Peer Gynt Peer Gynt Peer Gynt (; ) is a five-act play in verse by the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen published in 1867. Written in Danish—the common written language of Denmark and Norway in Ibsen's lifetime—it is one of the most widely performed Norwegian plays. Ibsen believed "Per Gynt", the Norwegian fairy tale on which the play is loosely based, to be rooted in fact, and several of the characters are modelled after Ibsen's own family, notably his parents Knud Ibsen and Marichen Altenburg. He was also generally inspired by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen's collection of Norwegian fairy tales, published in 1845 ("Huldre-Eventyr
Peer Gynt Ginty", transferred the play to an Irish Civil War setting. It was staged at Dublin's Gate Theatre. In 1969, Broadway impresario Jacques Levy (who had previously directed the first version of "Oh! Calcutta!") commissioned The Byrds' Roger McGuinn to write the music for a pop (or country-rock) version of "Peer Gynt", to be titled "Gene Tryp". The play was apparently never completed, although, as of 2006, McGuinn was preparing a version for release. Several songs from the abortive show appeared on the Byrds' albums of 1970 and 1971. In March 1972 Jerry Heymann's adaptation, called "Mr. Gynt, Inc.", was performed