Needing to make a living, he decided to try writing full-time. It was a wise decision. His first play, "On Trial" (1914), a melodramatic murder mystery, was a great success and ran for 365 performances in New York. George M. Cohan offered to buy the rights for $30,000, a proposition Rice declined largely because he did not believe Cohan could be serious. Co-authored with a friend, Frank Harris (not the famed Oscar Wilde biographer and memoirist), the play was purportedly the first American drama to employ the technique of reverse-chronology, telling the story from its conclusion to its starting-point. "On Trial" then went on tour throughout the United States with three separate companies and was produced in Argentina, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Hungary, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Scotland and South Africa. The author ultimately earned $100,000 from his first work for the stage. None of his later plays earned him as much as "On Trial." The play was adapted for the cinema three times, in 1917, 1928, and 1939.