author
Maxwell Anderson
1888–1959
A major American playwright of the first half of the 20th century, he brought poetry, politics, and moral conflict to the Broadway stage. He is especially remembered for ambitious verse dramas and for plays that challenged audiences to think about power, war, and conscience.
1 Audiobook
Gods of the lightning; Outside looking in
by Maxwell Anderson, Harold (George Harold) Hickerson, Jim Tully
About the author
Born in Atlantic, Pennsylvania, in 1888, Maxwell Anderson grew up in a family that moved often because his father was a Baptist minister. He studied at the University of North Dakota and later at Stanford, and before finding fame in the theater he worked as a teacher and journalist.
His breakthrough came with What Price Glory?, a 1924 collaboration with Laurence Stallings that became a major hit. Anderson went on to write a wide range of plays, but he is best known for trying to revive verse drama for modern audiences in works such as Winterset, High Tor, and Key Largo. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Both Your Houses and was also known as a lyricist, including on the musical Knickerbocker Holiday with composer Kurt Weill.
What makes his work stand out is the way it mixes big ideas with strong theatrical energy. Again and again, his plays return to questions of justice, freedom, and personal belief, which helped make him one of the most distinctive voices in American theater before his death in 1959.