war Lawson and Kate lived and worked in Rome, where he edited a newspaper. He lived in Paris in 1920–1921, where he completed Roger Bloomer. This was Lawson's first show to reach Broadway, where it opened on March 1, 1923. It was put on by the Equity Players and ran for fifty performances. His next show, Processional, opened on Broadway on January 12, 1925, produced by the Theatre Guild. It ran for 96 performances. The production, however, failed financially, and the Theatre Guild told Lawson that they would not stage any more expressionistic plays. It was later revived in 1937 for the Federal Theatre Project during the Great Depression, when it received critical and popular acclaim. Lawson was fascinated by the works he saw when in 1926 the New York International Theatrical Exposition showcased experimental European cubist, futurist, and constructivist plays. After seeing these, Lawson, Dos Passos, and Michael Gold (founder/editor of The New Masses magazine) formed the Workers Drama League to produce revolutionary plays. One production and a few weeks later, the three men disbanded. They joined Em Jo Basshe and Francis Edward Faragoh, and formed the New Playwrights Theatre. This lasted until 1929; they were supported largely by funding from millionaire businessman Otto Hermann Kahn. March 3, 1926 was the premiere of Lawson's Nirvana at the Greenwich Village Theatre, which ran for six performances. The play calls for a new religion to help people survive the swirling cyclone of jazz, new machinery, great buildings, science fiction, tabloids, and radio. Lawson's reputation after Processional and the notable set design by Mordecai Gorelik are considered to have helped it gain the six showings. In late 1926, Lawson, along with Dos Passos and Gold, who together were on the National Executive Committee attempting to found the Proletarian Artists and Writers League. A similar Soviet Union organization offered some financial backing to them. In August 1927, Dos Passos, Gold, and Lawson went to Boston to protest the Sacco and Vanzetti trial. In his diary afterword, Lawson would write that he could "neither ignore the flaws in American politics and economics nor bring himself to become more deeply involved in the struggle". The first play produced by the New Playwrights Theatre, Lawson's Loud Speaker, opened on March 7, 1927, at the 52nd Street Theatre and ran for forty-two performances. He had been intrigued by the ceremonial laying of the cornerstone at the new