Tobacco Road

New York: M. Horowitz, 1938. Vintage program for a 1938 Broadway production of the 1933 play. Six page two-color red program, with photographs and illustrations throughout, biographies of cast and crew, and history of the play.

"Tobacco Road," at the time the longest-running play on Broadway, opened on December 4, 1933 at the Theatre Masque, moving to the 48th Street Theatre on January 15, 1934, then to the Forrest Theatre on September 17, 1934. The play had a run of an astounding 3,182 performances, closing on May 31, 1941. This program is for the 1938 season at the Forrest Theatre.

Based on the 1932 novel by Erskine Caldwell. In 1941 John Ford would direct the film version, adapted from both the novel and the play by screenwriter Nunnally Johnson, starring Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews in the first of the several films they would make together.

Depicting the plight of Depression-era Georgia sharecroppers who cannot escape the vicious cycle of poverty, Caldwell's novel was transformed into a Broadway play almost immediately after publication. Running for eight continuous years it broke records and remains the second-longest running play in Broadway history, a marvel for a non-musical drama.

8.25 x 11 inches. Six pages, saddle stapled, Very Good plus, with faint creasing.


[Book #148959]