Author Biography

William Saroyan was born on 31 August 1908 in Fresno, California, to Armenian immigrant parents. In 1933, The Armenian journal Hairenik published William's first poetry and stories. In October of that year, he wrote his short-story masterpiece, The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze. In 1939, Saroyan's first play, My Heart's in the Highlands, opened as a Group Theatre workshop production, to enthusiastic reviews. That summer, he wrote The Time of Your Life in a six-day stint. It was produced on Broadway by the Theatre Guild in 1939 with Joe Dowling, Celeste Holm and Gene Kelly, and won both the New York Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize. It has been revived three times on Broadway; was filmed in 1948, starring James Cagney; and twice filmed for TV including a PBS production in 1976 with Patti LuPone and Kevin Kline. It was last seen in the UK in a star-studded Royal Shakespeare Company production in Stratford and London in 1983, with John Thaw, Daniel Massey, Zoe Wanamaker, Miles Anderson, and Henry Goodman. William Saroyan died in Fresno, California, on May 18 1981. By his request, half of his ashes are interned in Fresno, the other half in Armenia.

Methuen Drama

Methuen Drama, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Methuen Drama
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
49–51 Bedford Square
London WC1B 3DP
www.methuendrama.com

First published in the United Kingdom in 1983 by Methuen Drama
This edition published by Methuen Drama in 2008

Copyright © 1939 The Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University

E-pub ISBN: 978 1 408 14117 5
Print ISBN: 978 1 408 11394 3

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Available in the USA from Bloomsbury Academic & Professional, 175 Fifth Avenue/3rd Floor, New York, NY10010. www.BloomsburyAcademicUSA.com

Caution

All rights whatsoever in this play are strictly reserved and application for performance etc. should be made before rehearsals begin to Samuel French Ltd, 52 Fitzroy Street, London, W1P 6JR. No performance may be given unless a licence has been obtained.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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