Tobacco Road (play)

Tobacco Road
First UK edition (1949)
Written by	Jack Kirkland
Date premiered	December 1933
Place premiered	Theatre Masque New York City
Original language	English
Subject	Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell
Genre	Drama
Setting	A farm in Georgia during the Great Depression

Tobacco Road is a play by Jack Kirkland first performed in 1933, based on the 1932 novel of the same name by Erskine Caldwell. The play ran on Broadway for a total of 3,182 performances, becoming the longest-running play in history at the time. As of 2014, it was still the 18th longest-running Broadway show in history, as well as being the second-longest running non-musical ever on Broadway.

Tobacco Road opened on Broadway at the Theatre Masque (now the John Golden Theatre) on December 4, 1933, transferred to the 48th Street Theatre (demolished in 1955), where it ran from July 16, 1934 through September 1934, and then moved to the Forrest Theatre (now the Eugene O'Neill Theatre) where it ran until May 31, 1941, for a total of 3,182 performances.

It was revived three times on Broadway:

It was banned in the United Kingdom for many years, finally being licensed for public performance in 1949.

The La Jolla Playhouse (California) production ran from September 30 through October 26, 2008.

The American Blues Theater (Chicago) production ran from May 21 through June 20, 2010.

In desolate farm country in Georgia, the profitable tobacco crop has given way to cotton plantations, but poor planting practices have depleted the soil. The Lester family were once sharecroppers, but are now poverty-stricken and unable to cope with the bleak life they face. Jeeter Lester, the patriarch, lives in squalor with his wife Ada, their two children, 16-year-old Dude and 18-year-old Ellie May, and his mother. Ada is suffering from pellagra and Ellie May has a harelip, Jeeter and Dude are thin and emaciated, and the family wears tattered clothing.