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 acts are equally dramatic in their content. The triumph of Schary's work is the economy the playwright demonstrates in conveying the emotional breadth and depth of a character of unquestionable fame in a very intimate frank manner. In his depiction, Schary offers yet another view of Roosevelt's personal and political development during a very difficult and moving time in his life, before he became president of the United States. The success of the play was unquestionable—it became a Broadway hit earning five Tony Awards.
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