Autumn Crocus is a 1931 play by the British writer Dodie Smith

Dodie Smith

Dorothy Gladys "Dodie" Smith was an English novelist and playwright. Smith is best known for her novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians. Her other works include I Capture the Castle and The Starlight Barking....

. It was Smith's first play written under the pseudonym

Pseudonym

A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

 of C.L. Anthony. It follows a single schoolteacher who goes on holiday to the Tyrol and falls in love with the married owner of the hotel in which she is staying.

Directed by Basil Dean

Basil Dean

Basil Herbert Dean CBE was an English actor, writer, film producer/director and theatrical producer/director....

, it opened at the Lyric Theatre, London, on 6th April 1931, starring Fay Compton

Fay Compton

Fay Compton was an English actress from a notable acting lineage; her father was actor/manager Edward Compton; her mother, Virginia Bateman, was a distinguished member of the profession, as were her sister, the actress Viola Compton, and her uncles and aunts. Her grandfather was the 19th-century...

, Francis Lederer

Francis Lederer

Francis Lederer was a film and stage actor with a successful career, first in Europe, then in the United States.-Europe:...

 and Martita Hunt

Martita Hunt

Martita Hunt was an English theatre and film actress.-Early life:Hunt was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 30 January 1900 to British parents Alfred and Marta Hunt...

. Stage designs were by Gladys Calthrop

Gladys Calthrop

Gladys E. Calthrop was an artist and leading British stage designer. She is best known as the set and costume designer for many of Noël Coward's plays and musicals.-Life and career:...

. Such was its success that the management decided to put an additional 35 seats into the stalls.

Adaptation

In 1934 it was adapted into a film by Associated Talking Pictures directed by Basil Dean

Basil Dean

Basil Herbert Dean CBE was an English actor, writer, film producer/director and theatrical producer/director....

 and starring Fay Compton

Fay Compton

Fay Compton was an English actress from a notable acting lineage; her father was actor/manager Edward Compton; her mother, Virginia Bateman, was a distinguished member of the profession, as were her sister, the actress Viola Compton, and her uncles and aunts. Her grandfather was the 19th-century...

 and Ivor Novello

Ivor Novello

David Ivor Davies , better known as Ivor Novello, was a Welsh composer, singer and actor who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century. Born into a musical family, his first successes were as a songwriter...

.