Billy Budd (play) (original) (raw)

Billy Budd is a play by Louis O. Coxe and Robert H. Chapman based on Herman Melville's novella of the same name. Originally titled Uniform of Flesh, the play premiered Off-Broadway in 1949. Coxe and Chapman restructured and retitled the work for its Broadway debut in 1951. The revised version was a critical success, winning the Donaldson Award for Best First Play and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Play in 1951. In 1952 the play was adapted for the television anthology series Schlitz Playhouse of Stars, and Peter Ustinov adapted the play into a film which premiered in 1962.