The Broken Wing (play)

The Broken Wing is a 1920 play by Charles W. Goddard and Paul Dickey. It is a melodrama in four acts, with three settings and eleven characters. The story concerns a young Mexican woman who loves an injured American aviator while herself pursued by an ambivalent Mexican army officer. The action of the play takes place on three days over the course of a month. The production was widely known for showing an airplane crashing into the first act setting, an effect that used forty stagehands and required constant repairs and rebuilding.

The play was first produced and staged by Paul Dickey for a one-week tryout in Cleveland during April 1920. It was later produced by Sargent Aborn, and again staged by Paul Dickey, with sets by P. Dodd Ackerman. Its leading players were Inez Plummer and Alphonz Ethier. The opening tour began in Binghamton, New York during late August 1920. The Broadway premiere came in late November 1920, with the run lasting to early July 1921 for 253 performances. The play featured an original song Adelai in Act III, composed by Joseph Calleia with lyrics by George Abbott, both of whom were in the cast. The airplanes used were supplied by Curtis Engineering Corporation.

The play went on national tour in August 1921, but was never revived on Broadway. The Broken Wing served as the basis for a 1921 novelization of the play that ran as a newspaper serial, a 1923 silent film, and a 1932 film.