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A prominent twentieth-century dramatist, Paul Green (1894-1981), was best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning play, In Abraham's Bosom (1927), and for a series of pageantlike historical plays, among them The Common Glory and The Lost Colony.

Green was born near Lillington, N.C., on March 17, 1894. His began to write at the University of North Carolina, where he was encouraged to write plays based on what he called "the essential folk-life-of the people."

His studies interrupted by World War I, Green served for two years with the American Expeditionary Forces in France and Belgium. After graduating from college in 1921, he published a series of one-act plays, including The Lord's Will (1925), Lonesome Road (1926), and In the Valley, (1928).

In 1927, Green reached Broadway with two plays in one season--In Abraham's Bosom and The Field God, the former winning the Pulitzer Prize for best play of the year. In Abraham's Bosom is the story of a black man whose attempt to found a school for black children ends in his violent death. Other important plays from this period include, The House of Connelly (1932), Johnny Johnson (1937; with Kurt Weill), and Native Son (1941; with Richard Wright).

In the 1930's, Green became interested in "symphonic drama," utilizing music, dance, and mime. The late 1930s saw the birth of his The Lost Colony, about Sir Walter Raleigh's tragic attempt to establish a settlement on Roanoke Island. Still playing in Manteo, North Carolina, The Lost Colony is one of the longest running outdoor dramas in U.S. history.

Ten years later in Williamsburg, Virginia, Green produced his second outdoor drama, The Common Glory, about the American Revolution. In the latter part of his career, Green devoted his writing almost entirely to historical pageants, earning widespread fame as a folk dramatist. The Common Glory was followed by a succession of historical pageants staged in Maryland, Texas, Florida, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania throughout the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. Green, once referred to as "the Evangelist for Democracy," died in Chapel Hill, N.C. on May 4, 1981.