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, surpassing Abie's Irish Rose to become the longest-running play in history at the time. As of 2023, it was still the 20th longest-running Broadway show in history, as well as being the second-longest running non-musical ever on Broadway.
First UK edition (1949)
Exterior view
ticket line
stage view
Erskine Preston Caldwell was an American novelist and short story writer. His writings about poverty, racism and social problems in his native Southern United States, in novels such as Tobacco Road (1932) and God's Little Acre (1933) won him critical acclaim.
Caldwell in 1975