Riggs, Lynn

(1899-1954)

   A native of Claremore, Oklahoma, Lynn Riggs attended the University of Oklahoma before writing about his home state. His first play, Big Lake (1927), produced by the American Laboratory Theatre with a cast including Stella Adler, was a failure. Riggs's next play, Roadside (1930), despite direction by Arthur Hopkins and scene designs by Robert Edmond Jones, also failed. His reputation is largely based on Green Grow the Lilacs* (1931), a Theatre Guild production featuring Helen Westley, June Walker, Lee Strasberg,* and Franchot Tone.* It provided the source material for Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II's* landmark musical, Oklahoma! (1943). Riggs's subsequent plays, Cherokee Night (1932), Russet Mantle (1936), Cream in the Well (1941), Borned in Texas (1950), and The Year of Pilar (1952) had short runs.