When The Green Pastures opened on Broadway in 1930, Variety thought it was "dreadfully lacking in box-office ability," predicted that "a ten-week stay ... should be sufficient." Variety was dreadfully wrong. Alexander Woollcott, guessing better in the New Yorker, said it was "the highest peak in the range of the American theater." Brooks Atkinson, in the Times, called it "the divine comedy of the modern theater." The Green Pastures (based on Roark Bradford's stories) won a Pulitzer Prize, ran for five years, played 1,779 performances in 203 cities to nearly two million people,...
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