Mrs. Patterson

A play about race and adolescence set in the Deep South of America about 1920, written by African-American painter-playwright Charles Sebree and Greer Johnson.

Eartha Kitt stars as Teddy Hicks, a poor, illegitimate, black 15-year-old who spends her time daydreaming about living a life of luxury like her mother’s wealthy and well-travelled white employer, 'Mrs Patterson'. But the daydreams can’t suppress the reality of her life as a teenage girl in a Kentucky shanty-town and she agrees to run off to Chicago with Willie B., the boy-next-door.

This production was something of a landmark in an era when plays on British television were almost exclusively written by white authors and performed by white actors. (1956)