The Corn Is Green

The Corn Is Green
U.S. first edition 1941
Written by	Emlyn Williams
Date premiered	September 20, 1938 (1938-09-20)
Place premiered	Duchess Theatre, London
Original language	English
Genre	Comedy
Setting	The living room of a house in Glansarno, a small village in Wales, over the space of three years in the late 19th century

The Corn Is Green is a 1938 semi-autobiographical play by Welsh dramatist and actor Emlyn Williams. The play premiered in London at the Duchess Theatre in 1938 with Williams portraying Morgan Evans. The original Broadway production starred Ethel Barrymore and premiered at the National Theatre on November 26, 1940, running for 477 performances.

L. C. Moffat is a strong-willed English school teacher working in a poverty-stricken coal mining village in late 19th century Wales. She struggles to win the local Welsh miners over to her English ways, and an illiterate teenager by the name of Morgan Evans eventually graduates with honors.

Born in 1905, Emlyn Williams grew up in the impoverished coal-mining town of Mostyn in Flintshire, Wales, and spoke only Welsh until the age of eight. He was barely literate, and later said he would probably have begun working in the mines at age 12 if he had not caught the attention of a London social worker named Sarah Grace Cooke. She established a school in Mostyn in 1915, and recognized Williams' aptitude for languages. Over the next seven years she worked with him on his English and helped him prepare to be a teacher. She obtained a scholarship for him in Switzerland, to study French, and when he was 17 she helped him win a scholarship at Christ Church, Oxford. During his studies there Williams had a nervous breakdown, but Cooke encouraged him to write as a way to recover. His first play, Full Moon, was produced while he was still at Oxford. His first success, A Murder Has Been Announced, was staged in 1930, followed by the hit thriller, Night Must Fall (1935). The Corn Is Green is considered Williams' most enduring literary credit.

The Corn Is Green premiered September 20, 1938, at the Duchess Theatre in London, following a preview performance at the Manchester Opera House. The play ran 394 performances, closing September 2, 1939.

Produced and directed by Herman Shumlin, the Broadway production of The Corn Is Green opened November 26, 1940, at the National Theatre. The setting was designed by Howard Bay; costumes were design by Ernest Schrapps. The production transferred to the Royale Theatre on September 9, 1941, and closed January 17, 1942, after a total of 477 performances.