Kjeld Abell was the great source of renewal in twentieth-century Danish drama. As playwright, essayist, and set designer, he worked tirelessly to create a modern theater free from the constraints of realism and alive to the issues of its day. While only two of Abell's plays, Melodien der blev væk: Larsens Komedie i 21 Billeder (The Lost Melody: Larsen's Comedy in Twenty-one Scenes, 1935; translated as The Melody that Got Lost, 1936), and Anna Sophie Hedvig Skuespili 3 Akter (Anna Sophie Hedvig: Play in Three Acts, 1938; translated 1944) won international recognition, H. C. Branner could justly claim: "Det var Kjeld Abell som gjorde dansk teater levende og nutidigt" (It was Kjeld Abell who made Danish theater living and contemporary) by politicizing its subject matter and revolutionizing its form.

Abell was born in Ribe, Jutland, Denmark, on 25 August 1901 to Peter Abell, a high-school teacher, and his wife, Susanne Jørgensen. In...