Maxwell Anderson

Maxwell Anderson (1888-1959), American playwright, known for the wide-ranging dramatic style of his 30 produced plays. Born in Atlantic, Pennsylvania, Anderson was educated at the University of North Dakota and Stanford University. He was a schoolteacher and journalist until 1924, when his play What Price Glory?, a colorful drama of World War I (1914-1918) written in collaboration with American author Laurence Stallings, was successfully produced in New York City. Anderson's concerns in his dramas included the corrupting influences of power and wealth, especially in politics; the disillusionment of men caught up in war; and the need for action by the individual in defense of justice and freedom. He wrote several historical dramas in blank verse, including Elizabeth the Queen (1930), Mary of Scotland (1933), and Anne of the Thousand Days (1947). He also wrote the domestic dramas Saturday's Children (1927) and The Bad Seed (1954), as well as the librettos for several musicals, including Knickerbocker Holiday (1938) and Lost in the Stars (1949). Anderson won the 1933Pulitzer Prize in drama for Both Your Houses (1933). His verse play Winterset (1935), inspired by the 1920s murder trial of two anarchists, known as the Sacco-Vanzetti case, won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award in 1936 and is considered a classic.