Believe Me, Xantippe (play)

Believe Me, Xantippe is a play written in 1912 by John Frederick Ballard, while a postgraduate student at Harvard University. Its author labelled it a comedy, but reviewers judged it a melodramatic farce. It has four acts, with three settings and ten characters. The story concerns a bet that an intelligent man can avoid being apprehended for a minor crime. The action of the play spans one years time.

The play won the third annual Harvard Prize, also referred to as the John Craig Prize, given each year to the best work produced in conjunction with George Pierce Baker's drama courses at Harvard and Radcliffe. The title is a favorite expression of the main character in the play; it uses a variant spelling of Xanthippe. The title originally concluded with an exclamation point, which was dropped before it reached Broadway.

Believe Me, Xantippe! was first produced by John Craig, staged by George Henry Trader, and featured Craig and members of the Castle Square Theatre stock company, including Craig's wife Mary Young, Donald Meek, and Mabel Colcord. The opening engagement at Boston started in January 1913 and ran through to April 1913, for 132 performances.

William A. Brady and the Shuberts joined John Craig to produce the retitled Believe Me, Xantippe for Broadway. John Craig restaged it, while the stars were John Barrymore and Mary Young. The play made its Broadway premiere in August 1913, running through October 1913.

The play was never revived on Broadway, but was adapted for a 1918 silent film, now considered lost.