The amphitheatre opened on August 4, 1950. Paul Green, Pulitzer Prize winning playwright and author of the symphonic outdoor drama "The Lost Colony", was commissioned to write the opening season production. "Faith of Our Fathers" was a tribute to George Washington. It met with mixed reviews while the press and theater professionals hailed the Sesquicentennial Amphitheatre itself as the best outdoor theater ever seen. The placement of the amphitheatre maximized the natural acoustics of the bowl of the hill and it quickly became known as a theater with "not a bad seat in the house."