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
The Cocktail Party in London with Rex Harrison as the uninvited guest. A revival opened on October 7, 1968, at the Lyceum Theatre and ran for 44 performances. The Chamberlaynes were played by Brian Bedford and Frances Sternhagen, with Sydney Walker as the mysterious stranger. Guinness returned to the role of the uninvited guest at the Chichester Festival Theatre under his own direction in 1968, taking the production to London later in the year. In the spring of 2010, the New York-based Off-Broadway company The Actors Company Theatre (TACT) presented the play. The Cocktail Party The Cocktail Party is a play by T.