Lynn Riggs

Born in 1899 near Claremore in what was then Indian Territory, Lynn Riggs grew up in northeastern Oklahoma and was of Cherokee heritage. He studied at the University of Oklahoma and went on to build a wide-ranging writing career that included plays, poetry, and fiction.

Riggs is most widely remembered for Green Grow the Lilacs, the 1931 play that later inspired the landmark musical Oklahoma!. But his own writing stands on its own for its musical language and vivid sense of place, often drawing on Oklahoma settings and on the complicated cultural mix of the region.

Over the course of his career, he wrote more than 20 full-length plays. He died in 1954, but his work remains important both in American theater history and in conversations about Native writers whose voices helped shape modern literature and drama.