The Cocktail Party The Cocktail Party The Cocktail Party is a play by T. S. Eliot. Elements of the play are based on "Alcestis", by the Ancient Greek playwright Euripides. The play was the most popular of Eliot's seven plays in his lifetime, although his 1935 play, "Murder in the Cathedral", is better remembered today. It was written while Eliot was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in 1948. "The Cocktail Party" was first performed at the Edinburgh Festival in 1949. In 1950 the play had successful runs in London and New York theaters (the Broadway production received the 1950
Murder in the Cathedral play, the knights step up, address the audience, and defend their actions. The murder was all right and for the best: it was in the right spirit, sober, and justified so that the church's power would not undermine stability and state power. George Bell, the Bishop of Chichester, was instrumental in getting Eliot to work as writer with producer E. Martin Browne in producing the pageant play "The Rock" (1934). Bell then asked Eliot to write another play for the Canterbury Festival in 1935. Eliot agreed to do so if Browne once again produced (he did). The first performance was