, Johnny Johnson (1936), had accompanying music by Kurt Weill, and he dramatized Richard Wright's Native Son (1941) in collaboration with the author. Meanwhile, he had effectively invented what he called a ‘symphonic form of drama’ which used music, dance, mime, lighting, costumes, and any other theatrical elements to capture some episode or theme in American history. His first such work, The Lost Colony (1937), about the Lost Colony of Roanoke Island, NC, would remain his best known. He wrote a number of these historical pageants, usually produced outdoors only at the relevant site, but performed frequently. In addition to his plays, he wrote novels, essays, and film scripts while teaching at the University of North Carolina (1923–44) and serving as president of the American Folk Festival (1934–45). |
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