1933
Dylan tells Bert Trick about an embryonic UMW set in a south Wales terraced village
1938
March: sends a letter to Meurig Walters with an idea that writers prepare a verse-report of their own village/town
1939
Suggests a play about Laugharne to Richard Hughes
1943
Outlines the mad town plot to Hughes and later to Constantine FitzGibbon
Writes a New Quay pub poem, Sooner than you can water milk
1944/45
September 1944: Dylan and family move to Majoda, New Quay, Cardiganshire
December: Quite Early One Morning is first broadcast
January 1945: Dylan proposes a book called Twelve Hours in the Streets
March: Philip Burton comes to New Quay to produce a radio impression of a Welsh village by the sea
Makes a start on a play that would later be called UMW.
July 1945: the family leave New Quay.
Recites excerpts from the play at a party in Riding House Street, London
September: Aneirin Talfan Davies asks Dylan to write a radio programme about a Welsh country village
1946/47
Oxford: Dylan writes several of the other UMW milestones, including The Londoner, Margate - Past and Present and Return Journey.
August 1946: writes to Margaret Taylor about New Quay characters
April-August 1947: visits Italy and resolves to write a radio play. Letters to friends contain words and phrases that he later develops for UMW
July 1947: tells his parents he will write a radio play in South Leigh in the autumn.
1947/48
September 1947: Dylan and family move to South Leigh, Oxfordshire. Works on a draft of most of the first half of UMW
Autumn: discusses a play called The Village of the Mad with Philip Burton, who advises him to drop the mad town plot. They also discuss Dylan’s ideas about Captain Cat
March 1948: tells John Ormond that he is writing a radio play
1949
March: Dylan goes to Prague, and recites extracts from a play about a mad town
May: moves to the Boat House, Laugharne
September: tells David Higham the play is "nearly finished"
October: shows an incomplete draft of the play to Alan Curnow, titled The Town that was Mad
1950
February-May: first trip to America
October: first half of UMW sent to Douglas Cleverdon at the BBC as The Town That Was Mad
December: Cleverdon advises Dylan to drop the mad town plot
1951
January and February: Dylan visits Persia/Iran
July: Dylan tells the editor of Botteghe Oscure that the play is "temporarily shelved". John Brinnin first hears of the play as Llareggub Hill.
October: Dylan sends shortened version of first-half of the play to Botteghe Oscure; his notebook lists nine new scenes to be written
1952
January-May: Dylan’s second trip to America
April: Botteghe Oscure publishes shortened first half as Llareggub, A Piece for Radio Perhaps
May: Dylan reads part of the play at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London
September: BBC memos note that they have only half of the script.
October: Cleverdon goes to Laugharne to collect the second-half of the script but returns empty-handed.
After a discussion with Brinnin, Dylan changes the title to Under Milk Wood. Back in America, Brinnin advertises a reading performance of the play for May 14 1953 at the Poetry Center in New York.
November: Dylan tells the editor of Botteghe Oscure that he has not written the second half of the play. He writes to explain why he hasn't been able to "finish the second half of my piece for you." He had failed shamefully, he says, to add to "my lonely half of a looney maybe-play", but promises the rest of the script by February.
1953
January: Dylan writes to Professor Gwyn Jones, and says of the play that "I've been terribly busy failing to write one word of a more or less play set in a Wales that I'm sad to say never was…"
February: Dylan's agent, David Higham, notes that "He hasn't made any progress on the Llareggub things."
Dylan writes to Charles Fry, complaining that, apart from the 'Prologue' for Collected Poems, he had not been able to write anything for a whole year.
March 10: Dylan reads part of the play in Cardiff at the University’s English Society
March 18: tells John Brinnin the script is not finished.
April 21: arrives in America with the first half script. Brinnin notes that the play "was still far from finished"
April 26, May 1, 2 and 3: works intermittently on the second half of script
May 3: reads an unfinished script, Fogg Museum, Harvard
May 8: first cast rehearsal with Dylan with an unfinished script
May 14: up at dawn, Dylan works all day and evening on the play. With its premiere at the Poetry Center only ninety minutes away, Brinnin notes that even at this late stage "the final third of the play was still unorganised and but partially written." The actors are handed the last lines of the script as they are preparing to go on stage. They give the first public cast reading of the play
May 28: second public cast reading at the Poetry Center
August 5: Dylan reads "almost all" the play at Porthcawl
October 2: he reads the play at the Tenby Arts Club
October 20: he arrives in New York; first rehearsal of the play takes place
October 22-24: three more rehearsals of the play; Dylan also adds further lines to the script
October 24/25: two more cast readings at the Poetry Center, New York
November 9: Dylan dies
A memorial production of UMW is given in New York with Dylan's roles taken by Walter Abel
1954
January 24: twenty-five minute extract from UMW read at the Globe Theatre, with Dames Edith Evans, Richard Burton and Emlyn Williams, to raise money for the Dylan Thomas Memorial Fund
January 25: first British radio performance, BBC Third Programme, with Richard Burton, and produced by Douglas Cleverdon. Philip and Richard Burton were in the cast. It wins the Italia Prize
February 14: extracts from the play read at the Dylan Thomas Memorial Recital at the Royal Festival Hall, London; the readers were Douglas Cleverdon and members of the cast from the January 25 BBC production
February 28: complete reading at the Old Vic with Sybil Thorndike, Richard Burton and Emlyn Williams, adapted and presented by Philip Burton
Abridged versions appear in Mademoiselle and The Observer
March 5: J. M. Dent publish Under Milk Wood
March 10: broadcast by the BBC German Service; translated by Erich Fried as Unter dem Milchwald
April 28: New Directions publish the play in America
BBC production released as an LP by Argo Record Company
Caedmon LP of the May 14 performance in New York
September 20: first broadcast on German radio of Fried’s Unter dem Milchwald, with another on December 8
September 28: first BBC Welsh Home Service broadcast
November: first stage performance, at the Théâtre de la Cour Saint-Pierre, Geneva, by Phoenix Productions, with sound effects lent by the BBC
Unter dem Milchwald published as a book in Germany
Paula Rego, Under Milk Wood, oil on canvas, online at https://www.ucl.ac.uk/culture/ucl-art-museum/under-milk-wood
1955
January: translated into French as Le Bois de Lait by Roger Giroux in Les Lettres Nouvelles, with two further instalments in February and March
March 7: Private matinée performance at RADA, directed by Edward Burnham
1956
August 13: first British stage production at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle, directed by Edward Burnham and Douglas Cleverdon
August 21: first Edinburgh Festival production
September 20: first London West End stage production, New Theatre, with Donald Houston, directed by Edward Burnham and Douglas Cleverdon
Unter dem Milchwald performed with a cast of seventy at the Schiller Theatre in Berlin
1957
May 9: a BBC television performance
October 15: first Broadway production; directed by Douglas Cleverdon
1958
Dent publish the Acting Edition of the play
1968
Translated into Welsh as Dan Y Wenallt by T. James Jones
1971
Film version with Richard Burton
1988
Musical version produced by George Martin, with Anthony Hopkins