The Hero of Santa Maria; a ridiculous tragedy in one act

[edgeworn and moderately soiled, small damaged patch in front gutter (no text affected)]. (The Stage Guild Plays, No. 1) Series A one-act comedy set in Indiana, about a man who, with the collaboration of his son (an Army deserter and general ne'er-do-well, who is falsely reported to have been killed in battle along the Mexican border) and his brother, connives to defraud the government into granting him a pension as a veteran of the Civil War, even though he never actually served. Kenneth Sawyer Goodman was a Chicago-born playwright; a Princeton graduate and the son of a millionaire lumber baron, he was involved in Chicago's Little Theatre movement, and was the author of numerous one-act plays, which ranged from light comedy to melodrama to social criticism. Ben Hecht fell in with him early in his career, and together they wrote a number of what Hecht, in his autobiography, called "sane and practical little plays." Although the publication states that this particular piece "was originally presented by the Washington Square Players, at the Comedy Theatre, New York, on the night of February 12th, 1917," that's actually not true: it was first staged in Chicago in late September 1916, one of several one-acts by Goodman and Hecht to be presented in Chicago that year. The publisher Frank Shay's "Stage Guild Plays" seems to have been a carrying-on of Goodman's legacy, since by the time this "No. 1" was published in 1920, Goodman himself was dead, having perished of pneumonia in November 1918, at the age of 35 -- and yet, of the eighteen available plays published under this banner (listed in an ad near the back of this one), sixteen were written or co-written by him. As an even more substantial tribute, Goodman's father established the Goodman Theatre, which opened in 1925 as part of the Art Institute of Chicago, and still operates today as the city's oldest nonprofit theater company, with a distinguished history of award-winning productions.

Product Info

Publisher: Frank Shay

Year: (c.1920)

Type: Used

Binding: Softcover

First Edition

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