Lost Broadway Script for 1926 Production of THE GREAT GATSBY Released

Cambridge University Press has recently released the rediscovered script for the 1926 Broadway production of The Great Gatsby.

Long before the current musical adaptation, F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel came to the stage for the first time in 1926, playing at the Ambassador Theatre, which currently houses Chicago. The production, directed by filmmaker George Cukor (My Fair Lady) was successful, playing for 112 performances in New York before a national tour and later, a film. The script was written by Owen Davis, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Icebound.

The script was long thought lost until it was discovered as part of the library at the University of Colorado by Anne Margaret Daniel, who set out to transcribe its contents. Partnering with Fitzgerald scholar James L. W. West III, the two decided to publish the adaptation. Read more about its lengthy history to publication HERE.

Kirk Curnutt, executive director of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Society, said "Short of discovering a portal to the past or building a time machine, readers will never come closer to returning to Broadway's Jazz Age heyday than with this edition of Owen Davis's 1926 theatrical adaptation of The Great Gatsby. Masterfully edited by Anne Margaret Daniel and James L. W. West III, Davis's script channels the melancholy spirit of Fitzgerald's classic while making the changes necessary for the tragic story of American aspiration to succeed on the stage, allowing us to appreciate why the show ran for more than 100 performances.” 

This edition presents, for the first time in print, the original Broadway script: a fascinating social and literary document, now all but forgotten. The play re-forged Fitzgerald's novel into a fast-moving dramatization of parties and bootlegging, dancing and drinking, hot jazz, adultery and violence. It afforded an evening of first-rate entertainment for Manhattan theatergoers. Incorporating photographs of the original sets and actors, reviews, and publicity pasted into Fitzgerald's scrapbooks, this volume lifts the curtain anew on a singular drama.

The Great Gatsby: The 1926 Broadway Script is available now.