Opening on 10 October 1927 at the Theatre Guild, the folk drama of African American life by Dubose and Dorothy Heyward, based upon Dubose Heyward's 1925 novel Porgy, ran for 367 performances. Frank Wilson played the crippled Porgy, who goes about on a wagon pulled by a goat. Porgy loves the wayward Bess and wins her from Crown, but she is in thrall to the "happy dust" purveyed by Sporting Life. Cleon Throckmorton's settings evoked the Charleston, South Carolina, slum known as Catfish Row. Rouben Mamoulian directed, and Rose McClendon played Serena. It was made into the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin.
The Historical Dictionary of the American Theater. James Fisher.