Elmer Rice (28 September 1892 – 8 May 1967) was an American
playwrightA playwright, also known as a dramatist, is a person who writes dramatic literature or drama. These works are usually written to be performed in front of a live audience by actors...
. He received the
Pulitzer Prize for DramaThe Pulitzer Prize for Drama was first awarded in 1918.From 1918 to 2006, the Drama Prize was unlike the majority of the other Pulitzer Prizes: during these years, the eligibility period for the drama prize ran from March 2 to March 1, to reflect the Broadway 'season' rather than being the calendar...
for his 1929 play,
Street SceneStreet Scene is a play by Elmer Rice that opened at the Playhouse Theatre in New York City on January 10, 1929 and ran for a total of 601 performances. The action of this ambitious, groundbreaking play takes place entirely on the front stoop of a New York City brownstone and in the adjacent street...
.
Rice was born
Elmer Leopold Reizenstein in New York City, New York. After graduating
cum laude from
New York Law SchoolNew York Law School is a private law school in the TriBeCa neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City.-Early Years:During the winter of 1890, a dispute arose at Columbia University over an attempt to introduce the Case Method of study to Columbia Law School. The Case Method had been pioneered...
in 1912, he began a short-lived legal career. He turned to writing, and his first play, the melodramatic
On Trial (1914), was the first American stage production to employ the flashback technique of the screen.
His first major contribution to the theatre, however, was the expressionistic
The Adding MachineThe Adding Machine is a 1923 play by Elmer Rice, and is generally considered to be the first American Expressionist play. The story focuses on Mr. Zero, an accountant at a large, faceless company. After 25 years at his job, he discovers that he will be replaced by an adding machine. In anger and...
(1923), which satirized the growing regimentation of man in the machine age through the life and death of the arid book-keeper, Mr.
Elmer Rice (28 September 1892 – 8 May 1967) was an American
playwrightA playwright, also known as a dramatist, is a person who writes dramatic literature or drama. These works are usually written to be performed in front of a live audience by actors...
. He received the
Pulitzer Prize for DramaThe Pulitzer Prize for Drama was first awarded in 1918.From 1918 to 2006, the Drama Prize was unlike the majority of the other Pulitzer Prizes: during these years, the eligibility period for the drama prize ran from March 2 to March 1, to reflect the Broadway 'season' rather than being the calendar...
for his 1929 play,
Street SceneStreet Scene is a play by Elmer Rice that opened at the Playhouse Theatre in New York City on January 10, 1929 and ran for a total of 601 performances. The action of this ambitious, groundbreaking play takes place entirely on the front stoop of a New York City brownstone and in the adjacent street...
.
Early years
Rice was born
Elmer Leopold Reizenstein in New York City, New York. After graduating
cum laude from
New York Law SchoolNew York Law School is a private law school in the TriBeCa neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City.-Early Years:During the winter of 1890, a dispute arose at Columbia University over an attempt to introduce the Case Method of study to Columbia Law School. The Case Method had been pioneered...
in 1912, he began a short-lived legal career. He turned to writing, and his first play, the melodramatic
On Trial (1914), was the first American stage production to employ the flashback technique of the screen.
Career
His first major contribution to the theatre, however, was the expressionistic
The Adding MachineThe Adding Machine is a 1923 play by Elmer Rice, and is generally considered to be the first American Expressionist play. The story focuses on Mr. Zero, an accountant at a large, faceless company. After 25 years at his job, he discovers that he will be replaced by an adding machine. In anger and...
(1923), which satirized the growing regimentation of man in the machine age through the life and death of the arid book-keeper, Mr. Zero.
Rice's next play,
Street SceneStreet Scene is a play by Elmer Rice that opened at the Playhouse Theatre in New York City on January 10, 1929 and ran for a total of 601 performances. The action of this ambitious, groundbreaking play takes place entirely on the front stoop of a New York City brownstone and in the adjacent street...
(1929), later the subject of an
operaOpera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score. Opera is part of the Western classical music tradition. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
by
Kurt WeillKurt Julian Weill , was a German, and in his later years American, composer active from the 1920s until his death. He was a leading composer for the stage...
, received the
Pulitzer Prize for DramaThe Pulitzer Prize for Drama was first awarded in 1918.From 1918 to 2006, the Drama Prize was unlike the majority of the other Pulitzer Prizes: during these years, the eligibility period for the drama prize ran from March 2 to March 1, to reflect the Broadway 'season' rather than being the calendar...
for its realistic chronicle of life in the slums.
The Left Bank (1931), described expatriation from America as an ineffectual escape from materialism, and
Counsellor-at-Law (1931) drew a realistic picture of the legal profession for which Rice had been trained. The depression of the 1930s inspired
We, the People (1933), the Reichstag trial was paralleled in
Judgement Day (1934), and conflicting American and Soviet ideologies formed the subject of the conversation-piece
Between Two Worlds (1934).
After the failure of these plays, Rice returned to Broadway in 1937 to write and direct for the Playwrights' Producing Company, which he helped to establish. Of his later plays, the most successful was the fantasy
Dream GirlDream Girl is a play by Elmer Rice.At its core is Georgina Allerton, a young woman whose efforts to run a bookstore are undermined severely by her tendency to drift off into Walter Mitty-like flights of fancy on a regular basis...
(1945), in which an over-imaginative girl encounters unexpected romance in reality. Rice's last play was
Cue for Passion (1958), a modern psycho-analytical variation of the Hamlet theme in which
Diana WynyardDiana Wynyard was an English stage and film actress.Born Dorothy Isobel Cox in London, Wynyard began her career on the stage...
played the Gertrude-like character, Grace Nicholson. Rice was the author of a controversial book on American drama,
The Living Theatre (1960), and of an autobiography,
Minority Report (1964).
Rice was the first director of the New York office of the
Federal Theatre ProjectThe Federal Theatre Project was a New Deal project to fund theatre and other live artistic performances in the United States during the Great Depression. It was one of five Federal One projects sponsored by the Works Projects Administration...
, but resigned in 1936 to protest government censorship of the FTP's "
Living NewspaperLiving Newspaper is a term for a theatrical form presenting factual information on current events to a popular audience. Historically, Living Newspapers have also urged social action and reacted against naturalistic and realistic theatrical conventions in favor of the more direct, experimental...
"
Ethiopia, about Mussolini's invasion of that country.
Personal life
Rice was married in 1915 to Hazel Levy. After his divorce in 1942, he married actress
Betty FieldBetty Field was an American film and stage actress.Field was born in Boston, MA. She began her acting career on the London stage in Howard Lindsay's farce, She Loves Me Not. Following its run she returned to the United States and appeared in several stage successes, before making her film debut in...
with whom he had three children before their divorce in 1956.
Film portrayal
Rice was portrayed by the actor
Jon FavreauJonathan Kolia "Jon" Favreau is an American actor, screenwriter and film director. He is best known for appearing in films including Rudy and Swingers, as well as directing such films as Elf and Iron Man.-Early life:...
in the 1994 film
Mrs. Parker and the Vicious CircleMrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle was a film released in 1994. It was written and directed by Alan Rudolph and starred Jennifer Jason Leigh as the writer Dorothy Parker....
.
Selected stage productions
- On Trial (1914)
- The Home of the Free (1917)
- Wake Up, Jonathan (with Hatcher Hughes
Hatcher Hughes was an American playwright who lived in Grover, NC, as featured in the book Images of America. He was on the teaching staff of Columbia University from 1912 onward. He was awarded the 1924 Pulitzer Prize for his 1922 play Hell-Bent Fer Heaven...
, 1921)
- The Adding Machine
The Adding Machine is a 1923 play by Elmer Rice, and is generally considered to be the first American Expressionist play. The story focuses on Mr. Zero, an accountant at a large, faceless company. After 25 years at his job, he discovers that he will be replaced by an adding machine. In anger and...
(1923)
- Close Harmony (with Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker was an American writer and poet, best known for her caustic wit, wisecracks, and sharp eye for 20th century urban foibles....
, 1924)
- Street Scene
Street Scene is a play by Elmer Rice that opened at the Playhouse Theatre in New York City on January 10, 1929 and ran for a total of 601 performances. The action of this ambitious, groundbreaking play takes place entirely on the front stoop of a New York City brownstone and in the adjacent street...
(1929) won the Pulitzer Prize for DramaThe Pulitzer Prize for Drama was first awarded in 1918.From 1918 to 2006, the Drama Prize was unlike the majority of the other Pulitzer Prizes: during these years, the eligibility period for the drama prize ran from March 2 to March 1, to reflect the Broadway 'season' rather than being the calendar...
- The Voyage to Purilia (1930), a novel.
- Counselor-At-Law (1931)
- We, The People (1933)
- Not for Children
Not for Children is a 1934 play by Elmer Rice. It was premiered in 1935 at the Fortune Theatre in the West End of London. The work was performed for the first time on Broadway on February 13, 1951 at the Coronet Theatre; closing four days later after only seven performances. The production starred...
(1934)
- A New Life (1943)
- Dream Girl
Dream Girl is a play by Elmer Rice.At its core is Georgina Allerton, a young woman whose efforts to run a bookstore are undermined severely by her tendency to drift off into Walter Mitty-like flights of fancy on a regular basis...
(1945)