Introduction & Overview of Sunrise at Campobello by Dore Schary

Sunrise at Campobello Introduction

Sunrise at Campobello, possibly Dore Schary's best-known work, was first produced by the author on Broadway at the Cort Theater, on January 30, 1958, and later released by Warner Brothers in movie form (1960). Although the play is currently out of print, it delivers a timeless message in its depiction of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's struggle with paralysis. Schary, in his foreword to the play, states that after reading everything he could find on the subject of FDR, he felt there was yet another "moving and dramatic tale to be told" concerning the years of FDR's illness. Schary was so moved that he devoted his entire play to the thirty-four months leading up to FDR's speech in Madison Square Garden, one Schary felt was perhaps the most dramatic in its impact on the American public. Structurally, the work is divided into three acts, all recorded historically by date, and all three...
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