Dramatist, teacher and author Paul Green is one of North Carolina's most revered writers and one of America's most distinguished. He grew up on a cotton farm in rural Harnett County, North Carolina, learning the value of hard physical labor as well as the importance and beauty of literature and music. He read books in the fields as he followed a mule-drawn plow and taught himself to play the violin, and would later compose music for his own dramas.

After graduation from Buies Creek Academy, Green taught school and played baseball until he earned enough money to go the University of North Carolina, but his college education was interrupted by World War I. Before leaving for France, uncertain whether he would survive the war, he self-published a small book of poems, Trifles of Thought by P.E.G. He served for several months in the trenches, and was deeply affected by his experiences, although he rarely spoke of them. Returning to Chapel Hill, he became active in Frederick Koch's newly formed Carolina Playmakers, writing one of the first plays the group produced. The tutelage of Koch, an advocate of what he termed "folk drama," strongly influenced Green's early plays although a deeply rooted concern for ordinary people and their experiences marks all of his work, including his huge, panoramic Symphonic Dramas.

Paul Green's first Broadway play, In Abraham's Bosom, won a Pulitzer Prize, and was followed by six more Broadway plays over his lifetime, as well as numerous other short and full-length plays, screenplays, short story collections, and books of non-fiction. A lifelong fascination with theatrical elements such as dance, language, music, and lighting, combined with a desire for the drama to make a difference in American social life led to Paul Green's development of the Symphonic Outdoor Drama. His first, The Lost Colony, has been staged in Manteo, N.C. every year since its first performance in 1937, except during World War II. More than fifty of these historically-based plays including five of Green's original seventeen, produced in outdoor amphitheaters near where their actual events took place, are staged annually across the United States.

Green taught philosophy and drama at Chapel Hill until 1944, when he retired to devote his time to writing. In addition to his early Pulitzer Prize, Paul Green's awards include two Guggenheim Fellowships, the National Theatre Conference plaque, an American Theatre Association citation, the Frank P. Graham Award, and the North Carolina Award for Literature. In 1979, the General Assembly named him North Carolina's dramatist laureate. He received eight honorary doctorates, and was posthumously inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame in New York City. Through his life and writing, he acted and spoke in support of the basic rights of all humanity. Paul Green was "haunted by the ideal of perfection" and believed "in the uniqueness of man as responsible to his neighbor and to God."

Excerpt from The Lost Colony
UNC Press, 1937

ACT I, Scene 1-HISTORIAN: (His amplified voice filling the theatre): In the time of Queen Elizabeth many English men and women, notably among them Sir Walter Raleigh, continued in their dream of founding an English-speaking nation in the new world. In pursuance of that brave intent two explorers, Phillip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe, were sent out in April 1584, to discover a fitting place for a first settlement. Such a place they found on and around Roanoke Island, which they reached in July of the same year and found to be "the goodliest land under the cope of heaven." It was the time of the corn harvest when they arrived, and the friendly Indians were celebrating and giving thanks unto their God. By 1587 the time draws near for a colony of English men and women to travel to the new world. John Borden speaks in response to a warning by the sea captain that such a voyage would be very dangerous. ACT I, Scene 5-BORDEN: Friends, I am nothing but a poor farmer. I have no authority except my own voice. And that I'll use for Mistress Dare and Sir Walter. We have set our faces toward that new world, toward a new life for us all. And are we to be stopped here dulled and dead in our tracks by an old woman's tale of danger and hardship? Then go home, go home now, and the ships waiting out there-may rot where they lie. Danger and hardship! Aye, the better for it. So we may test the manhood in us, if we be men, if we be women worth the name. Who is this Simon Fernando that you should listen to him? ...Like his master Philip he fears a colony in Virginia. He wishes us to fail. But there will be no failing, not if the sea and the wilderness and all Spain herself conspire against us.... VOICES: Speak, lad! Brave John Borden. We'll stand with ye, John! BORDEN: We have made the cast. We turn our backs upon this little England— to go forth to struggle, to work, to conquer that unknown wilderness—to build a nation there—our nation. And with God's help we'll build it. RALEIGH: Friends, pioneers of a new nation soon to be, I come to you at this parting moment in all humility and pride—humility that to English men and women is granted the privilege of this high endeavor, and pride that you my old neighbors of Devon are to share in it....And now to the authority of Governor White and his associate, Master Ananias Dare, I beg your obedience. Would God that I might sail with them and you, but I am reserved once more for the wars at home. My heart goes with you, my hopes and my dreams. God bless you. (He moves among them embracing them and shaking hands.) Raleigh remains alone in the scene as the crowd marches away at the right. He draws his sword, salutes them with it, and then kneels down with the cross of the sword hilt in front of him—as the lights fade out. ACT II, Scene 1-HISTORIAN: After a long and stormy voyage the colony arrived at Roanoke Island on July 23, 1587. Ed. Note: The Queen will never allow Sir Walter Raleigh to travel to the New World.

Cabin in the Cotton. Burbank, Calif.: Warner Brothers First National Studios, 1932.

The Common Glory. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1948.

The Confederacy. New York: Samuel French, 1959.

Cross and Sword. New York: Samuel French, 1966.

Dog on the Sun. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1949.

Drama and the Weather. New York: Samuel French, 1958.

Dramatic Heritage. New York: Samuel French, 1953.

The Enchanted Maze. New York: Samuel French, 1939.

The Field God and In Abraham's Bosom. New York: McBride, 1927.

Five Plays of the South. New York: Hill and Wang, 1963.

Fixin's. New York: Samuel French, 1934.

The Founders. New York: Samuel French, 1957.

The Hawthorn Tree. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1943.

The Highland Call. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1941.

Home to My Valley. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1970.

The Honeycomb. New York: Samuel French, 1972.

The House of Connelly and Other Plays. New York: Samuel French, 1931.

Hymn to the Rising Sun. New York: Samuel French, 1936.

In Abraham's Bosom. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1929.

In Aunt Mahaly's Cabin. New York: Samuel French, 1925.

In the Valley and other Carolina Plays. New York: Samuel French, 1928.

Johnny Johnson. New York: Samuel French, 1937.

Land of Nod and other Stories. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1976.

The Laughing Pioneer. New York: Robert M. McBride, 1932.

The Lone Star. New York: Samuel French, 1986.

The Lord's Will. New York: Samuel French, 1925.

The Lost Colony. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1937.

Native Son: A Play in Ten Scenes. (With Richard Wright). New York: Harper & Brothers, 1941.

Out of the South. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1939.

Paul Green's War Songs. Edited by John H. Roper. Rocky Mount: North Carolina Wesleyan College Press, 1993.

Paul Green's Wordbook. Edited by Rhoda W. Wynn. Boone, N.C.: Appalachian Consortium Press, 1990.

Plough and Furrow. New York: Samuel French, 1963.

Roll Sweet Chariot. New York: Samuel French, 1935.

Salvation on a String, and Other Tales of the South. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1946.

The Sheltering Plaid. New York: Samuel French, 1965.

Shroud My Body Down. Iowa City: Clio Press, 1935.

Song in the Wilderness. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1947.

The Southern Cross. New York: Samuel French, 1938.

A Southern Life: Letters of Paul Green, 1916-1981. Edited by Laurence G. Avery. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994.

The Stephen Foster Story. New York: Samuel French, 1960.

Texas. New York: Samuel French, 1967.

This Body the Earth. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1935.

Trifles of Thought. Greenville. SC.: The Author, 1917.

Trumpet in the Land. New York: Samuel French, 1972.

White Dresses. New York: Samuel French, 1935.

Wide Fields. New York: Robert M. McBride, 1928.

Wilderness Road. New York: Samuel French, 1956.

Wings for to Fly. New York: Samuel French, 1959.

Additional information on Mr. Green can be found in:

Adams, Agatha B. Paul Green of Chapel Hill. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Library, 1951.

Clark, Barrett H. Paul Green. New York: Robert M. McBride, 1928.

Eady, Fred A. Paul Green: Folk Dramatist, Social Critic. Ph.D. dissertation, Michigan State University, 1974.

Faucette, Lois J. Paul Green and the American Dream. Ph.D. dissertation, Howard University, 1975.

Green, Elizabeth L. The Paul Green I Know. Chapel Hill: North Caroliniana Society, 1978.

Groff, Edward B. Paul Green: A Critical Study of America's Leading Folk Dramatist. Ph.D. dissertation. University of Kansas, 1957.

Kenny, Vincent S. Paul Green. New York: Twayne, 1971.

Owens, Henry G. The Social Thought and Criticism of Paul Green. Ph.D. dissertation. New York University, 1945.

Sadler, Lynn V. Paul Green's Celebration of Man: With a Bibliography. Sanford, N.C.: Human Technology Interface, 1994.

Tributes to Paul Green in Pembroke Magazine, No. 10, 1978.

Links to further information:

The Paul Green Playwrights Prize

Paul Green

Paul Green's Papers at UNC