Elmer Rice was an American playwright. He is best known for his plays The Adding Machine (1923) and his Pulitzer Prize-winning drama of New York tenement life, Street Scene (1929).
Rice circa 1920
From left, Joseph P. Bickerton, Jr. (theatre producer), Elmer Rice (playwright) and Carl Laemmle Jr. (Universal producer) sign a contract for the film version of Counsellor at Law
Original Broadway production of Street Scene (1929)
Maxwell Anderson, S.N. Behrman, Robert E. Sherwood and Elmer Rice, four of the five founders of the Playwrights' Company (1938)
Street Scene is a 1929 American play by Elmer Rice. It opened January 10, 1929, at the Playhouse Theatre in New York City. After a total of 601 performances on Broadway, the production toured the United States and ran for six months in London. The action of the play takes place entirely on the front stoop of a New York City brownstone and in the adjacent street in the early part of the 20th century. It studies the complex daily lives of the people living in the building and the sense of despair that hovers over their interactions. Street Scene received the 1929 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
First edition (1929)
Playwright Elmer Rice
Original Broadway production of Street Scene (1929)
Poster for the 1931 film Street Scene