Hatcher Hughes was an American playwright who lived in Grover, NC, as featured in the book Images of America. He was on the teaching staff of Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 from 1912 onward. He was awarded the 1924 Pulitzer Prize

Pulitzer Prize

The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

 for his 1922 play Hell-Bent Fer Heaven

Hell-Bent Fer Heaven

Hell-Bent Fer Heaven is a play by Hatcher Hughes that won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1924.The play ran at the Klaw Theatre from January to April 1924, featuring George Abbott, Glenn Anders and Margaret Borough...

.

Early life and education

He was the tenth of eleven children of Andrew Jackson Hughes and Martha Jane Gold Hughes. He received both his undergraduate degree (1907) and master's degree (1909) in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Career

Hell-bent fer Heaven (1924) was performed 122 times at the Klaw Theater (which later became the Avon and then CBS Theater #2). The play starred multiple Tony Award

Tony Award

The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...

 and Pulitzer Prize

Pulitzer Prize

The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

 winner George Abbott

George Abbott

George Francis Abbott was an American theater producer and director, playwright, screenwriter, and film director and producer whose career spanned more than nine decades.-Early years:...

 (author of The Pajama Game, Fiorello, and Damn Yankees) and Clara Blandick

Clara Blandick

Clara Blandick was an American actress. Her many film appearances include the role of Auntie Em in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.-Early life:She was born Clara Dickey, the daughter of Isaac B...

 (who played Auntie Em in The Wizard of Oz). It was made into a movie in 1926.

Other noted authors of plays and friends at the Klaw stage during Hughes's time were George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...

 and Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...

. Hughes was a professor at Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

. A UNC graduate, he returned often to NC to speak and provide insight on Broadway. His detailed correspondence from New York to North Carolina and his mother provides a wealth of information to this day for Silver Screen researchers and archivists at the University of North Carolina

University of North Carolina

Chartered in 1789, the University of North Carolina was one of the first public universities in the United States and the only one to graduate students in the eighteenth century...

.

Family

In 1930 he married Janet Ranney Cool. The marriage produced a daughter, Ann Ranney Hughes. During the First World War, he served as an Army captain. He and his family divided their time between their home in New York City and their farm in West Cornwall, Connecticut.

Works

• A Marriage Made in Heaven (1918)
• Wake Up, Jonathan! (with Elmer Rice
  Elmer Rice
  Elmer Rice was an American playwright. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his 1929 play, Street Scene.-Early years:...
  
  , 1921)
• Hell-Bent fer Heaven (1924), made into the 1926 motion picture of the same name
• Ruint (1920)
• It's a Grand Life (1930)
• The Lord Blesses the Bishop (co-author, 1934)

External links