William Archibald (playwright)

William Archibald (7 March 1917 – 27 December 1970) was a Trinidadian-born playwright, dancer, choreographer and director, whose stage adaptation of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw was made into the 1961 British horror film The Innocents.

[1] Leaving Trinidad in 1937, Archibald enrolled at the Academy of Allied Arts in New York to study dance, making his Broadway début as a principal in the revue One for the Money.

[2] Archibald produced his first saleable stage writing for the choreographer Charles Weidman: a verse accompaniment for On My Mother's Side.

[4] In 1945, Archibald wrote the book and lyrics for Carib Song, which was staged at the Adelphi Theatre with choreography by Katherine Dunham and a score by Baldwin Bergersen.

His first play, The Innocents, based on the Henry James novella The Turn of the Screw, opened on Broadway in 1950.