The Fifth Column: World Premiere of Ernest Hemingway's drama.

The Mint Theater Company have announced the cast for their presentation of the long-delayed World Premiere production of The Fifth Column by Ernest Hemingway 'not the dramatization of a novel or story,' but a drama written for the stage by one of America�s most celebrated authors.

The Mint will present, for the first-time ever, The Fifth Column as it was originally written.

The drama will open at the Mint Theatre on 11 Mar 2008, following previews from 26 Feb and run through to 4 May 2008.

Directed by Jonathan Bank, The Fifth Column will feature James Andreassi, Heidi Armbruster, Kelly AuCoin, Ryan Duncan, Ronald Guttman, John Hayden, Joe Hickey, Carlos Lopez, Ned Noyes, Maria Parra, Joe Rayome, Nicole Shalhoub and Teresa Yenque.

The creative team comprises Vicki R. Davis (sets), Clint Ramos (costumes), Jeff Nellis (lighting) and Jane Shaw (sound).

Hemingway wrote The Fifth Column in 1937 when he was in Madrid working as a correspondent during the Spanish Civil War. �While I was writing the play the Hotel Florida, where we lived and worked, was struck by more than thirty high explosive shells,� Hemingway recounted in his introduction to the play when it was published the following year. �If it is a good play, perhaps those thirty shells helped write it.�

The play revolves around the personal and political passions of Philip Rawlings, a counter-espionage agent living in the Hotel Florida and working for the Loyalist cause. �It has the defects of having been written in war time,� Hemingway conceded, �But if being written under fire makes for defects, it may also give a certain vitality.�

"It was written to be produced,� he continued, �But one producer died after he had signed a contract to put it on and had gone to California to cast it. Another producer signed another contract and had trouble raising money. Reading it over I thought it read well, no matter how it might play and so decided to put it in with this book of stories [The First Forty-Nine Stories 1938]. �Later some one may want to produce it.�

Indeed, two years later in 1940, The Theatre Guild did mount a production under the direction of Lee Strasberg. After standing fast for over a year and declining to consider making any revisions, Hemingway concluded that he would never see the play produced unless he gave way�and then he gave way entirely�allowing the Guild to hire a Hollywood screenwriter to doctor the script rather than re-writing himself. The produced play was so significantly altered that it was billed as �Adapted by Benjamin Glazer from the published play by Ernest Hemingway.�

Hemingway declined ever to see the bastardized play in performance. In a letter to the producer written after the play�s opening he said that no financial rewards that the production might offer would compensate for the damage he had done to his reputation by allowing Glazer to re-write his play.

The play had a respectable run of eighty-seven performances, foreshortened in part by Franchot Tone�s decision to return to Hollywood rather than extending his contract. On 18 May 1940 the play closed�and has barely been heard of since.

In 2001, the Mint was awarded an Obie grant for �combining the excitement of discovery with the richness of tradition,� and in 2002 a special Drama Desk Award for �unearthing, presenting and preserving forgotten plays of merit.�