The Bad Seed was a successful and long-running (334 performances)[1] Broadway play by Maxwell Anderson adapted from the novel of that name by William March, and was in turn adapted by John Lee Mahin into an Academy Award-nominated film of the same name directed by Mervyn Leroy. Staged by Reginald Denham, it opened December 8, 1954 at the 46th Street Theatre in New York. After five months, the play moved to the Coronet Theatre on 49th Street, and remained there until the final performance on September 27, 1955. The show starred Nancy Kelly (who won the 1955 Tony Award for Best Actress in the role as the mother), Patty McCormack, Eileen Heckart and Henry Jones, all of whom reprised their roles in the 1956 film and the first three of whom received Oscar nominations for their performances.
Interest in the play was strong enough that Life magazine ran an extensive story on the production a week before it opened.[2]
The play was shortlisted for the 1955 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, but Joseph Pulitzer, Jr. pressured the prize jury into presenting it to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof instead.[3]