First performance 26 June 1943 | Playwright Sidney Kingsley | |
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The Patriots is an award-winning play written in a prologue and three acts by Sidney Kingsley in 1943. It won the New York Drama Critics' Circle award for Best Play, and ran for 173 performances.
Contents
Synopsis
Thomas Jefferson has just returned from France, hoping to relax with his daughters at Monticello. George Washington however, has a favor to ask of him. Hit by tough political opposition, specifically afraid of rising monarch strength, he urges Jefferson to become his Secretary of State. Jefferson accepts, albeit grudgingly. Not long after, he is battling his archrival, Alexander Hamilton, a Federalist just before his election in 1800. The Playwrights' Company produced the solidly chronicle play at a time World War II gave Jefferson's fight for democratic ideals added meaning. Kingsley was a sergeant in the army at the time of the production.
Details
The show played at the National Theatre and was directed by Shepard Traube, produced by Playwrights' Company and Rowland Stebbins, music by Stanley Bate, scenic design by Howard Bay, costume design by Rose Bogdanoff and Toni Ward, and lighting design by Moe Hack.
The cast on opening night was:
Adaptations
The play has been presented on television twice, by NBC in 1963 (starring Charlton Heston as Thomas Jefferson, John Fraser as Alexander Hamilton, and Howard St. John as George Washington) and in 1976 by PBS (starring Robert Murch as Thomas Jefferson, Philip LeStrange as Alexander Hamilton, and Ralph Clanton as George Washington), but it has never been made into a theatrical film.
Ironically, the first telecast, in 1963, took place on November 15, one week before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. [1] The 1976 telecast is available on DVD.