On 2 February 1920 Eugene O'Neill saw his first major play, Beyond the Horizon, open at the Morosco. It was his first opening and first performance in a mainstream theatre. Beyond was about the thirtieth play he had finished since he began writing plays in 1913; he wrote it early in 1918 when he was twenty-nine. When it opened two years later, New York was in the throes of a lethal influenza epidemic, and the opening was an unpublicized “special matinee.” Late in rehearsals, O'Neill took over direction from the lead actor, but despite all efforts, despaired of the production. Nevertheless, an audience came and accepted the play as a serious and absorbing work, and reviewers admired it. Though it is no great compliment, Beyond was clearly the best play yet written by an American and would win O'Neill the first of four Pulitzer Prizes. The production ran 144 performances and brought O'Neill over $6,000 which made him, at thirty-one, finally independent of his father's purse-strings.