Green, Paul, 1894-1981

Paul Eliot Green(1894-1981) was a Southern playwright, poet, and novelist. Born in Lillington, North Carolina, Green lived in the state all of his life and tried to capture in his writings the culture and heritage of the American South, concentrating on the experiences of tenant farmers, mill workers, Native Americans and African Americans. Green studied at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill under folk dramatist Frederick Koch of the Carolina Playmakers. After an interruption of his college career to serve with the armed forces during World War I, he returned to Chapel Hill and graduated in 1921. Green was married to Elizabeth Atkinson Lay in 1922. From 1923 to 1944, and again from 1962 to 1963, Green served on the faculty at UNC Chapel Hill, first as professor of philosophy, then dramatic arts, and later of radio, television and motion pictures. He wrote and published numerous one-act and full-length plays, novels, short stories, essays and articles, motion-picture scripts and radio plays. He also edited The Reviewer, a periodical, from 1921 to 1925. Green was recognized with several literary honors. In 1927, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for In Abraham's Bosom, his play dealing with racism in the South, and in 1965 he was the recipient of the North Carolina Achievement Award. In 1937, Green was asked to write a play as part of the 350th anniversary celebration of the landing of the first English colonists in the "New World." He used this opportunity to tell the story of The Lost Colony in an emerging format, the symphonic drama. This type of play was commonly produced throughout the South during the warmer summer months, and was based on the principles of Greek drama. Green was in favor of integration, and he expressed his social concerns through his plays and writings. From the 1920s onward, he devoted his time, energy, and financial resources to supporting basic civil rights for African Americans and Native Americans. He also spoke out for for the poor, uneducated, and imprisoned, and opposed the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union. He was later quick to demonstrate his opposition to the American presence in Vietnam. Several of Green's works were inspired by his interest in social issues, among them Cabin in the Cotton (1932), Hymn to the Rising Sun (1936), and Wilderness Road (1955). Paul Green lived in Chapel Hill until his death in 1981.

Paul Eliot Green was a writer with the Federal Theater Project from Chapel Hill, N.C.

Paul Green, playwright.

Paul Green (1894-1981) was a North Carolina playwright. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his 1927 play, In Abraham's Bosom . He is also known for creating a new dramatic form that he called "symphonic drama." Inspired by historical events, it incorporated music and pageantry, usually for outdoor performance. The Louisiana Cavalier was one of Green's outdoor play dramas. It was produced by the Louisiana Outdoor Drama Association and opened in the Grand Ecore Ampitheatre at Natches, Louisiana on June 16, 1976 and ran until 1979. This drama focused on Louis Junchereau St. Denis (1676-1744), a French-Canadian soldier and explorer who was most known for his exploration and development of the Louisiana and Texas regions.

Paul Eliot Green (1894-1981), of Chapel Hill, N.C., was an author, Pulitzer prize-winning playwright, and humanitarian.

Playwright.

Playwright, teacher.

Writer, Federal Theater Project; Chapel Hill, N.C.

Paul Eliot Green (1894-1981) was born near Lillington, N.C., and attended the University of North Carolina and Cornell University. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War I, he taught at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1923 to 1963, first as instructor in philosophy and later as professor of dramatic art. Primarily known as a playwright and screenwriter, he also wrote novels, short stories, essays, songs, lyrics and libretti; in 1927 he won the Pulitzer Prize in drama for his play In Abraham's bosom. He served as president of the American Folk Festival from 1934 to 1945, president of the North Carolina State Literary and Historical Association from 1942 to 1943, and director of the American National Theater Academy from 1959 to 1961. In 1979 Green was named Dramatist Laureate of North Carolina. He died in Chapel Hill, N.C.

Prolific writer Paul Eliot Green was born on March 17, 1894 near Lillington, North Carolina, the son of farmers William Archibald Green and Betty (Byrd) Green. Green attended Buie's Creek Academy (now Campbell College), graduating in 1914; the University of North Carolina, graduating in 1921; and did graduate work at Cornell University (1922-1923). He married Elizabeth Atkinson Lay on July 6, 1922, and they had four children: Paul E. Green, Jr., Byrd Green Cornwell, Betsy Green Moyer, and Janet Green Catlin.

During World War I, Green served in the United States Army in Belgium and France, and became second Lieutenant.

Between 1923 and 1963, Green taught philosophy, dramatic art, and television and film at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Many of Green's writings focus on race, most notably In Abraham's Bosom . He also collaborated with Richard Wright to adapt the novel Native Son for the stage.

Paul Green has won several awards for his writings, including the Belasco Cup in 1925 for The No 'Count Boy and the Pulitzer Prize in drama in 1927 for In Abraham's Bosom .

Paul Eliot Green died 1981.

Source: Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2003.

[The following essay is a slightly adapted version of a sketch by William S. Powell, published in Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, volume 2, pp. 358-359 (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1986), and used with permission. It is followed by a list of works by Paul Green prepared by Rhoda Wynn in 1976, also slightly adapted.]

PAUL ELIOT GREEN, dramatist, author, and teacher, was born on 17 March 1894 in Harnett County, North Carolina, the son of William Archibald and Betty Lorine Byrd Green. He grew up on his father's farm engaging in the labors and pleasures of rural life. For a time he played minor-league baseball for a team in Lillington and was widely acclaimed as a pitcher because he was ambidextrous. Music also was an important part of his life. His mother bought an organ and taught her children to play. Green taught himself to play the violin and later composed music for his plays. After graduation from nearby Buies Creek Academy in 1914, he worked to earn money for college and entered The University of North Carolina in 1916. As a freshman he wrote poems that were published in The Carolina Magazine, and he was the author of the play produced by the seniors at commencement.

In April 1917, before finishing his first year at the university, Green enlisted in the army for service in World War I. Before leaving for France he published at his own expense a thin volume of poems, Trifles of Thought by P.E.G., because he was not certain that he would survive the war to pursue the literary career of which he dreamed. Young Green rose rapidly through the ranks from private to corporal, sergeant, and sergeant-major with the 105th Engineers, 30th Division; afterwards he was commissioned second lieutenant with the Chief of Engineers in Paris. During a year's service at the front in Belgium and France, he participated in several months of heavy combat in the trenches. This experience had a lasting effect on him, though he was always reluctant to speak about it. He returned to the university in 1919 and graduated with a major in philosophy in 1921. Green studied under Frederick H. Koch, a newly arrived member of the faculty, who had organized the Carolina Playmakers in 1918. The new professor encouraged Green and others to write "folk plays" based on local subjects and their own experiences. Plays by his students, including many by Paul Green, were produced. One of the students, Elizabeth Lay, daughter of the Reverend George Lay, rector of St. Mary's College in Raleigh, married Green on 6 July 1922. After a year of graduate study in philosophy under Professor Horace Williams in Chapel Hill, Green went to Cornell University for further graduate work and in 1923 became an assistant professor of philosophy at The University of North Carolina. He remained in that department until 1939, when he became a professor of dramatic art. In 1944, he resigned to devote full time to writing.

Throughout his twenty-one years as a professor, Green wrote plays as well as short stories, novels, and poetry. Although many were produced by the Carolina Playmakers in Chapel Hill, some were produced in Washington, D. C., New York, and elsewhere. In 1927 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for In Abraham's Bosom produced at the Garrick Theater in New York. His other Broadway plays included The House of Connelly, Roll Sweet Chariot, Johnny Johnson, and Native Son .

For many years Paul and Elizabeth Green collaborated with others in the production of The Literary Lantern, a newspaper column of book reviews and book news. In 1925, Green became editor of The Reviewer, a literary journal. He also contributed to newspapers, particularly the Raleigh News and Observer . Travel for educational purposes occupied some of his time. In the summer of 1926 he was at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, and, while on leave of absence as a Guggenheim Fellow in 1928 and 1929, he studied the theatre in Germany and England. In 1951, supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, he traveled and studied the theater in Japan and elsewhere in the Orient.

After seeing the motion picture, The Birth of a Nation, in 1915, Green anticipated the development of this medium as a true art form. He welcomed the opportunity in 1932 to go to Hollywood, Calif., under contract to Warner Brothers to write scripts for motion pictures. For various lengths of time and for different companies, including Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he wrote scripts in Hollywood for films starring George Arliss, Lionel Barrymore, Bette Davis, Clark Gable, Greer Garson, Will Rogers, and others. Although well paid for his work, he was rarely satisfied with the artistic quality of the final product, and scandalized by what he saw as Hollywood's immorality. He often declined to accept particular assignments and finally ended the association after 1964.

Long interested in a new form of drama, Green was inspired by some plays he saw in Germany. As early as 1928, he wrote Professor Koch of his hope to use the theme of the Lost Colony of Roanoke Island in dramatic production. This was realized in 1937, when The Lost Colony, a symphonic drama as he termed it, was produced in an outdoor theatre on Roanoke Island, site of the 1587 colony. Employing the spoken word, song, music, dance, pantomime, and light, it was a notable success and except for the years of World War II has been produced by the Roanoke Island Historical Association each summer since. This was merely the first of such works by Green and others; historical dramas, presented at or near the site of the actual events depicted, have appeared all around the United States. Green himself was the author of fifteen plays written to be performed outdoors in North Carolina, Florida, Virginia, Kentucky, Texas, and elsewhere.

Green's contributions were widely recognized. In addition to the early Pulitzer Prize and the Guggenheim Fellowship, he received the Belasco Little Theatre Tournament trophy in 1925. Other honors included the National Theatre Conference plaque, the American Theater Association citation for distinguished service to the theater, the North Carolina Civil Liberties Union's Frank P. Graham Award, the Morrison Award, the North Caroliniana Society Award, the North Carolina Writers Conference Award, and the Sir Walter Raleigh cup. In 1979 the General Assembly named him North Carolina's dramatist laureate. He received honorary doctorates from The University of North Carolina, Davidson College, Campbell College, the North Carolina School of the Arts, and four out-of-state colleges and universities.

He was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters and of the executive committee of the U. S. National Commission for UNESCO (1950-52). In 1951, he was a delegate to the UNESCO conference in Paris. Green also held the following positions: president, American Folk Festival, 1934-1945; president, National Theatre Conference, 1940-1942; member, Board of Directors, American National Theatre and Academy, 1959-61; delegate, International Conference on the Performing Arts, Athens, Greece, 1962; member, Advisory Committee, North Carolina School of the Arts, beginning in 1964; member, Advisory Board, Institute of Outdoor Drama, beginning in 1952.

From his youth, when he demonstrated sympathy and compassion for the poor, blacks, and others whom he saw around him in his rural community, Paul Green acted and spoke in support of the basic rights of all humanity. A gentle, kindly man, he knew when, where, and how to direct attention to the wrongs he witnessed and to seek redress. Civil rights, poverty, and political oppression were all causes of concern to him, and he lent support to them in person, in print, and financially. He spoke out against and wrote plays dealing with war, lynching, chain gangs, prejudice, and superstition. Even though at times his stand was unpopular in many quarters, his ideals were understood and there was little or no personal criticism of him. It was known that Green was haunted by the ideal of perfection and that he believed in the uniqueness of man as responsible to his neighbor and to God.

Paul and Elizabeth Green were the parents of Paul Eliot, Jr., Nancy Byrd (Cornwell), Elizabeth Betsy McAllister (Moyer), and Janet MacNeill (Lauritzen, 1955-1958, and later Catlin). Paul Green's siblings were Daniel Hugh Green, Gladys Green Sylvester, Mary Green Johnson, Erma Green Gold, and Caro Mae Green Russell (Couch in the mid-1960s). Elizabeth Lay Green's sisters were Virginia Ginger Lay Hawkins, Ellen Lay Hodgkinson, Nancy Lay White, and Lucy Lay Zuber; her brother was Henry C. Lay.

Paul Green died on 4 May 1981. He was buried in the old Chapel Hill Cemetery near the Paul Green Theatre on the university campus.

SEE: Agatha B. Adams, Paul Green of Chapel Hill (1951); Chapel Hill Newspaper, 30 June, 1, 2, 5 July 1976, 5, 6, 10 May 1981; Barrett H. Clark, Paul Green (1928); Vincent S. Kenny, Paul Green (1971); Walter S. Lazenby, Paul Green (1970); McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Drama, vol. 2 (1972), for a list of his plays (a copy in the North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill, has been updated with typed additions); New York Times, 6, 10 May 1981; Pembroke Magazine 10 (1978); Raleigh News and Observer, 2 Apr. 1950, 5, 6, May 1918; Who's Who in America (1980).