Florida State Play - Cross and Sword

Cross and Sword: Florida's State Play is Cross and Sword. Cross and Sword, an outdoor reenactment of the founding of St.Augustine. This play was created in honor of the St. Augustine’s 400th Anniversary in 1965. Paul Green, winner of 1927 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his Broadway play in Abraham’s Bosom, wrote it.

Earlier in 1937, with North Carolina’s The Lost Colony, Green created the “symphonic drama,” a mixture of music, pantomime, dance and poetic dialogue into one larger than life historical play, made him into the sort of this project. On June 27, 1965, and in 1973, Cross and Sword, the Florida’s official state play was designated by the Florida Legislature.

Cross and Sword is the play, which asked the state Division of Cultural Affairs for $27,089 in 1997 and was turned down. The 1996 season was shows last, renovations were meanwhile been made to the amphitheater that had continued to be used for other things. There is always a possibility that Cross and Sword will be revived, someday, for at least a limited run if not at the same perpetual as before.

Cross and Sword is Symphonic Drama of the Spanish Settlement of Florida. The play is a musical renovation depicting Florida's early history at St. Augustine, especially its colonization by Spaniard Pedro Menendez de Aviles and his settlers' bloody conflicts with French Huguenots at Fort Carolin in present day Jacksonville.