The Playwright

Aurand Harris was born in Jamesport, Missouri, on 4 July 1915. He attended the University of Kansas City, Northwestern University and Columbia University. He has worked as a teacher at Grace Church School in New York City, in addition to serving short terms as playwright-in-residence at several universities throughout the United States.

Harris' accomplishments are many. In the 1970s, he received an award established to recognise playwrights who have written a body of plays that lift up the field of children's theatre. He was given this award again in the 1980s and is the only playwright to win the Charlotte Chorpening award twice.

Some of his other works include, The Tobey Show (a vaudevillian show), Rags to Riches (a melodrama story), and The Arkansaw Bear (what he called his ‘death' show, performed at USQ in 2002). However, he sometimes also adapted traditional stories such as Pocahontas, or well-known stories such as The Magician's Nephew.

Harris is currently America's most-produced children's theatre playwright, and the children's theatre world lost a great person, playwright and human being in the spring of 1996, when he passed away at the age of 82. His plays though, will live on forever.