author
Elizabeth A. (Elizabeth Apthorp) McFadden
1875–1961
Best known for the beloved Christmas play Why the Chimes Rang, this American writer also made her mark on Broadway with suspenseful stage work. Her career moved from early one-act plays to the hit melodrama Double Door, later adapted for film and television.
1 Audiobook
Why the Chimes Rang: A Play in One Act
by Elizabeth A. (Elizabeth Apthorp) McFadden, Raymond MacDonald Alden
About the author
Elizabeth Apthorp McFadden was an American playwright born in Newport, Kentucky, in 1875. Records from library and theater sources identify her as Elizabeth A. McFadden, and film and theater databases place her death in Briarcliff Manor, New York, in 1961.
She is most closely associated with Why the Chimes Rang, a one-act play published in the 1910s and adapted from a story by Raymond MacDonald Alden. The play’s lasting appeal comes from its simple, moving Christmas message, and it has remained one of her most widely circulated works.
McFadden also wrote for the commercial stage. The Internet Broadway Database credits her as the writer of Double Door, which opened on Broadway in 1933, and Signature, which followed on Broadway in 1945. Double Door proved especially durable, reaching audiences beyond the theater through screen adaptations.