Under This Roof is a 1940 play in 2 Acts and 7 scenes by Boston lawyer, activist and writer Herbert B. Ehrmann, who had earlier achieved fame as the defense attorney in the Sacco and Vanzetti trial in 1920.
[1][2][3] Set inside an old New England household outside of Boston, the play is a historical drama revolving around the lives of three generations of a single American family from 1864 to 1917.
[1] The central character is Cornelia Thayer who marries the wealthy and snobbish Boston financier Ezra Warren after rejecting a proposal from his brother Gibeon Warren; a man leaving to seek his fortune as a pioneer in the Western United States.
[1] The play had its world premiere at the Red Barn Theatre in Westboro, Massachusetts on July 23, 1940 with a cast that included Alice Wiley as Cornelia Warren (nee Thayer), Wendell Corey as Ezra Warren, Michael St. Angel as Gibeon Warren, Helen Walker as Eileen O'Shaughnessy, John Taylor as Senator Flower, and Conway Washburn as Mr.
[6] The cast was led by Barbara O'Neil, the actress who portrayed Scarlett O'Hara's mother in Gone With The Wind, in the role of Cornelia Warren.