Marching Song (play)

In March 1932, two months shy of his 17th birthday, Orson Welles returned to Chicago from his post-graduation trip to Europe and his time with the Gate Theatre in Dublin.{{cite news |date=March 18, 1932 |title=Chicago Schoolboy Who Won Place on Dublin Stage Returns |url=http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1932/03/18/page/17/article/costume-jewelry-inspired-by-leis-of-pacific-isles |newspaper=Chicago Tribune |access-date=2016-07-21 }} Finding that he had few prospects despite his success in Ireland,{{cite book |last=Brady |first=Frank |author-link=Frank Brady (writer) |title=Citizen Welles: A Biography of Orson Welles |publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons |location=New York |date=1989 |isbn=0-385-26759-2 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/citizenwellesbio00brad }}{{Rp|38–39}} Welles persuaded Roger Hill, his former teacher and lifelong friend, to collaborate with him on a biographical play about abolitionist John Brown and his efforts to organize a slave revolt in 1859. In May, Welles visited Harper's Ferry and other historic sites with Hill, who was leading a two-week field trip for boys attending the Todd School.{{Rp|218–219}} In August, Welles retreated to Lac du Flambeau, Wisconsin, and stayed at the summer home of James B. Meigs and his family while he wrote the play.{{Rp|220–221}} Welles typed a cover page that credits the play as being by "Orson Welles and Roger Hill"; Hill said he wrote only a few scenes that Welles edited and reworked.{{Rp|223, 226}}

"My own contribution to writing that play was a first draft of a first act," Hill recalled. "In other words, just enough to start our tireless boy off and, more importantly, send him off. Out of my hair."{{cite book |last=Hill |first=Roger |date=1977 |title=One Man's Time and Chance, a Memoir of Eighty Years 1895 to 1975 |url=http://lookatillinois.info/content/one-mans-time-and-chance-memoir-eighty-years-1895-1975-cover |publisher=Privately printed; Woodstock Public Library collection, digitized by Illinois State Library |access-date=2016-07-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140907031035/http://lookatillinois.info/content/one-mans-time-and-chance-memoir-eighty-years-1895-1975-cover |archive-date=2014-09-07 |url-status=dead }}{{Rp|119}}

Though Welles's complete playscript for Marching Song has not been produced,{{cite book|title=This is Orson Welles|last1=Welles|first1=Orson|last2=Bogdanovich|first2=Peter|last3=Rosenbaum|first3=Jonathan|date=1992|publisher=HarperCollins Publishers|isbn=0-06-016616-9|location=New York|page=[https://archive.org/details/thisisorsonwelle0000well/page/330 330]|author-link1=Orson Welles|author-link2=Peter Bogdanovich|author-link3=Jonathan Rosenbaum}} the Todd School for Boys presented an abbreviated world premiere of the play June 7–8, 1950, at the Woodstock Opera House. Hascy Tarbox, Welles's Todd School classmate and Hill's son-in-law, trimmed the four-hour play to two hours and staged the two performances for the benefit of the Woodstock Hospital.{{Rp|119}}

A copy of the typescript, including Welles's sketches and set design instructions, is held by the Lilly Library at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.{{cite web |url=http://www.indiana.edu/~liblilly/guides/welles/theatre.html |title=Theatre, 1936–1947 (Box 5, f. 14-Box 7, f. 22) |website=Guide to the Orson Welles Materials in the Lilly Library |date=6 December 2013 |publisher=Lilly Library, Indiana University Bloomington |access-date=2016-07-21 |quote=Purchased. Orson Welles, New York, N.Y., and Richard Wilson, Santa Monica, Calif. 1978.}}

On September 30, 1985, Hill told Welles that he had located his own copy of the play, which he planned to give him. "For my money it remains a compelling, if overly long, play. If that God-awful Hearts of Age … is worth saving, Marching Song, written two years earlier, should rate a Pulitzer. At least it's worth publication."{{cite book |last=Tarbox |first=Todd |date=2013 |title=Orson Welles and Roger Hill: A Friendship in Three Acts |location=Albany, Georgia |publisher=BearManor Media |page=270 |isbn=978-1-59393-260-2}}

Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group of Maryland announced it will publish the play in August 2019 – 87 years after it was written. It will be accompanied by two essays written by Hill's grandson, Todd Tarbox, which put the work in historical context and examine Welles's progressive politics.{{Cite web|url=http://www.wellesnet.com/marching-song-play-orson-welles/|title=Orson Welles play 'Marching Song' set for publication|date=2019-04-02|website=Wellesnet {{!}} Orson Welles Web Resource|language=en-US|access-date=2019-04-02}}

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Category:Plays by Orson Welles

Category:1932 plays

Category:Plays based on real people

Category:Plays set in the United States

Category:Plays set in the 19th century

Category:Cultural depictions of John Brown (abolitionist)