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DuBose Heyward

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Book WriterLyricist 1885–1940

Edwin DuBose Heyward (August 31, 1885 – June 16, 1940) was an American author best known for his 1925 novel Porgy. He and his wife Dorothy, a playwright, adapted it as a 1927 play of the same name. The couple worked with composer George Gershwin to adapt the work as the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess. It was later adapted as a 1959 film of the same name. Heyward also wrote poetry and other novels and plays, as well as the children's book The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes (1939).

Also credited on3 works

Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess (2012 Revival)
Porgy and Bess

These come off the person record, which names a work and not a production. So we can say this name is attached to the work and we cannot say which staging, or in what capacity. For a composer or a writer that is the whole career we hold; there is no cast list to find them in.

In the literature8 passages

  • When Gershwin finished reading the novel Porgy (1925) by DuBose Heyward (1885–1940) after a sleepless night in October 1926, he wrote a letter to the author, a leading Southern novelist and poet, informing him that he wanted to use the novel as the basis for an opera. Nine years later Porgy and Bess appeared on Broadway, a delay that can…ebooks/Block, Geoffrey/Enchanted Evenings_The Broadway Musical from 'Show Boat' to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber - Geoffrey Block.txt
  • Sources: Porgy by DuBose Heyward (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1925) [novel]; Porgy, A Play in Four Acts by DuBose and Dorothy Heyward (New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1928); reprinted in Famous American Plays of the 1920s , selected and introduced by Kenneth MacGowan (New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1959). [play]ebooks/Block, Geoffrey/Enchanted Evenings_The Broadway Musical from 'Show Boat' to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber - Geoffrey Block.txt
  • 9 . The outline of scenes and songs in the online website indicates the division of lyrical labor between DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin.ebooks/Block, Geoffrey/Enchanted Evenings_The Broadway Musical from 'Show Boat' to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber - Geoffrey Block.txt
  • 11 . Brooks Atkinson and Olin Downes, “‘Porgy and Bess,’ Native Opera, Opens at the Alvin; Gershwin Work Based on DuBose Heyward’s Play,” New York Times , October 11, 1935, 30.ebooks/Block, Geoffrey/Enchanted Evenings_The Broadway Musical from 'Show Boat' to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber - Geoffrey Block.txt
  • 30 . The play by Dorothy and DuBose Heyward was originally published by Doubleday in 1927. Page references in this chapter correspond to the version of Porgy anthologized in Famous American Plays of the 1920s (New York: Dell, 1959), 207–307. The typescript of DuBose Heyward’s libretto with George Gershwin’s annotations is now housed in th…ebooks/Block, Geoffrey/Enchanted Evenings_The Broadway Musical from 'Show Boat' to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber - Geoffrey Block.txt
  • 60 . The demise of Dorothy and DuBose Heyward’s Porgy , Sidney Howard’s They Knew What They Wanted , and Ferenc Molnár’s Liliom , and their displacement by Porgy and Bess, The Most Happy Fella , and Carousel has been accepted with equanimity by theater audiences and producers. Fortunately, Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew and Romeo a…ebooks/Block, Geoffrey/Enchanted Evenings_The Broadway Musical from 'Show Boat' to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber - Geoffrey Block.txt

Passages naming this person, found by keyword across 178 books. A keyword match is not a biography, and a common name will pull in the wrong one.

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