Porgy (play)

Porgy: A Play in Four Acts
First edition 1928
Written by	Dorothy Heyward DuBose Heyward
Date premiered	October 10, 1927 (1927-10-10)
Place premiered	Guild Theatre, New York City, New York

Porgy: A Play in Four Acts is a play by Dorothy Heyward and DuBose Heyward, adapted from the short novel by DuBose Heyward. It was first produced by the Theatre Guild and presented October 10, 1927–August 1928 at the Guild Theatre in New York City. Featuring a cast of African Americans at the insistence of its authors—a decision unusual for its time—the original production starred Frank Wilson, Evelyn Ellis, Jack Carter, and Rose McClendon. Porgy marked the Broadway directing debut of Rouben Mamoulian. The play ran a total of 55 weeks in New York, and the original cast toured the United States twice and performed for 11 consecutive weeks in London.

The play tells the story of Porgy, a disabled black beggar who lives in the slums of Charleston, South Carolina. It relates his efforts to rescue Bess, the woman he loves, from Crown, her violent and possessive lover, and a drug dealer called Sporting Life.

The play is the basis of the libretto of the opera Porgy and Bess (1935).

A descendent of Thomas Heyward, Jr., DuBose Heyward was from an old, white family in Charleston, South Carolina. In 1925, he published his first and best-regarded novel, Porgy, which was inspired by a news story and drawn from his sympathetic observations of African American culture. The book was a best seller.Porgy was one of a number of works portraying black life written by white authors, but it was infused with human understanding at a time that such an approach was new.

Heyward's wife, playwright Dorothy Heyward, roughed out a stage adaptation of the novel that persuaded her husband of the story's dramatic possibilities. They wrote the play together, strengthening the character of Bess, incorporating folk songs, and creating a more upbeat ending that shows Porgy following Bess to New York.