''Craig's Wife'' is a 1925 play written by American

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

George Kelly. It won the 1926 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and has been adapted for three feature films.

Production

''Craig's Wife'' premiered on Broadway at the

Morosco Theatre The Morosco Theatre was a Broadway theatre near Times Square in New York City from 1917 to 1982. It housed many notable productions and its demolition, along with four adjacent theaters, was controversial. History Located at 217 West 45th Stree ...

on October 12, 1925, and closed on August 21, 1926, after 360 performances. Directed by playwright Kelly, the cast featured

Chrystal Herne Katherine Chrystal Herne (June 16, 1883 – September 19, 1950) was an American stage actress. She was the daughter of actor/playwright James A. Herne and the younger sister of actress and Hollywood talent scout Julie Herne. Her stage credits ...

as Harriet Craig, Anne Sutherland (Miss Austen), Charles Trowbridge (Walter Craig), and Josephine Hull (Mrs. Frazie). It was included in Burns Mantle's ''The Best Plays of 1925–1926''. The play received the 1926 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The Pulitzer committee wrote, "''Craig's Wife'' has been selected by the jury on account of the dignity of its theme, the soundness of its construction, the excellence of its dialogue, and its effectiveness in the theater."

Film adaptations

There have been at least three films based on the play. The 1928 silent version was directed by

William C. deMille William Churchill deMille (July 25, 1878 – March 5, 1955), also spelled de Mille or De Mille, was an American screenwriter and film director from the silent film era through the early 1930s. He was also a noted playwright prior to moving into ...

, Cecil's brother, and starred Irene Rich in the title role. In 1936, Columbia Pictures made a

film adaptation A film adaptation is the transfer of a work or story, in whole or in part, to a feature film. Although often considered a type of derivative work, film adaptation has been conceptualized recently by academic scholars such as Robert Stam as a dial ...

with Rosalind Russell as Harriet Craig. "'Craig's Wife' Overview, 1936"
''New York Times'', accessed December 22, 2015 The 1950 film '' Harriet Craig'', featuring Joan Crawford, was also based on the play.

Radio adaptations

Cecil B. deMille produced ''Craig's Wife'' on the '' Lux Radio Theatre'' in Hollywood in 1936. It featured Rosalind Russell and Herbert Marshall. Orson Welles's The Campbell Playhouse performed the play on

CBS Radio CBS Radio was a radio broadcasting company and radio network operator owned by CBS Corporation and founded in 1928, with consolidated radio station groups owned by CBS and Westinghouse Broadcasting/Group W since the 1920s, and Infinity Broadc ...

, airing March 10, 1940. This version featured Welles as Walter Craig, and Ann Harding as Harriet Craig.

References

External links

* Full text of
Craig's Wife
' at HathiTrust Digital Library *
"Craig's Wife"
(1936) on '' Lux Radio Theatre'', with Rosalind Russell and Herbert Marshall ( youtube.com)
"Craig's Wife"
(March 10, 1940) on '' The Campbell Playhouse'', with Orson Welles and Ann Harding ( Internet Archive)
1952 ''Best Plays'' radio adaptation
at Internet Archive 1925 plays Broadway plays Pulitzer Prize for Drama-winning works American plays adapted into films {{1920s-play-stub