Published in 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s UNCLE TOM’S CABIN is regarded as the most influential novel ever published. When Abraham Lincoln was introduced to Stowe for the first time he remarked, “So this is the little lady who made the big war.”

George Aiken’s dramatic adaptation of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s controversial and groundbreaking anti-slavery novel was first presented within months of the novel’s release in Troy, NY, where it played 100 performances and was seen by 25,000 of the 30,000 people that made up the town’s population. From Troy, Aiken’s play embarked on a national tour that went non-stop for 35 years but then fell out of favor as American sensibilities changed throughout the late 19th and 20th centuries.

In 1997 Mint Theater Company presented Aiken’s dramatization without revision or comment, as both a vital part of American history and a spellbinding portrayal of man’s struggle against the evil in himself and in society. The ambitious production of the rarely revived UNCLE TOM’S CABIN was deemed “heroic”¹ by D.J.R. Bruckner of the New York Times. Writing in Time Out New York, Sam Whitehead praised the production for featuring “a great deal of simple, honest humor and heart-breaking compassion—elements too often lacking in today’s theater.”²

• 1. A FAST-MOVING MELODRAMA THE NEW YORK TIMES
• 2. UNCLE TOM'S CABIN TIME OUT NEW YORK