A Stage Full of Trees and Sky: Analyzing Representations of Nature on the New York Stage, 1905 – 2012

by

Leslie S. Gulden, M.F.A.

A Dissertation

In

Fine Arts Major in Theatre, Minor in English

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Approved

Dr. Dorothy Chansky Chair of Committee

Dr. Sarah Johnson

Andrea Bilkey

Dr. Jorgelina Orfila

Dr. Michael Borshuk

Mark Sheridan Dean of the Graduate School

May, 2021

Copyright 2021, Leslie S. Gulden

Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I owe a debt of gratitude to my Dissertation Committee Chair and mentor, Dr.

Dorothy Chansky, whose encouragement, guidance, and support has been invaluable. I would also like to thank all my Dissertation Committee Members: Dr. Sarah Johnson,

Andrea Bilkey, Dr. Jorgelina Orfila, and Dr. Michael Borshuk.

This dissertation would not have been possible without the cheerleading and assistance of my colleague at York College of PA, Kim Fahle Peck, who served as an early draft reader and advisor. I wish to acknowledge the love and support of my partner,

Wesley Hannon, who encouraged me at every step in the process.

I would like to dedicate this dissertation in loving memory of my mother, Evelyn

Novinger Gulden, whose last Christmas gift to me of a massive dictionary has been a constant reminder that she helped me start this journey and was my angel at every step along the way.

Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………………………………………………………………ii

ABSTRACT …………………………………………………………..………………...iv

LIST OF FIGURES……………………………………………………………………..v

I. INTRODUCTION..…………………………………………..……………………….1

A Stage Full of Trees and Sky….………………………………………………...5

Representation……………………….…..…………………………….…………6

Nature……………………………………………………………………………16

New York………………………………………………………………………...21

Stage……………………………………………………………………………..23

Chapter Outline and Methodology………………………………………………30

II. NOSTALGIA FOR THE WEST AND PICTORIALISM IN

THEATRICAL DESIGN 1905-1915: THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN

WEST AND THE GREAT DIVIDE ………………………...………….....………46

Pictorialism in Theatrical Design - The Girl of the Golden West (1905) ………50

Frontier Plays in New York City - The Great Divide (1906) …………………..67

III. NATURE OUTSIDE THE WINDOWN AND THE EMERGING

THEATRICAL DESIGNER 1915-1945: THE EMPEROR JONES

AND OF MICE AND MEN ………………………………………………………79

New Stagecraft Design and the Forest - The Emperor Jones (1920) ………..…83

Depression, Dust Bowl and New York - Of Mice and Men (1937) ……….……99

Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021

IV. MODERNISM IN DESIGN AND ENVIRONMENTALISM

1945-1970: SLEEPY HOLLOW, DEATH OF A SALESMAN AND

A CLEARING IN THE WOODS..…………………………………………….…..109

Modernist Metaphor – Sleepy Hollow (1948) ……………………….…………112

The Coveted Backyard - Death of a Salesman (1949) …….………...…………126

Nature and Home - A Clearing in the Woods (1957) ……………………..……136

Rise of Environmentalism – Dead Zone 1957 to 1983 …………...……………144

V. ENVIRONMENTALISM AND POSTMODERN DESIGN 970-2012:

K2, INTO THE WOODS, THE KENTUCKY CYCLE, THE LION KING

AND PETER AND THE STARATCHER ……………………….....……………148

Visual Ecology versus Textual Ecology – K2 (1983) and The Kentucky Cycle

(1993): …………………………………………………………………………157

Abstraction and Post-Modern Design Elements – Into the Woods (1987), The Lion

King (1998) and Peter and the Starcatcher (2012): ….……………..…………167

Conclusion – A Question Left to Designers……………………..………..……185

BIBLIOGRAPHY …………………………………………………………………….186

APPENDICES…………………………………………………………………………203

A. BURNS MANTLE SETTINGS CHART ………………………….…………203 B. THEATRE MAGAZINE SETTING CHART……………………..…………302 C. THEATRE ARTS SETTING CHART………………………...……………..320

Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021

ABSTRACT

By problematizing design aesthetics for sample plays featuring representations of nature on American stages, predominantly open space wilderness, this dissertation questions ways in which theatrical visuals have either promoted the intrinsic value of nature or distanced the audience from the more-than-human world. My analysis examines scenographic depictions of a variety of natural landscapes used in selected

Broadway and off-Broadway productions from 1905 to 2012. This examination will utilize scholarship from ecocriticism, deep ecology, and environmental history to contextualize designs as cultural artifacts. While the beginning of the twentieth century was a time when nostalgia for the lost frontier was reflected in design aesthetics, over the course of the next one hundred years I argue that nature-related Broadway design aesthetics leaned progressively towards depictions of nature as obvious metaphors for something else or as hyperreal. Both are problematic when examined via deep ecology, a philosophy based on recognizing the intrinsic value of the non-human. I scrutinize the

American cultural and more specifically the New York relationship with the environment in different periods. This research is then compared with specific theatrical designs to argue which modern and postmodern designs offered intrinsic value to the environment depicted, how this was accomplished, which failed to do so and why the design was ecocentric or anthropocentric.

Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021

LIST OF TABLES

1.1 Aronson’s Comparison of Modernist vs. Postmodern Design………………..…32

4.1 Number of American Backyard-plays Selected by Yearbook of Best Plays…...125

Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Through its alliance with the principles of progress and homogeneity, the figure of America first signified a kind of ultimate placelessness, a guarantee of the absolute unmeaning of place as a component of human experience. But the very success of this figuration—what one might call the hyperbole of American utopianism—proved to be its undoing. - Chaudhuri Staging Place 5

The bay window proscenium beyond my computer screen frames a wilderness of such an abundance of trees that the sky is barely visible. Yet, from my desk at the vacation cabin that has been in my family for over sixty years, I cannot help but be keenly aware of my own dissociation from the natural environment just outside my window. While I own the cabin, the land under it and the trees visible through my window are part of a Pennsylvania state forest. Because I can only lease and never own the ground on which my cabin rests, I must abide by a park service edict which demands that all cabins in the park remain rustic, but the laws regarding what constitutes a lack of modern amenities have fluctuated over time, making this rule inconsistent in its application. All of the cabins in Michaux State Forest have glass windows and most have screens, a very basic accessory for keeping out flying pests. Most cabins have electricity and some, like mine, have running water. I remember having to haul water in five-gallon jugs as a child before my family took advantage of a limited timeframe during which the state allowed cabin owners to add water pumps. Availing ourselves of this temporary change in the laws allowed my family to replace the outhouse that I used as a child with a standard indoor bathroom, but this convenience can no longer be added to other cabins.

Behind me I can hear the soft hum of the portable air conditioner unit, placed on the dehumidifier setting in order to assuage my own guilt for buying such an urban machine for my cabin. I still must cut and haul wood for heat on chilly spring and fall evenings,

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 but it could be argued that this is my only direct interaction with my environment. I have resisted installing a telephone, internet, or cable services, but since I bring a cell phone and a laptop with me, the point is almost moot. Quite frankly, the modernity with which

I am surrounded inside my cabin creates a disconnect from the flora, fauna, and terrain of this state forest which is nearly complete. I am, in fact, living a lie of rustic amid a lie of wilderness. If wilderness is synonymous with land uncultivated and uninhabited by man, the word does not accurately denote the case in Michaux. What many visitors assume to be an old-growth wilderness is actually part of a vast stretch of land that was completely deforested several times during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to serve the needs of the iron-making industries in the region. Aware of all of this, I stare out the window at the performance of two squirrels playing chase in a setting of majestic maple and oak trees, enjoying the self-deception of being one with nature.

The theatre district of New York City seems a universe away from what I see through my cabin window, but some of the same mirage-of-nature issues that apply to the frame in front of me can also be applied to analyzing the visual aspects of scenic design onstage. The goal of examining literary and theatrical narratives is often an attempt to scrutinize cultural attitudes and behaviors. Traditionally, western scholarship privileges the dramatic text over other elements of a theatrical production. However, scenography scholars, such as Christin Essin, argue that scenic designs can be treated as multivalent objects serving as cultural texts, and that visual depictions are just as clear a reflection of the times in which they are made as the language of the scripts, especially in a highly visual age such as our own. Just as visitors to Michaux State Forest construct a narrative about the park simply based on what they see, scenic depictions of open space wilderness

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 in an urban setting like New York City not only reflect the attitudes of those who made them but became part of a cultural narrative which might be copied and perpetuated via similar designs built for productions in other locations. If design serves as cultural text, can design be intentionally used to promote reconnection with the non-human? The goal of this dissertation is a historical and deep ecology examination of depictions of nature on the Broadway stage. The historical exam seeks to draw correlations between prevalent

American attitudes towards the environment in various periods, while the deep ecology examination explores the ways in which changes in design styles either promote the intrinsic value of nature or distance the audience from the environment.

This dissertation is a study of various stylistic attempts to represent nature onstage, not for the sake of arguing the merits of one style over another, but rather to analyze these representations as cultural texts. As cultural trends changed over the 107 years covered, I argue that four periods of national ecological attitudes, and more specifically northeastern attitudes, are reflected in the designs and texts for my case study plays. I based my delineation of chapters on an observation that changes in American environmental attitudes roughly coincided with shifts in design philosophies. The first of these is a period encompassing both nostalgia for and continuing fear of wilderness after the 1890 United States census, which declared that there was no longer an open frontier, and lasting until roughly 1920. Chapter 2 will use the texts and designs for The Girl of the Golden West (1905) and The Great Divide (1906) as its case studies of early realism in design. The second period, covered in chapter 3, starts as designs influenced by New

Stagecraft move to Broadway with the case study play The Emperor Jones (1920) and continues with an examination of the evolution of modernist design during the depression

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 era using Of Mice and Men (1937). Chapter 4, which starts with the end of World War II and lasts until 1970, covers a time of conquest of and mastery over nature, influenced by both social and scientific changes in America as a direct result of the war. During this period, subtle stylistic changes were introduced into the world of scenic design, and more dramas were set in backyards as middle-class, white Americans moved to the suburbs.

The main case study designs for chapter 4 are Sleepy Hollow (1949) and A Clearing in the Woods (1957), but I will also briefly examine the phenomenon of the backyard play using Death of a Salesman (1949) as an example. Finally, the fourth period, which I have marked as starting with the first Earth Day in 1970 and which I will examine up until 2012, finds stage wilderness becoming progressively influenced by hyperreality.

For this chapter, the main designs I consider are those for K2 (1983), Into the Woods

(1987), The Kentucky Cycle (1991), The Lion King (1998) and Peter and the Starcatcher

(2012). Because this period offered so many wilderness settings, the analysis also involved comparisons regarding which designs promoted the intrinsic value of the more- than-human with designs that promoted a removal or distancing of the audience from the environment. These assessments do not analyze the approach of the design in terms of how it supports the text, but rather in how nature is represented to an urban audience.

This chapter considers changes in design that followed the assertive reconsideration of the real accompanying the emergence of postmodernist philosophies. Obviously, attitudes do not change nationally on a specific date or because of a specific event, nor are they universal, so these delineations should simply be considered road signs used for guidance purposes. The primary case study plays feature a motif of wilderness in

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 common, but each chapter will also track the other kinds of open, outdoor, influenced-by- human-occupation spaces that were used as settings in Broadway productions.

A Stage Full of Trees and Sky

As my title suggests, I selected the plays for case studies based on the presence of open space wilderness landscapes as a dominant scenic motif, commonly expressed as either forest/jungle or open plains/desert. In general, the selection of case study plays was based more on the canonical standing of the designs rather than that of the script, but naturally the trilateral relationship between the designer, the playwright’s text, and the resulting scenography must be examined due to their interdependence. Scenic designs that have stood the test of time and are held up as canonical are usually those from

“successful productions” (Larson Scene Design 140), but the term successful is problematic. In various cases, it refers to the monetary success of the production or industry awards. However, in rare cases, the long-term reputation of the designer can outweigh that of the playwright, the production, or the text causing images of designs to be repeatedly published and discussed even when the text to the production is all but forgotten1. Therefore, with each play examined, I also explain the factors that gave the original production cultural and/or theatrical significance in its own time, as well as addressing what remains noteworthy today. Each of the following chapters examines a specific timeframe in order to draw parallels between then-current American ecological attitudes and representations via theatrical design aesthetics as they relate to the more- than-human world, while the appendices create a list of place/scenic locations for

1 The best example of this is Robert Edmond Jones’ design for The Man Who Married a Dumb Wife. This design is considered the harbinger of the New Stagecraft Movement (examined in chapter 3), so images of this design are often found in theatre history textbooks. However, the text of the play is little known and rarely published.

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American Broadway plays of the twentieth century considered significant by critics of the period. Each of the three charts that form the appendices are set up with different play selection criteria based on the source material, but together they form a listing of over

700 American plays and their settings. Not only do the appendices demonstrate the historical rarity of successful stage plays set in open space wilderness, but they also serve as a reference for comparing my case studies with other designs/locations during a particular year or historical period in order to establish the norm of an era with regard to use of place. Since terms such as wilderness and nature are subjective, as will be discussed below, the decision of which plays are “set in wilderness/nature” must also be subjective.

Because nature and wilderness are constructs and often subjective, I wrestle with them as terms and ideas throughout this dissertation and often add the term open space.

In December 2019, the website run by the United States Forest Service, a division of the

Department of Agriculture, gave the definition of open space as including;

all unbuilt areas, whether publicly or privately owned, protected or unprotected. Open space lands include forests and grasslands, farms and ranches, streams and rivers, and parks. They provide ecosystem services, support agricultural and forest production, and offer opportunities for recreation.

This term often replaces the colloquial term wilderness or is seen as a more accurate classification to those who write professionally about land use in the United States, but in this dissertation, I often pair the terms to clarify that what one might, at first glance, consider wilderness may simply be open space. I must also introduce the phrase, more- than-human, which I use interchangeably with nature or non-human, at times. This phrase was first created by David Abram in The Spell of the Sensuous as a term to challenge the othering of nature. It as a phrase and the term non-human are commonly

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 used in literary ecocriticism when discussing animals, plants, landforms, and sometimes the overall biosphere. The more in more-than-human serves as a reminder that, since human life cannot continue without the planet’s biosphere and products of nature, there cannot possibly be any separation or disconnect from our place in nature, no matter what forms of civilization we construct.

Over the 107 years covered by this dissertation, a great deal of change has occurred in American attitudes towards and interactions with the natural environment.

Since attitudes is a soft and ill-defined term in a cultural context, my dissertation draws from environmental history to examine how American conduct and political engagement, especially that of people living in New York and the Northeastern United States, regarding the more-than-human world are somewhat reflected in the theatrical designs selected. To track the ways that the more-than-human world is depicted onstage is to track the ways in which designers of the past have created images using various iterations of scenic realism, often blending the “real” and the “unreal,” while simultaneously perpetuating the human/nature binary of separation.

Representation

The subtitle for this dissertation, “Analyzing Representations of Nature on the

New York Stage,” strategically employs terms that need to be unpacked and clarified.

Since my methods of analysis are found throughout this chapter, I begin by confronting and wrestling with the term representation. While representation does not always mean a naturalistic depiction or copy, the term organically leads to other meanings in a theatrical and visual context, such as how representation relates to the genre of realism, which then leads to questions and philosophical debates about the real. As William W. Demastes

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 points out, “There are countless borderline events, the ‘reality’ of which would come under question depending on the observer” (Realism and the American Dramatic

Tradition xii).

Since the advent of theatrical realism in the latter two decades of the nineteenth century ushered in three-dimensional settings, replacing painted backdrops as the norm, depicting nature onstage has proved so challenging that the phrase “the hardest thing to put onstage is a tree”2 has become an axiom taught to most scenic design students. The realism of playwrights Henrik Ibsen, Émile Zola, and director Constantin Stanislavsky is most often associated with conversations held in interior locations such as living rooms, kitchens, offices, and restaurants. For these settings, a designer can go to the local hardware store, buy the same doors, windows, paint, and carpet that a contractor might buy, creating an impression onstage of the absent real via a mimetic construction. But nature or wilderness settings present different problems. Because the modern stage serves an image function, what is placed there, no matter how it is constructed or what it depicts, will always be representative, a copy, a fictional duplication, either naturalistic or stylized, of what is usually a fictional location. But when trying to depict nature, even if truckloads of sand, gravel or dirt are brought onto the stage, the scenography will rarely attain the level of pictorialism and suspension of disbelief that might be achieved with an interior setting.

Several authors who have written on the subject in a theatrical context have pointed out the difficulty of defining realism as a genre or nailing down rules for realism

2 Johnathan Marks has attributed this statement to Donald Oenslager and recalls him saying it often when they taught together at Yale University. However, this phrase has become a figure of speech so common within the scenic design profession that an exact attribution of origin is difficult, if not impossible.

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(Chansky 4-5, Demastes Realism x-xi, Gassner 30-50, Morris 1-6, Murphy x-xi). Brenda

Murphy’s American Realism and American Drama, 1880~1940, as well as Directions in

Modern Theatre and Drama3 by John Gassner, are my guiding forces as I grapple with realism and other modern genres in the following chapters. Murphy’s monograph is valuable because she seeks to historicize the evolution of dramatic realism specifically in the United States. However, because Murphy focuses largely on dramatic texts, I am pairing her analysis with that of Gassner, who examines embodied theatre but in a

European context. Murphy defines American theatrical realism as “a style of stagecraft that aims primarily at reconstructing the real world on the stage…in order to increase the audience’s belief in the actuality of what it saw” (x). The edited portion of this quote focuses on wizardry in lighting and scenery, but Murphy clarifies earlier on the same page that historically the literary definition of realism focuses more on the plot structure, dialogue and avoidance of sensational effects. Murphy acknowledges that there are very close ties between stagecraft and American literary realism, but there is a certain amount of ground that she does not choose to cover because she considers Gassner’s work to be the “most complete…exclusively in terms of the production” (Murphy x). Part of

Murphy’s argument is that, although American realism was influenced by the emergence of the genre in Europe, what developed here was a unique form:

that is peculiarly American because it has primarily an aesthetic orientation, as opposed to the European version proceeding from Zola, which has primarily a sociological orientation…Although the American realists did speak of the subject matter of realistic drama, typically as the commonplace social reality of a given time and place, they focused chiefly on the representation of that subject matter, the creation of an illusion of

3 Murphy cites the 1956 version of this book, Form and Idea in the Modern Theatre, when explaining why she skips certain topics in her book, but I have chosen instead to consult the expanded and retitled version of the same text from 1966, Directions in Modern Theatre and Drama.

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reality in the text and on the stage by playwright, actors, director, and producer (xi) (emphasis in the original).

Because Murphy emphasizes the importance of staging a production, I find it interesting that she does not list designers among the professionals creating the illusion of reality in

American realism, even though in the conclusion to her first chapter on American theatre in the 1880s she does make it abundantly clear that verisimilitude was a goal in setting, costume and even dialogue long before it became standard in the way American playwrights structured characters and events (23). What Gassner asserted in a European context, and Murphy similarly applied to the American development of realism, is a historical dependency of the genre on the illusion of the fourth wall.

Unlike Murphy, whose title clarifies realism as her focus, Gassner’s goal was to include realism within a broader examination of modern drama. Since the case studies for this dissertation arise from various genres, yet all come from a period in American history impacted by the ubiquity of realism, Gassner’s analysis provides a unifying starting point based on production. Gassner argues that both realism and the non-realist stylizations which followed closely on the heels of realism were unified in their dependence on the fourth-wall convention. As mentioned above, in Europe, as in the

United States, plays of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were mostly performed in front of painted backdrops, which were often recycled as generic scenery for any play.

This changed during the nineteenth century with the introduction of the three-walled room setting, often called a box set, made possible by controllable gas lighting.

According to Orville K. Larson, evidence from Italy demonstrates box sets being used as early as 1687, but they were found to be difficult to light (“New Evidence” 79-80). Gas light, installed in European theatres in the early 1800s and nearly ubiquitous in the major

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American theatres by the middle of the century, not only allowed actors to move further away from the footlights but also called attention to the flatness of painted scenery, especially with interior settings (Brockett 182-184). The very premise of this dissertation is dependent on a late nineteenth-century shift in perception brought about by using furniture and solid walls for interior settings. Having a box set with working doors and windows, furniture and other solid objects with which the actors directly interact, combined with a new acting style which established an invisible fourth wall, helped the audience to perceive the stage as an environment separate from the viewing/seating space, serving an image function. In three-dimensional sets where the actors created an illusion of a fourth wall, the audience came to perceive the performer, whose acting style no longer involved direct addresses made to the audience from the lip of the stage, as not occupying the same building or space as the audience. Instead, the space of the stage came to represent any place within the scope of the playwright’s imagination (Gassner

13-25). Gassner also contends that for roughly 100 years before Zola and the plays of

Ibsen there had been a growing recognition among philosophers that “environment was not merely a background but a condition of human activity” (20), an idea that then bled into theatre in the form of stage settings becoming essential to the meaning of a play.

While Gassner did not expound on the subject as much as Una Chaudhuri (discussed below), he did mention the idea that the character’s environment became a source of the conflict in modern plays (22-23). Following Gassner’s lead, I intend to use the term representation not as a synonym for mimesis or verisimilitude in how the setting is created, nor do I use it to mean naturalistic or over-stylized depiction, since it can be used

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 for both, but rather to mean that the stage space serves as a distinct environment rather than a platform for performative direct address.

Here I return to Murphy, who not only cites Gassner’s reference to European theatre, but similarly claims that American performance style changes in response to the fourth-wall convention. Murphy cites several American authors of the period, including

William Dean Howells, H. D. Traill, Joe Jefferson, Henry James and Augustin Daly, claiming that some of them used the term fourth-wall while others implied it when they wrote critical essays on theatre performances (24-31). Their critical writings of the late nineteenth-century are used to define representation at the turn of the twentieth-century as a less bombastic, more mimetic acting/ performance style in the United States, as well as a literary realism where the writer attempts to capture his own understanding of genuine human interaction. Consequently, representation in scenic design became highly influential on the overall theatrical style. However, both Murphy and Gassner make clear that when both realism and representation are used in a theatrical context, the result is always theatrical rather than an attempt to document or recreate actual events.

It could easily be argued that the changes that Murphy and Gassner found regarding representation in late nineteenth century theatre were part of larger social changes in western society. Jonathan Crary’s Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and

Modernity in the Nineteenth Century is intended to refute claims that modernist painters such as the impressionists and postimpressionists of the late 1800s deserve credit for creating new ways to view the world, and to equally refute giving the same credit to the invention of photography in 1839. Crary’s claim is that the way western observers used vision, and how they processed the things they saw, was part of a systemic shift that was

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 already changing by 1820. While a detailed consideration of the factors behind these changes in visual perception in the West is outside the purview of this dissertation, what is important to note is that Crary argues that both photography, and thereafter modernist painting, were both results of and forward momentum in disseminating a more visual worldview. However, since photography is both tangible and ubiquitous, it is important to examine it in any discussion of representation and images. Roughly forty years before the period covered by this dissertation, in the 1860s, photographic studios were already common in the major cities of North America and Western Europe. As Bruce

McConachie points out, “According to historians of the medium, most Westerners believe that the photograph did not merely represent reality, as might a painting or a work of literature; the photo actually transcribed the real” (Theatre Histories 302). Thanks to abundant photographs, Americans who had never traveled to the western United States, for example, felt that they had an accurate idea of the appearance of the topography, even if their view was limited by the frame of the image and transmitted in black and white.

While this dissertation does not look at mass media depictions of nature per se, chapter 2 addresses the relationship between the closing of the western frontier and pictorialism in scenic design. Chapter 4 covers an era when the influence of film inspired cinematic- style scene changes and non-linear storytelling in the theatre. Later in this period, images gained additional influence as they were increasingly transmitted daily into the home via television. Chapter 5 addresses the impact of media saturation and hyperreality, a term coined by Jean Baudrillard.

Baudrillard’s philosophical analysis of media-driven society argues that, at a certain point in Western culture, the very process of interpreting a work of art for

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 meaning became pointless (Conspiracy 120-121). Unlike the art historian who examines art to understand culture, Kim Toffoletti summarizes Baudrillard’s work as an interpretation of “how social, cultural, political and technological changes have altered the way images are made, as well as how they circulate and how we make sense of them”

(13). Baudrillard’s arguments regarding simulacra can help those who examine the visual arts to analyze the role of images in relation to concepts of reality and its representations. Thus, it is appropriate to fold some of Baudrillard’s arguments on art, hyperreality, and simulacra into an examination of representations of the more-than- human world.

In Symbolic Exchange and Death, Baudrillard’s translator Iain Hamilton Grant outlines three successive phases of the image:

− The counterfeit is the dominant schema in the ‘classical’ period, from the Renaissance to the Industrial Revolution. − Production is the dominant schema in the industrial era. − Simulation is the dominant schema in the current code-governed phase. (71)

In Simulacra and Simulation, translator Sheila Faria Glaser uses different language for

Baudrillard’s simple descriptions of the chronological phases of the evolution of the image to a more ideologically driven set of phases, now adding a fourth:

− it is the reflection of a profound reality − it masks and denatures a profound reality − it masks the absence of a profound reality − it has no relation to any reality whatsoever: it is its own pure simulacrum (6)

In his arguments about art, Baudrillard limits his area of focus to the last two of these phases, but he clarifies the first two in order to articulate what has changed in recent history. He relates these phases to periods in Western history when he feels they were

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 most prominent, but clearly states that new phases did not eradicate earlier interpretations. The era from the Renaissance to the Industrial Revolution is when

Baudrillard believes that images were a counterfeit which reflected a profound reality.

During this “classical” phase, which he refers to as first-order simulacrum, artist-created representations attempt to reproduce and refer to nature in the form of imitation.

However, it should be noted that Baudrillard uses the word counterfeit in Symbolic

Exchange and Death to clarify that he does not mean mimetic reproduction. In fact, he understands representations in the “classical phase” included a great deal of play, overt ornamentation, and lack of what we might call realism, but he argues that the counterfeit and original are analogous. It is interesting that during his explanation in Symbolic

Exchange and Death, Baudrillard repeatedly refers to signs in the form of fashion, stucco interiors, and architecture as being “theatre” (72), further emphasizing his recognition of playfulness. The difference between the image and its referent was visible, but what was being signified was obvious to the viewer. Another argument that Baudrillard makes about this period is that it marked a shift from the ritualistic to the aesthetic. For people living in ritualistic and feudal societies, Baudrillard argues, images held a symbolic exchange value, which was lost with the humanistic focus on interpretations of the world.

Accompanying this shift in value system came a shift in the status of both the image and its creator.

Baudrillard argues that artistic images began to contain what he calls second- order simulacrum as a result of the social changes caused by the Industrial Revolution

(Symbolic 75-77). The Industrial Revolution, which spans roughly 1820 to 1860, and the continuing industrialization which followed, introduced a myriad of cultural changes that

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 influenced almost every aspect of Western society. Baudrillard argues that the value and function of objects and images changes when they can be and are mass produced. The example that he gives to explain the difference between first and second order is that of the automaton versus the robot. In this example, the automaton is clearly a playful imitation or interpretation of man, just as images in the first-order simulacrum phase were playful counterfeits of nature. The robot, on the other hand, does not need to look like a human, but rather has the goal of mechanical efficiency in making the image equivalent to what it portrays (Symbolic 74-75). According to Baudrillard, during the post-industrial revolution/second-order period the ability for mechanical reproduction not only changed the content of what was depicted, but also altered the way art came to be, rendering it as valued in a capitalist economy largely due to mass production. This “industrial simulacrum,” in which multiple copies of the same image or object became common, created a situation in which “[t]he relation between them is no longer one of an original and its counterfeit, analogy or reflection, but is instead one of equivalence and indifference” (Symbolic 76). The example that Kim Toffoletti uses to explain this is Andy

Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans series from the 1960s. Warhol as an artist was interested in mechanization and commodification and created the nearly identical thirty- two canvases of the series via a silkscreen template, making each image equivalent to every other, just as the mass-produced cans on a grocery shelf are equivalent to each other. So, while Warhol’s work is representational, it “shifts our focus away from what is being represented…toward how it is represented (the use of repetition via mechanical means)” (Toffoletti 23).

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Again, much of Baudrillard’s analysis and explanation of the first and second order simulacrum was largely meant to lay out a point of departure for introducing a term, hyperreality, which he applied to his analysis of the media-saturated, late capitalist era that began roughly after World War II. The connotation in Baudrillard’s use of hyperreality is that mass media and communication technologies have bombarded the public with images to such an extent that signs have come to replace reality and images only have meaning in relationship to each other. In “The Precession of Simulacra”,

Baudrillard uses the example of a person pretending to be ill to explain why the hyperreality of late capitalism is problematic. One can either say s/he is ill and stay in bed, or a person can simulate an illness by producing symptoms. “Therefore,”

Baudrillard claims, “pretending, or dissimulating, leaves the principle of reality intact: the difference is always clear, it is simply masked, whereas simulation threatens the difference between the ‘true’ and the ‘false,’ the ‘real’ and the ‘imaginary’” (Simulacra and Simulation 3). There is a playing with appearances in third-order simulacrum that goes well beyond that of first-order, because what is ultimately being played with are our own ideas about what reality is.

Toffoletti labels the example she uses to explain third-order simulacrum as the

“CSI effect” (24-27). The argument here is that, although the public is aware that the television show CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is fictional, the production values of the show make it more exciting than real life, resulting in the effect that the “line between reality and illusion blurs” (27) both for people outside of law enforcement and those who are part of the system. While it cannot be proven that there is a direct correlation between this show and cultural behavior shifts, there is evidence that prosecutors, for

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 example, are sending more samples of material found at crime scenes to laboratories for testing, possibly because they feel that the jury expects such evidence. CSI in all its iterations implies, through the prominence of the laboratory and the outcomes of the stories, that this type of evidence is what solves crimes. Jurors seem to have unrealistic expectations, based on the things that they see on the show and shows like it, while similarly, family members of real-life victims expect things to proceed at an unrealistic pace (Toffoletti 24-25). Also, CSI and comparable programs borrow story lines or characters from actual events, and their fictional plotlines are sometimes copycatted by actual criminals, all of which adds to the societal blurring of the lines between real and hyperreal.

While Broadway theatre is not a major contributor to the procession of simulacra to anywhere near the extent of CSI, part of my argument in chapter 5 is that images designed for the theatre are influenced by cultural immersion in hyperreality where designers and audiences have similar expectations of images. Shelly R. Scott’s

“Conserving, Consuming, and Improving on Nature at Disney’s Animal Kingdom” offers a very approachable explanation of hyperreality while examining the design of Disney’s

Animal Kingdom (DAK) via an ecocritical and theatrical analysis. Scott clarifies

Baudrillard’s use of the term by saying that, “[t]he hyperreal is more than real – it is a melding of fantasy and reality. It is an airbrushed simulation of reality, a reproduction with embellishments” (112). While Scott’s argument inspects the performative in the design of an amusement park, I contend that because Broadway theatrical settings serve an image function, even those of recent decades are locked in third-order simulacra, not the fourth phase which lacks a referent. The question then becomes: if simulation brings

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 shifts in our ideas of what reality is, how does that relate to the ways designers represent the environment?

Nature As stated above, ideas such as nature and wilderness are constructs, and these terms are wrestled with throughout this dissertation, but here I would like to introduce ecocriticism as the main mode of examining socio-historical context for my case studies.

Several authors (Heim 405, May “Greening” 84, Arons “Introduction” 93 and “Beyond”

148) have credited a special issue of Theatre from 1994, its primary editor Erika Munk, and more specifically Una Chaudhuri’s article which was publish in that journal, “‘There

Must Be A Lot of Fish in that Lake’: Toward an Ecological Theatre,” as the first to call for ecocriticism in theatre. In her 2005 article, Theresa J. May argues that part of the reason dramatic literature was not swept up in what she called “a greening fire” (84) was because theatre did not have a history of nature writing, as can be found in poetry, non- fiction and some prose. The Ecocriticism Reader, published in 1996, was the first anthology of representative articles in literary ecology, including an article from 1967 that was inspirational to many early ecocritics. Lynn White Jr.’s “The Historical Roots of

Our Ecological Crisis” argues that, despite all the claims that our postmodern age is also a post-Christian one, we are still steeped in Christian ideology and attitudes toward nature. White states, “Christianity, in absolute contrast to ancient paganism and Asia’s religions (except, perhaps, Zoroastrianism), not only established a dualism of man and nature but also insisted that it is God’s will that man exploit nature for his proper ends”

(10). However, even though the twenty-six articles in The Ecocriticism Reader were quite diverse, only one addressed dramatic literature. Slowly growing out from the foundation of literary ecocriticism are the various works that fall under the umbrellas of

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 ecotheatre and theatrical ecocriticism. Ecotheatre, a blanket term used to describe various combinations of ecological thinking and theatre, was first used by Downing Cless in “Eco-Theatre, USA: The Grassroots Is Greener,” in 1996. Originally, when Cless coined the term he was examining what has come to be known as ecodramas.4 More recently, the terms ecotheatre and theatrical ecocriticism have come to encompass at least four types of intersection between ecology and theatre-related practices. Based on

Wendy Arons and Theresa J. May’s 2012 Readings in Performance and Ecology and a list circulated on the Performance & Ecology Listserv,5 the most common form of theatrical ecocriticism is the examination of both canonical and forgotten scripts from the past in order to comment on the relationship between the people of the time and their environment. The second most common form of ecological crossover is to examine, as

Cless did in 1996, plays intentionally created as ecodramas and how they were produced.

Third on this list are essays that study or share sustainability practices in design, and last are works that arguably could also be considered performance art6.

4 Theresa J. May and Larry Fried used the term “ecodrama” publicly in 2004 when they founded the Earth Matters on Stage (EMOS) conference and playwriting festival. The term was used as part of their call for plays with environmental themes or which feature ecological issues. 5 This non-comprehensive list of monographs, collaborative editions, edited volumes, and journal articles was created by Theresa J. May, Lisa Woynarski and Karen O’Brian and titled by its authors as, “Ecocriticism in Theatre Studies – bibliography (1991-2014).” 6 Some examples of what I mean here would be 1) Eeo Stubblefield’s Still Dance with Anna Halprin. An essay on this performance called “Stillness in Nature” was written by Arden Thomas for Readings in Performance and Ecology. In the essay, Thomas explained that this work was a performance where the term dance is used loosely because it mostly consists of Halprin mostly being still, responding to the land while Stubblefield took photographs or filming her. 2) Giberto Zorio’s Rosa – Blu – Rosa (Pink – Blue – Pink), Giovanni Anselmos’s Senza Titolos (untitled), and Giuseppe Penone’s Alpi Maritime (Maritine Alps) were just some of the performance art works outlines by Nick Kaye in his article “Performing Ecologies: Body, Material, Architecture.” Published in Performing Nature: Explorations in Ecology and the Arts edited by Gabriella Giannachi and Nigel Stewart, Kaye’s article was designed to share the work that Italian artists were doing with human bodies, installation art exhibits and architectural based innovations with an English reading audience.

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Critical environmental studies or the academic pursuit of ecocriticism is usually predicated on a branch of environmental philosophy known as deep ecology. Unlike activist environmentalism which forwards political action to confront pollution, global warming, etc. for the benefit and continued prosperity of humans, deep ecology attempts to confront a systemic problem with the nature/culture binary by arguing that recognitions of the intrinsic value of the more-than-human is foundational to combatting the environmental crises of our current era (Garrard 23-24). Two philosophers who outlined the parameters of deep ecology were George Sessions and Arne Naess. In 1986,

Naess published an essay attempting to clarify the eight principles that seemed to unite those who proposed deep ecology as an alternative to the anthropocentrism. These principles taken together argue for a recognition of the interconnectedness of all living and non-living things, so while human life requires use of the non-human for survival,

“humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital needs”

(Naess 68). The deep ecology perspective works against the Judeo-Christian cultural assumptions, shifting from being human-centered to a nature-centered system. This nature-centered system includes humans but does not classify us as intrinsically superior in our right to continue to thrive. Andrew McLaughlin further clarified Naess’s eight points by defining how terms are used and how the eight points of the platform (which

Naess and Sessions had worked out while camping) were all interrelated. Naess’s position seeks to counter the assumptions that evolution has resulted in “higher” and

“lower” forms of life. Instead, the value of evolution is found in the creation of diversity, and the deep ecology position seeks to appreciate difference (McLaughlin 85-87).

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In a different vein, but related to my argument regarding attitudes towards nature and a modern disconnect from it, are the results published in “The Nature of Americans:

Disconnection and Recommendations for Reconnection.” This report compiled by a team of social scientists based on a national study in 2015 and 2016 of 11,817 adults and children, with a focus on attitudes toward nature, conveys the team’s most significant finding as “Americans face a significant gap between their interests in nature and their efforts, abilities and opportunities to pursue those interests” (Kellert et al 3). The report also details a host of problematic attitudes which relate to and cause this disconnect, but another factor that seems significant to the arguments of this dissertation is how adults and children differ in their definitions of nature. For children, it is often any open space near them or right outside their front door such as “yards, woods, creeks, and gardens…But in contrast to children, adults tend to set a high and even impossible standard for what they perceive to be ‘authentic’ and unforgettable nature, believing that it requires solitude and travel to faraway places, which reinforces their perceptions of the relative inaccessibility of nature” (Kellert et al 4). This report does not state a cause of this disconnect, but the report implies that it is systemic. Part of the mission of this dissertation is tracing some of the American social and political discourses over roughly the past one-hundred years regarding the more-than-human in the northeast and in the larger United States, drawing parallels with scenic depictions. In the following chapters,

I examine and question how and when representations of nature onstage encouraged the audience to make metaphoric interpretations of environmental elements, rather than giving agency to the non-human.

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This dissertation seeks to blend two relatively recent scholarly pursuits-- examining scenic design as cultural texts and analyzing those designs via theatrical ecocriticism. While ecotheatrical scholars and playwrights have been examining the cultural myths of the American relationship with nature and the environment through an analysis of older texts or the creation of new texts, and some designers are arguing for working in eco-friendly ways without compromising design aesthetics, so far, the ways in which natural landscapes are depicted onstage has gone largely unexamined by theatre scholars. May touches briefly on scenic design in her unpublished dissertation, with some of the same comments made there later published in her 2005 article “Greening the

Theatre: Taking Ecocriticism from Page to Stage.” In a similar vein, Barry Witham, in a chapter published in Readings in Performance and Ecology, only touches on scenic design when writing an ecocritical examination of texts.

Shelly R. Scott, whose essay is mentioned above, was a major inspiration for this dissertation due to her focus on visual aesthetics as she applies theatrical ecocriticism.

However, this article, while published in Theatre Topics, does not examine traditional theatre, but rather hyperreality in the design of Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Scott arrives at the conclusion that the popularity of ecology is something that Disney has found a way to commodify. Scott begins her article by questioning why a park that imported thousands of plants in order to create a variety of habitats for the animals also placed at its center a made-of-plastic “Tree of Life” (111). This tree, which serves as a guidebook symbol of the park, is molded with the faces of animals, serving to privilege the artificial over the actual plants and animals for which the park is named. Scott’s essay is inspirational in its methodology, but with regard to examining the eco-aesthetics of

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 theatrical design, there is still a great deal of ground left to cover. Just as with the Tree of

Life, depictions of the more-than-human world on the Broadway stage are part of the human construction of the concept of “nature.”

One of the struggles in titling this work was the choice between the words wilderness, nature, or simply open space. Literary ecocriticism was parsed by Greg

Garrard for the ways it examines and analyzes six literary genres, one of which he identifies as wilderness. Garrard explains the wilderness genre this way: “Wilderness narratives share the motif of escape and return with the typical pastoral narrative, but the construction of nature they propose and reinforce is fundamentally different. If pastoral is the distinctive Old World construction of nature, suited to long-settled and domesticated landscapes, wilderness fits the settler experience in the New World – particularly the United States, Canada and Australia – with their apparently untamed landscapes and the sharp distinction between the forces of culture and nature” (66-67).

So, while drama does not regularly use the genre label “wilderness,” this association with a cultural experience in the United States is significant. Via dramatic literary analysis,

Theresa J. May examines the conflict of man versus the untamed American wilderness and how the closing of the frontier played out onstage. As representative of the cultural myths of the times in which they were written, May examines the text of David Belasco’s

Girl of the Golden West (1905) and William Vaughn Moody’s The Great Divide (1906), using wilderness ecocriticism in her unpublished dissertation, but she leaves the scenography and the New York milieu of these productions largely unexamined. Two limiting factors that I placed on my selection of case studies were that each of the productions must feature a dominant scenic motif of a wilderness landscape and that

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 enough photographic evidence exists to estimate how the original design delivered meaning in the context of the production. However, I wanted the freedom to explore open spaces that might not typically be considered wilderness, which raised the question of where the term wilderness ends. Roderick Frazier Nash, the scholar often considered the founder of environmental history with his Wilderness and the American Mind, spends most of his prologue explaining the derivation of his chosen term as well as the word’s continuing ambiguity and subjectivity. He clarifies that he is dealing with an idea rather than a material object, ultimately suggesting a spectrum in which wilderness and civilization are seen as polar ends, with varying degrees of human influence upon the land marking different points between them. “The spectrum idea,” Nash posits, “can permit distinctions to be made between wilderness and such related concepts as scenery, country, outdoors, frontier, and rural. Depending on the context, for instance, ‘nature’ might be synonymous with wilderness, or it might refer to a city park” (6). So, while in the choice of my case studies, I have tried to select plays with an open space wilderness setting, some do not quite fit the criterion of being on the farthest end of the spectrum toward a total lack of human influence, and the choice of nature allows my examination to branch out into the various types of settings that Nash lists, as well as others like the backyard of Death of a Salesman.

Yet, because my intent is to examine a social context for the designs presented,

Nash offers a good foundation for a historical perspective on American attitudes, especially in the next two chapters. The new land of the new world has been both foundational and problematic in American culture. According to Nash, “Wilderness was the basic ingredient of American culture. From the raw materials of the physical

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 wilderness Americans built a civilization. With the idea of wilderness they sought to give that civilization identity and meaning” (Wilderness 2001 xix-xx). Nash argues that the foundation of the attitudes of European settlers towards the new world came from

Judeo-Christian traditions that in turn were built on some older Western folk beliefs associating the wilderness with demons. This idea of wilderness was turned around by the arguments of Frederick Jackson Turner regarding what America lost when there was no longer any frontier territory. Turner, a highly influential historian at the turn of the nineteenth century, has largely been interpreted as seeing western expansion into the wilderness as a monocausal explanation for a distinctively American persona. I examine

Turner’s social influence in chapter 2 as it relates to the first two case study plays and early nineteenth century attitudes toward wilderness. However, here, it must simply be noted that environmental histories often credit Turner and his essay “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” for initiating a cultural reevaluation of American wilderness. Turner argues, in this essay and others, that multiple stages of pioneering into the American wilderness forged the concept of rugged individualism. Once frontier lands were lost, the idea of wilderness and what could have been gained by an individual who combatted it bred a nostalgia that did not exist for those who had ventured into new lands and tried to survive in any of the stages of American expansion. Ergo, the idea of wilderness and the romanticism of it is a concept often dreamed up in cities.

New York The theatrical productions I examine were almost exclusively first produced in

New York City, and predominantly for Broadway. This leads to two interlocking issues regarding the larger environment of production: the commercial nature of Broadway, and how New York as a city, a state, and as part of the northeastern United States has

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 confronted the nature/culture binary. I consider these issues interlocking because the values and priorities of the public would be reflected, to a certain extent, in the commercial success of productions, as well as in the understanding of a need for parks, nature preserves, natural history museums, community gardens, and many other nonurban spaces. Nash, writing in the Forward to Urban Place: Reconnecting with the

Natural World, remarks on his own childhood in New York City by saying, “As far as a nature-oriented sense of place went, there was, with respect to Gertrude Stein, no there there...Wilderness appreciation was a product of cities. The idea of finding naturalness in the cities seemed oxymoronic” (vii). Yet, tracking the relationship that New York City has had with finding, keeping, and destroying nature over roughly the past two hundred years is the project of biologist Niles Eldredge and geologist Sidney Horenstein, who titled their book Concrete Jungle: New York City and Our Last Best Hope for a

Sustainable Future. While Eldredge and Horenstein track the destruction of biodiversity and devouring of resources synonymous with America’s largest city, they also argue, as their title states, that New York City is the hope of the future based on the same reason found in Nash’s statement—wilderness appreciation. But far more important than appreciation, New York is the hope of the future, “because that’s where the money is. In this instance, that means political and financial institutions, educational and research institutions, large-scale media operations, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)”

(Eldredge and Horenstein 222). In addition, one must also consider the fact that New

York City is not an independent entity, but a part of a state rich in biodiversity and scenic wilderness. If, as Richard Butsch argued, the legitimate theatre was the purview of affluent audiences during the period covered by this dissertation, then at least some

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 segments of those audiences would have the means to travel at least occasionally outside the city, if they dwelled there, or travel into the city from homes outside of it. As a review of advertisements in publications such as Theatre Magazine, Theatre Arts and

Playbill demonstrates, theatre is often associated with an aspiration of wealth, which would include the luxury of travel. One of the arguments made early in David

Strandling’s The Nature of New York; An Environmental History of the Empire State is that neither culture nor nature is confined by geographic boundaries (4-7). Strandling makes this porousness one of his themes, while at the same time arguing that his unique approach of using cultural borders rather than environmental boundaries allowed him to look at how environmental legislation impacted the whole state, as well as how a cultural identity was shaped by both construction in the cities and the state’s natural landscapes

(8-9). Stradling, who is, like Nash, an environmental historian, tracks such things as the influence of tourism from the city on preservation legislation and the influence of the art of the Hudson River School on the romantic notions of upstate New York held by city residents. While they start with a much earlier period than I do, both Stradling and the authors of Concrete Jungle bring their examination of the environmental history of New

York up to the modern era, making both very useful in supporting my arguments by tracking conditions, attitudes, and cultural shifts.

Stage Since my focus is on scenography, another thing that must be tracked historically are shifts in scenic design styles and philosophies. This dissertation begins after the turn of the twentieth century because American scenery was very limited before this period.

As Orville K. Larson asserts, “[d]uring the eighteenth century, most of the scenery seen

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 in the American theatres was either imported or painted by foreign artists” (Scene Design

3). During the nineteenth century, Americans began painting their own backdrops, but once the move towards realism brought three-dimensional scenery along with it, conflicts arose concerning how that scenery created meaning, and questions about the status of designers became a major issue in the field.

In 1928, after reviewing recent theatrical history, Sheldon Cheney, a critic who wrote prolifically in support of a design philosophy that came to be known as New

Stagecraft, wrote:

The [New Stagecraft] movement affords a perfect parallel to Impressionism in painting, which, despite its apparently revolutionary character at first, proved in the end to be only a special phase of realistic painting, depending upon observation of an evanescent aspect of surface reality, an immediate “effect” of nature, but nature and observation never the less. Impressionism in easel painting brought in fresh coloring, and love of light, and freedom from over-detaining, its shallowness; and just about as much can be said justly for “the new stage decoration” of 1900-1925 (39).

In other words, whether or not a designer chose to follow New Stagecraft philosophy, leaning towards scenic metaphor and abstraction, all designers of the period were influenced by twentieth century realism and still are today. Impressionism and expressionism are the subjective views of reality embraced by the New Stagecraft movement as a departure from the surface objectivity of pictorialism, but all of these are related to realism.

The 1920s were a time when Freud’s theories were still ground-breaking, the idea of a world war was still a fresh terror, the invention of photography was still making artists question mimesis and definitions of art, industrial pollution was rendering aspects of life intolerable in some urban areas, and a new visual culture was in its infancy. In this context, the use of the subjective viewpoint in drama was very innovative, such as with

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Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones examined in chapter 3. Orville Larson, a more recent supporter of New Stagecraft said, “Most scene designs are, in varying degrees, varieties of realism in some form of stylization” (Scene Design xx). Instead, the main shift in aesthetics and philosophy of the New Stagecraft dictated that “[n]o longer was scenery only a decorative or a photographic background of reality. Scenery must now express and support visually the central idea of the production” (Larson Scene Design xix).

I would argue that the design fluctuations that occurred between the 1920s and

1960s were variations of subjective reality, sometimes dark and expressionistic, sometimes poetic, sometimes tending more toward an objective view and sometimes toward something more abstract, but unified overall by a modernist aesthetic. In

Modernist America: Art, Music, & Globalization of American Culture, Richard Pells argues that despite the common belief that the United States has mostly been an exporter of culture, America has also been an importer of modernist artistic influences, including some of those listed above. For Pells, modernism “means the effort—beginning in the early twentieth century—to invent a new language to describe the scientific, political, and social upheavals of the modern world” (x). One way in which this was actualized was to shift between high art and low culture playfulness, meaning that artists might be influenced by obscure works but still endeavor to make their work appeal to mass audiences. These artists, be they painters, musicians, architects, etc., saw themselves as performers, in a sense, and often called attention to their own personalities within their work. The goal of many artists was “to force people to see, hear, and think about the world in entirely new ways, ways that made the bedlam of urban life, the unsettling

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 effects of technological change, the transfer and ‘cleansing’ of populations, the terror of totalitarianism, and the impersonal butchery of modern warfare seem more intelligible if no less disorienting” (Pells x). So, while the American modernist aesthetic was often seen as low-brow when compared to its European counterpart, it was admired for its commercial success.

The ending of World War II, which arguably falls within the modernist time frame, triggered many social changes, but stage design did not significantly change.

During the period I review in chapter 4, Orville Larson argues that there was not a change of form in design because realism and the proscenium stage were still the standard, but scenography did change stylistically. One of the compositional changes was an increased use of painted backdrops behind a three-dimensional setting, which increased the designers’ flexibility and allowed them to borrow from contemporary easel painters.

Other style changes which have been attributed to Jo Mielziner, one of my case study designers, include fragments standing in for the whole and the use of scrim as part of the construction of a setting. One of the unique properties of scrim—a loosely woven cotton fabric—is that when lit from the front, it looks solid and can function as a wall. When lit from behind, it becomes translucent. This along with other uses of lighting, such as the use of gobos (cut-out templates placed in front of bulbs in lighting instruments) to create patterns like leaf shadows or windows, allowed theatre to create scene or location changes almost instantly, which gave theatre a more cinematic feel (Larson Scene Design

150-157).

A far more radical change in scenic design aesthetics began in the 1960s with the slow influence of postmodernism. Postmodernism is a term that cannot be easily

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 clarified, but Mark Fortier associated it with a general pessimism toward the possibility of cultural, political or economic change, resulting in an ironic emotional distance, self- reflexivity, parody and simulacra (146-148). Regarding the theatre, Larson believed that

“the social, political, and artistic upheavals during the sixties had a profound effect upon contemporary scene designers that resulted in a complete negation of the aesthetic principles of the new stagecraft designers” (Scene Design xix). Larson ends his book with a dig at how the use of plastics had altered the aesthetics of design because “new materials begat new methods of scenery, construction having nothing to do with the past.

Innovations also swept aside the idea that scenic units, economically conceived and constructed, could be used more than once” (Scene Design 180). Arnold Aronson, one of the current leading writers of design history and contemporary design trends, published a book in 2005 containing essays written mostly in the 1990s. One of these essays,

“Postmodern Design,” originally printed in 1991 and reprinted in several places, argues that postmodern design is a radical break from the design of the past 80 years. In my

2013 article “Building a Landscape for Parks”, I constructed the following chart to distill the argument of Aronson’s essay:

Modernist design Postmodern design

Organic unity Incongruous elements

Universalized/universalizing Individualized interpretation metaphor

Shared viewer experience Viewer enacted deconstruction

Simplicity, suggestion & abstraction Collage & pastiche

Stage as a magical acting space Metatheatrical place where tricks are revealed

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Antiquarianism7 Juxtaposition of historical periods

Art, like life, could no longer be simplified, nor could it be captured by metaphor. For

Aronson, New Stagecraft died with modernism, but he also pointed out that, at least at the time of his essay’s publication, there had not yet been a seminal production that could be held as the supreme example of this new approach in the same way that The Man Who

Married a Dumb Wife (1914), designed by Robert Edmond Jones, marked the beginning of New Stagecraft (18). Oscar Brockett in Making the Scene referred to Jones’s design for this play as a turning point in American design, influenced by the simplified realism that Jones had observed in Max Reinhardt’s theatre in Berlin. For The Man Who Married a Dumb Wife, Jones designed costumes which established the time and place of the play while the setting was fully geometric, without any medieval architecture. Although this production is often cited in theatre history textbooks, change does not happen overnight, either then or with postmodern design of the late twentieth and twenty-first century.

Some designers simply have a more postmodern aesthetic than others. Postmodern aesthetics will be part of the examination of designs in chapter 5 as they relate to how nature is expressed through design.

Theatre always demands that the space of the stage be read as a setting, whether that setting is representative of a real place or one of pure imagination. Theatre settings differ from those in film because of the confines of stage space and the limitations on how the audience is transported to various locations. If a film or a scene is set outside, then the camera usually transports the audience to an actual natural environment, a vast

7 This is the only element not specifically mentioned in the essay, but I believe it is the implied antithesis to the section where Aronson writes about juxtaposition, so I have included it to complete the chart.

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 studio construction, or a setting made via computer graphics. In theatre, that setting must currently be constructed either physically or by obvious projection, rendering the scenography of theatre a unique springboard for a compositional and semiotic analysis of how the natural environment has historically been depicted in the United States. But for this project, any analysis of semiotics and formal elements is complicated by the fact that, in most cases, the work of art no longer exists. The work of art to be examined here is the mise-en-scene, which includes primarily the physical set and the lighting, but could possibly also include the costumes if these influence the viewer’s understanding of things such as location, time of the year, or time of day. Yet the problem is that, unlike painting, sculpture or architecture, theatrical design is ephemeral—constructed as a part of a production that will eventually end. What remains for analysis, in many cases, is the text (script) which inspired the design, photographs/digital recordings, drafted floorplans, design sketches and/or renderings. For many reasons, the amount and type of archival remnants varies widely in the field of scenic design, thereby influencing the amount of evidence available for my design analysis. The remaining types and quantity of vestiges of design are also a factor in performing a comprehensive formal analysis. For example, a floor plan can clarify the exact amount of space used by a design, but when all that remains are photographs, the precise use of a space by a realized design can only be approximated because the frame of the photograph, as chosen by the photographer, might not have the same width or height as the frame of the theatrical proscenium, and depth can be ambiguous especially when shot from a low camera angle. This then leads to another dilemma. In two-dimensional art, such as painting or photography, what is generally analyzed is the assumed space as given by the artist. Yet in my case studies,

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 the artist is not the photographer, but rather the set designer, or scenographer. The photograph must be analyzed not so much as a two-dimensional object but as evidence of a lost three-dimensional artwork that is problematized by the framing that was selected by a sometimes unknown photographer. A similar issue exists when analyzing color.

Today, a photographer can choose whether she wishes to work in color or in black and white, depending on whether her interest is in attracting the viewer’s attention via hue or via form. However, in my older case studies, color photography was uncommon and not used for theatrical publicity stills. So, once again, a multilayered aspect of analysis comes into play, because what I wish to examine is not so much the value contrast between light and dark found in a black and white photograph, but rather the color of the original set and how that color might have been influenced and altered by lighting.

Because lights are a major factor in observing and interpreting scenic design, only color filmic/digital recordings can offer enough images to allow for a thorough analysis, but even this can be problematized by camera angle and shot size.

As a result, as I begin each case study, I interpret the elements of design—space, shape, form, line, color, value, and texture—and the principles—balance, movement, repetition, emphasis, contrast, and unity—while explaining and clarifying the issues related to the archival material used. This analysis is influenced by both Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen’s Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design and Keir

Elam’s The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama. Since both texts remind the reader that interpretation of images is often subjective and culturally influenced, I will attempt to both analyze the designs from a present-day perspective and offer an interpretation that would reflect the cultural values prevalent at the time the design was created. Helpful

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 evidence includes available performance reviews and biographical or autobiographical essays in which the designs are described. Yet, textual descriptions can also be problematic. While a description of a lighting design effect from a reviewer, a director or an audience member is obviously important evidence, it can be quite different from a description of the desired effect as written in the published script. Often in Western theatre, the published text is the ultimate authority, but for the purpose of this dissertation, the script, which may or may not reflect the designs as executed in the original production, is simply a supporting piece of evidence in understanding the scenography of the production.

Chapter Outline and Methodology The overarching criteria for the selection of case studies was that all of the sample designs were: 1.) created for scripts written by American playwrights for productions that ran on or off Broadway in New York City between 1905 and 2012. 2.) From productions that featured a dominant scenic motif of an open space landscape, with enough photographic evidence to estimate both how the design added meaning to the production and how the environment was portrayed. 3.) From plays or productions with some measure of historical significance. In many ways, the selection of case studies builds upon Una Chaudhuri’s starting point from Staging Place; the Geography of Modern

Drama, which she hoped would “yield a new methodology for drama and theatre studies, a ‘geography’ of theatre capable of replacing—or at least significantly supplanting—its familiar ‘history’” (xi). Here Chaudhuri proposes an alternative method for selecting and analyzing dramatic texts based on place or the setting of the work, rather than more traditional methods, such as the nationality of the author, the genre, or the historical significance of the work. At the heart of Chaudhuri’s method of analysis is the term

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 geopathology. Chaudhuri explains geopathology as “[the] problem of place—and place as problem—[which] informs realist drama deeply, appearing as a series of ruptures and displacements in various orders of location, from the micro- to the macrospatial, from home to nature, with intermediary space concepts such as neighborhood, hometown, community and country ranged in between” (55). Ecopsychology scholar Ralph Metzner seems to echo Chaudhuri’s term, geopathology, when he argues that subtle but significant changes in attitudes have led to a “disastrous split – the pathological alienation – between human consciousness and the rest of the biosphere” (55). This idea of geopathology is the foundation Chaudhuri lays out at the beginning of her monograph before she applies a geopathological analysis to the discourse of home and the twin problems of “a victimage of location and a heroism of departure” (xii) found in the plots of the playscripts which she examines. Chaudhuri applies her method of analysis to a number of canonical and some lesser-known American, British, and European plays of various genres, using her methodology of framing dramatic work based on place-as-subject. I have similarly strayed from only selecting traditionally canonical plays, but I have limited my case studies to only plays by American authors, as I want to examine them within a national and regional context. Moreover, my main object of examination is not text, but rather scenographic depictions of open space wilderness required or suggested by the texts. I look at these scenographic realizations in relation to historical ecological attitudes, and specifically the geopathology of the United States of America.

Additional criteria employed for different chapters were based on period or genre.

The two plays I selected for chapter 2, The Girl of the Golden West (1905), and The

Great Divide (1906) have retained historical significance due to their writers enjoying

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 long and productive careers. While both these scripts are largely forgotten outside of theatre history classes, due to the elements of melodrama found in each, they were both wildly popular when first produced. Chapter 3 begins with The Emperor Jones (1920), a play first produced off Broadway that later moved to Broadway, unlike most of my case studies. However, the scenic design for Jones can arguably be considered canonical due to its relationship within the New Stagecraft movement. Both this production and the other covered in chapter 3, Of Mice and Men, had noteworthy designs which are often pictured in theatrical history texts, but they both also predate the Tony Awards. In chapters 4 and 5, the historical significance and the canonical status of the designs is supported by a decision to examine designs from productions which received Tony nominations, since that often implies that these designs were considered forward-thinking or representative of the era by fellow professionals.8 The designs for the chapter 4 plays,

Sleepy Hollow (1949)9 and A Clearing in the Woods (1957), as well as the chapter 5 plays, K2 (1983), Into the Woods (1987), The Lion King (1998) and Peter and the

Starcatcher (2012), were all either Tony-nominated or were Tony winners for scenic design. In addition, this chapter also examines a play that Theresa J. May has named as the only intentional ecodrama to be performed on Broadway, The Kentucky Cycle (1991), which was nominated for a Tony for Best Play, but which was not nominated for design.

Chapter 2 begins in 1905 with the production of the first case study play, The Girl of the Golden West, and ends in 1919 with the end of World War I. This chapter, like all

8 Named after Antoinette Perry, the Tony Awards are similar to the Oscars or the Grammys in that they recognize artistic achievement. However, the Tony Awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League, and focus exclusively on live Broadway theatre. 9 At this period in history, the Tonys were often awarded to a designer for several productions, or their collected works in that particular year, rather than only one show as is the case now. So, in 1949, Mielziner won for five designs, including Sleepy Hollow.

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 subsequent chapters, includes not just an analysis of the designs but also an examination of the American zeitgeist as it relates to environmental sentiment. Rising industrialization meant that millions of ordinary Americans experienced an increase in creature comforts, such as new methods of home heating, indoor plumbing, and housing design, which implied a growing separation of culture from the business and labor of harvesting nature in the form of wood and water (Sterba Nature Wars and Chansky 1-

110). Author David Belasco explicitly sets The Girl of the Golden West (1905) in 1849.

The Great Divide (1906) does not list a specific time period for the setting, but based on the prospectors’ ability to stake a land claim for mining, the play was most likely set in the mid-1800s. Both plays, looking back on a lost frontier, tapped into audience nostalgia.

Again, this period was also influenced by a change in the function of scenic design regarding representation. Even though the 1905 to 1919 era covered is much later than the time frame staked out in Baudrillard’s first-order simulacrum, I argue that it is logical for the audience to apply earlier methods of relating to three-dimensional images onstage because representation in scenery was still relatively new in America. It is important to clarify that even though Baudrillard said that first-order simulacra are seen in the era from the Renaissance to the Industrial Revolution, this does not mean that previous social relations with images ended with the Industrial Revolution. Other ways of seeing an image are added, but this does not supplant earlier methods. Baudrillard noted that before the Renaissance, when visual art was created for ritualistic purposes, it lacked either the aesthetic or economic value we recognize today. With the humanism of the Renaissance, signs were freed from limits and restrictions, just as people could

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 become freed from feudal caste societies (Symbolic 71-74). The creative freedom born in the Renaissance that inspired artists to sign their work and claim status as an artist is not dissimilar to the events of the early twentieth century, when designers called for and became recognized as artists, a status not accorded to the anonymous scene painters who came before them.

In many ways the conservation ideals from the Progressive Era continued during the 1920 to 1945 period covered by my third chapter, but economic conditions caused a migration away from the rural areas of New York, followed by a return for some. Long before 1920, increasing numbers of farmlands in New England and upstate New York were left abandoned as families moved south and west looking for land that was level and free of rocks, or later because of the futility of continuing to plant in overworked soil.

The Emperor Jones (1920), produced within the first decade of the New Stagecraft movement, can be said to tap into a fear of the environment as a distant other, which I argue relates to second-growth forestation in New England. As the country fell into a depression after the Wall Street crash of 1929 and the dust bowl in the prairies ravaged farmland in the early 1930s, programs like the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) combined the idea of offering work to those who wanted it with Turner-esque philosophies of American character as forged through hard work in the wilderness.

While most of the second case study play in this chapter, Of Mice and Men (1937), takes place indoors where the main characters are working, the play does begin and end in a grove of trees along a riverbank. With the United States entering World War II in 1941, the subsistence gardens of the depression era became the victory gardens of the war

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 effort. This chapter ends in 1945 after the war has ended, and land in urban neighborhoods is no longer broadly used for food production.

Theatrical conventions, more than environmental attitudes, change in the period covered in chapter 3. This chapter explores the New Stagecraft movement and its influences on theatrical collaboration. Up until this time, the men who created scenery were considered craftsmen rather than artists, but during the 1910s, theatre critics, magazine authors and scenographers publicly and vocally argued both for changes in how sets were designed and how the person building them should be treated. If what is placed on the stage is more than mere decoration, then the person building it must be recognized as a contributing member of the art of the production. One of the major design changes promoted by the philosophy of New Stagecraft was a simplification of what was placed on the stage, which often left natural landscapes and many other environments to the audience’s imagination. Several plays from the twentieth century marked in the appendices as being set in open space wilderness were not turned into case studies or explored in this dissertation because of the lack of scenery used, resulting in a lack of material to analyze. However, the philosophies of the New Stagecraft movement will be revisited in chapter 5 via a case study of The Kentucky Cycle (1991).

Chapter 4 examines the economic boom of the postwar era, white flight to homes in suburban areas, and new forms of concurring nature. The post-World War II era saw:

…the sudden rise and prodigious growth of an industry for the production of man-made or synthetic chemicals with insecticidal properties... In the course of developing agents of chemical warfare, some of the chemicals created in the laboratory were found to be lethal to insects. The discovery did not come by chance: insects were widely used to test chemicals as agents of death for man. (Carson 16)

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The products that emerged in this era influenced both theatrical and industrial design through the use of plastic, but also, with the concept of the dedicated scenic designer established, the theatre industry moved toward designers taking an even more active role in the overall creation of productions. While many plays of the era were domestic dramas or plays featuring tamed nature, such as the backyard in Death of a Salesman

(1949), designers such as Mordecai Gorelik argued that scenery based on a visual metaphor would both unify a production and also give the design depth though obvious or subtle symbolism. Sleepy Hollow (1949) and A Clearing in the Woods (1957) are all set on the border or the edge of wilderness. This era of design visualizes the slow and steady othering of nature as a metaphor or symbol for something else, rather than retaining intrinsic value via design interpretation.

It should be noted that the three case study plays in this chapter are also the ones that could be considered the biggest “stretch” when it comes to having a dominant scenic motif of wilderness. The designs examined in this chapter include a play where the only nature setting is created with lighting (Death of a Salesman); one commercially unsuccessful play (Sleepy Hollow); and the only design under examination containing a man-made construction throughout (A Clearing in the Woods). Unlike other plays examined where the location changes between indoor and wilderness environments, the original production for A Clearing in the Woods used a unit set featuring a “porch of a summer cottage” placed prominently downstage. While all chapters of this dissertation reference trends and changes via the three appendices, this chapter contains statistical breakdowns that clarify a noticeable lack of plays set in locations that might be considered wilderness in favor of other outdoor locations. Since this period lacks

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 successful designs in which stage space is sculpted to depict wild landscapes or wilderness, it is only logical that this chapter takes the time to question why. This chapter will also examine the growth of the front lawn and backyard in American suburbs, and will argue an interest in the environment close to home or on borderlands rather than the American wilderness.

In Symbolic Exchange and Death, Baudrillard explains the second phase of the image being a time when “Production is the dominant schema in the industrial era” (71).

Baudrillard argues that mass production altered the value and function of images. While the post-World War II period falls relatively late within Baudrillard’s era of the second- order simulacrum, I argue that this is the point when scenic design most clearly catches up with other forms of imagery in the west. It is not surprising that one of the designers for my case studies in this section is Jo Mielziner, certainly one of the most prolific designers at the time, but also, according to Christin Essin, a significant figure in taking theatrical images into the realm of mass production:

In using the term “iconic” to describe Mielziner’s designs, I purposefully call attention to their symbolic meanings for audiences during American postwar modernity. Scholars of visual culture define icons as images perceived to represent people’s shared ideas and sentiments during a particular historical moment; furthermore, within cultures of modernity, icons become forged through the “endless reproducibility” of mass production and consumption. Indeed, the transformation of Mielziner’s stage images into commercial products further demonstrates the processes of consumerism that coopted the aesthetics of modernism to sell merchandise to the American public… During the postwar period, he introduced the newest “fashion” in theatrical staging, an aesthetic combination of realism and expressionism that rationalized modern art for mainstream consumption. (Essin, “Landscapes…” 186)

Consequently, this chapter will also include an examination of ways in which this period relates to Baudrillard’s second-order simulacrum.

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The time period covered in chapter 5, from the first Earth Day in April of 1970 through the year 2012, has seen a great deal of ebb and flow in the American attitude toward both nature and design. As a popular piece of non-fiction literature, Rachel

Carson’s 1962 Silent Spring made the general public aware of what scientists already knew, namely that chemistry did not always make for better living. Despite Carson’s book being released nearly a decade earlier, I begin this chapter in 1970, since the first

Earth Day is generally considered to be the birth of American environmentalism. The plays I selected are all considered American works, although Into the Woods (1987) and

Peter and the Starcatcher (2012) are both based on European tales, and The Lion King

(1998) not only has British songwriters, but also features the only non-American scenic designer in my project: Richard Hudson, a Caucasian native of Zimbabwe. However, even with these international influences, the productions were all presented for the first time in the United States, and therefore the plays as well as the scenography are considered American. While the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s produced more critically recognized shows with outdoor settings than the earlier periods covered, these depictions of nature are highly manipulated, highly stylized, and increasingly plastic (literally and figuratively). The resulting chapter will examine questions relating to an apparent contradiction in American attitudes – a perfunctory desire to protect and embrace nature, but a similar desire to reshape nature through highly plastic or Disneyfied recreations. In

“Conserving, Consuming, and Improving on Nature at Disney’s Animal Kingdom,” Scott casually wonders “…if the visitors to DAK would be as impressed with the real that occurs as they are with the hyperreal that is manufactured” (112). Although the stage can never hold the real even if truckloads of sand, gravel or dirt are brought in to make it so,

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 this chapter examines the same type of “improving on nature” that Scott observed at

DAK, and questions design aesthetics.

Naturally, this chapter will also deal with Baudrillard the most directly, since this period directly matches the period when he argues that simulation became the dominant schema in the way westerners make sense of images. Since the case studies and the secondary designs examined serve an image function, most will be examined in light of

Baudrillard’s third-order simulacrum, but when found, the designs that might be pure simulacrum will be indicated.

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CHAPTER II NOSTALGIA FOR THE WEST AND PICTORIALISM IN THEATRICAL DESIGN 1905-1915: THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN WEST AND THE GREAT DIVIDE

The early part of the twentieth century marked a period of change in the function of scenic design regarding representation, concurrent with a period of social change in attitudes towards wilderness in the United States. Thanks to the advent of gas and then electric lighting in New York theatres, actors could play scenes farther away from the audience and still be seen. Three-dimensional scenery could now be placed in front of the painted backdrop. This not only added visual depth, shifting how the audience perceived the environments presented, but also changed the ways in which actors interacted with the space and with each other. Given these changes in representation and visual modernity, this chapter argues that, while the designs used for The Girl of the

Golden West (1905) and The Great Divide (1906) reflect American attitudes towards the environment at the time of their production, the pictorialism used to render them for the stage also drew on nostalgia for the lost frontier, visually promoting the value of open space wilderness.

The widespread study of American attitudes regarding wilderness did not arise until the 1950s and 1960s when it became a popular topic for historians, inspiring a new branch of historical analysis related to the environment. Building on the foundation of

Henry Nash Smith’s Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth (1950) and

Leo Marx’s The Machine in the Garden (1964), Roderick Frazier Nash introduced a broader perspective on the history of American thought about the environment. Nash’s book Wilderness and the American Mind, first published in 1967, examines religions,

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 philosophies, political ideologies, and popular culture in relation to how they impacted

American attitudes and the resulting treatment of various aspects of nature.

As Char Miller points out in his Forward to the 2014 edition of Nash’s classic, of all previous scholars who wrote about the human place in nature, none had explored wilderness as wilderness in America before Nash, making his work foundational to the discipline of environmental history (vii-viii). While “nature” is a term encompassing a broad spectrum, that may be applied to any outdoor collection of non-human life from empty city lots to national parks, “wilderness” tends to refer to the end of the nature spectrum farthest removed from human influence (Nash 6). Nash argues that, from the end of the nineteenth to the early years of the twentieth century, a radical shift in

American attitudes towards wilderness, away from conquest and toward a nostalgia for nature, became so obsessive that it could be described as cultish (141-144). This drastic shift in orientation began in 1890, when the Superintendent of the Census published a bulletin declaring that open frontier no longer existed in the United States. In his 1995

“The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature”, William Cronon argues that those from elite backgrounds were nearly exclusively able to seek out and promote wilderness experiences, becoming tourists and sportsmen living out a frontier fantasy, and that they only did so in spaces which had been set aside by the government and were, therefore, safe (78-79). In the early part of the last century, the proliferation of advertising for Adirondack summer excursions found in Theatre Magazine for most of its thirty-one years of publication demonstrates that at least some of these moneyed, early eco-tourists also regularly attended the theatre in New York City.

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The nomination and winning lists of The Tony Awards, founded in 1947, are one useful tool to track significant Broadway plays across time. However, because the plays examined in this and the following chapter predate the Tonys, period-appropriate sources were consulted to examine general tendencies in the types of settings used for Broadway and off-Broadway plays. To ensure a reasonably comprehensive examination of significant Broadway plays and their settings in the twentieth century, I used three sources from the period: Yearbook of Best Plays series, Theatre Magazine and Theatre

Arts. The first of these sources, the Yearbook of Best Plays series, was started by editor

Burns Mantle in 1920 and published annually until 2009 (see appendix A). Each of the

Yearbooks contains statistical information about performances in New York City, as well as abridgments of the scripts that Mantle and his successors considered to be the ten best of each Broadway theatrical season. In 1944—influenced by Garrison P. Sherwood, who became a co-editor—Mantle decided to look backwards and briefly document the first two decades of the twentieth century. In The Best Plays of 1899-1909, the format was changed from publishing summaries of ten plays per year to just one representative play per year. This was also true of the volume published in 1945, The Best Plays of 1909-

1919. While Mantle and Sherwood retroactively selected The Great Divide to represent

1906 in the first volume, The Girl of the Golden West was not one of the plays selected.

The editors instead chose to represent the oeuvre of David Belasco with a play he co- wrote with John Luther Long in 1903, The Darling of the Gods.10 In the introduction

Mantle states that the play “might easily have been bypassed” (vii) but that it was

10 While this play used outdoor settings, the full script is only available as a collector’s item. The design for Darling of the Gods is worthy of consideration under the criteria of this dissertation, but since The Girl of the Golden West was scenically overseen by the same director, David Belasco, and since that script is readily available, Girl was chosen for analysis instead of Darling.

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 representative of Belasco’s work “as an outstanding producer of that decade” (vii). So, while these two retrospective volumes are not as useful to analyze trends because of their limited scope, of the fifteen plays selected during the period covered by this chapter,

1899 to 1914, two used open space wilderness settings, or roughly 13%.

In addition to the Yearbook series, I examined the photographs published in two magazines for historical context regarding depictions of nature on Broadway stages.

Because Theatre Arts (see appendix C) did not begin publication until 1916, it is reviewed starting in chapter 3, but Theatre Magazine began in 1900 as a publication called Our Player’s Gallery. This name only lasted for one year, but set a tone for the heavy use of photography throughout the run. From 1900 to 1914, the magazine editors published photographs from ten productions which exhibited a three-dimensional open space wilderness setting, including The Girl of the Golden West. All nine of the other plays failed to have either extant scripts or abundant representation in other visual archives. However, there is one statistical difference between the Yearbooks and Theatre

Magazine worth noting. Of the plays selected by Mantle and Sherwood for the quality of the text, two were set in open space wilderness, while eight were set in outdoor locations influenced by humans such as yards, porches, streets, etc. On the other hand, the editors of Theatre Magazine during this period selected images from ten plays set in open space wilderness and twenty-two plays set in human-influenced outdoor settings. While the choices made by the publishers of only one magazine are too small a sample size to prove a cultural trend, it is still interesting to note that 20% of the outdoor plays in the

Yearbooks were set in open space wilderness, while roughly 31% of the outdoor settings pictured in Theatre Magazine were in open space wilderness. As stated, this sample size

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 is too small to draw any definitive conclusions, but this leaning towards visual depictions of open space wilderness might relate to a turn of the century nostalgia for the lost frontier.

Pictorialism in Theatrical Design – The Girl of the Golden West (1905)

While this chapter begins in 1905 with The Girl of the Golden West, this play and its design were influenced by two cultural shifts which took place between 1890 and

1905: the closing of the American frontier (which will be discussed below) and the rise of pictorialism in theatrical design. This play was written by producer/director/showman

David Belasco, one of the leading proponents of scenic realism. Often derided by critics of his time for lacking artistry in his mimetic copying of actual places, Belasco’s work has received more positive recognition from modern critics, such as Lise-Lone Marker and Christin Essin, who contextualize his contributions during a transitional time in design history.

Although less eager to credit Belasco as innovative, Orville K. Larson also recognizes Belasco’s significance in forwarding three-dimensional realism in American stage design. In the first chapter of Scene Design in the American Theatre from 1915 to

1960, Larson clarifies that very little in the way of theatrical scenery could be found in the United States for roughly the first one hundred years of its nationhood. Traveling theatre companies, common in the early republic, relied on painted backdrops, which were easy to transport and flexible for various venues. While these backdrops provide a vague reference to location, they often had proportions that were illogical and used exaggerated colors (Larson 8). However, after the Civil War, national touring producers

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 such as the Theatre Syndicate realized that plays with artistically rendered settings made more money, which seems to indicate that theatre audiences appreciated greater visuality.

After examining photographs of Broadway productions published in Theatre

Magazine, Richard Lee Arnold argues in his 1962 unpublished dissertation that a rapid change through three slightly different design philosophies occurred between 1900 and

1915. While Arnold broke up his chapters based on five-year periods, he made clear that the three types of pictorialism, which he named as Pictorial Realism, Actualistic11

Realism, and Facsimile Realism, coexisted in all three periods. However, Arnold argues there was a fairly rapid tipping of the scales in popularity between these types. Arnold notes that the painted backdrops, common in the first five years covered, were used less and less frequently, thus implying that they gradually came to be considered outdated.

Arnold’s examination covers both interior and exterior settings, but most relevant for my purposes in this chapter is his section on 1905 to 1910:

An increasing amount of three-dimensional detail was the most pronounced characteristic of the stage scenery in this period. The trend toward solidity influenced not only interior settings but also exteriors which were normally more difficult to make believable. The existence of more exacting verisimilitude was evident in six distinct ways: (1) a three- dimensional treatment of the walls of interiors; (2) a profusion of authentic looking properties and set dressing; (3) an almost photographic treatment of the stage floor; (4) a greater abundance of actualistic details in exteriors; (5) the introduction of realistic looking off-stage rooms or exteriors; and (6) the introduction of sky cycloramas in exterior settings. (94-95)

These actualistic details can be found in The Girl of the Golden West, as well as in the design for The Great Divide examined below. Both designs epitomize the period by

11 While actualism is the name for a philosophical doctrine, this is not the context in which Arnold used the term. Arnold often uses the term in conjunction with realism to imply a representation intended to be an accurate visual copy, mimicry or mimesis.

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 combining a painted backdrop and three-dimensional, authentic-looking objects which would have existed in the western environments depicted in each play.

The Girl of the Golden West is a melodrama originally produced with scenery and lighting constructed by skilled technicians, a common practice in this period before the advent of dedicated designers. Belasco was a renaissance man of the theatre, though not a scenic designer. He was, however, known for the amount of time, thought, and energy he invested in working with his technicians to create scenic pictorial realism for all his productions, including this one. In spite of this, history has not been particularly kind to

The Girl of the Golden West, or any of the plays written and/or directed by Belasco. One of the arguments of Lise-Lone Marker’s 1975 biography is that while he was “[g]enerally regarded as one of the first significant directorial figures in the history of the American

Theatre and dutifully named in every survey work together with such pioneers of stage naturalism as André Antoine and Constantine Stanislavski, David Belasco has, paradoxically, received none of the critical attention accorded his celebrated European counterparts” (xi). Marker postulates that Belasco’s lack of association with a great playwright, such as the relationship between Stanislavski and playwright Anton Chekhov, caused this slight. By today’s standards, the scripts that Belasco wrote or co-wrote are considered old-fashioned melodramas, are no longer produced, and are largely forgotten.

However, if one is examining the history of design in the American theatre, Belasco’s name always appears, whether in a positive or a negative light. Belasco was highly involved in the construction and execution of the design elements for his plays, with standards so high that he would often have his technicians work through the night to achieve the look that he wanted. The resulting spectacle was often quite popular with

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 audiences but also inspired disparagement by various New Stagecraft critics.12 Spectacle, in this case, refers to Belasco’s main goal: to achieve a replica that was as close as possible to what did or might exist somewhere in the world, and putting that onto a stage.

With The Girl of the Golden West, for example, Belasco wrote a dramatization of a story that he had heard from his father as a child. In production, he replicated his concept of a mid-nineteenth century mining camp on the preshow panorama, and also used electric lights in the last act to copy the remembered sunrises from his youth in California. While his scripts clearly lacked the realism of those chosen by many of his directorial counterparts, the spectacle of his design realism made him very successful with audiences, if not generally popular with critics.

Critic, author, and Columbia University lecturer Clayton Hamilton, while not always a fan of Belasco, recognized that, because the visuals of the theatre had become so vivid, dramatists also needed to cultivate a visual imagination. In his 1914 Studies in

Stagecraft, Hamilton comments that across the fifty-year span from the end of the Civil

War to his own time, successive waves of innovation had swept over theatrical practice

(14). Hamilton argues that theatre—which had been, for almost all of its history, predominantly an auditory art—had changed since the Civil War to become an equally visual art. Hamilton draws a parallel using art history. He contends that in portraits created by pre-modern master painters, the backgrounds were largely irrelevant, but the

Dutch, who were considered the first modern painters, created images of people who interacted with their environment.

In such a typical modern painting as Angelus of Millet, the people would lose all meaning if they were taken out of the landscape and the landscape would lose all meaning if it were divested of the people; the sense of a

12 New Stagecraft will be reviewed in greater detail in chapter 3.

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definite time and a definite place, which ancient art suppresses, are here as necessary to the picture as the people themselves or the act of devotion in which they are engaged. (Hamilton 13)

Hamilton predates Una Chauduri’s similar argument by almost a hundred years, but this example illustrates Hamilton’s recognition of the importance of place and how its importance can be communicated through visual representation. Chauduri argues for the significance of place and geography in drama, but her focus primarily relates to how it fits into the conflict as stated in the text. Hamilton, on the other hand, argues in favor of visuality as an important element in its own right in the modernization of theatre, placing him ahead of his time. While Hamilton does agree with his fellow New Stagecraft critics

Sheldon Cheney and Kenneth Macgowan (who argue that the stage was too crowded with small details), Hamilton recognizes that the stage should embrace its newfound visuality rather than promoting the stripped simplicity called for by European designers like

Adolphe Appia. Hamilton gives Belasco credit for creating stories visually that could not have been told without the technical wizardry used. Hamilton’s problem with Belasco’s scenery lies in the amount of detail involved, which Hamilton considers a detriment as it would overwhelm the audience. But given the popularity of Belasco’s productions, it is questionable whether this was ever the case. In an article he wrote called “Why I Believe in the Little Things”, Belasco recounts a time early in his career when a visiting acting company tipped him with a bag of gold for creating scenery. The play had a scene in the woods, but the scenery was “dreary.” So, Belasco and a stagehand went out into the woods one morning, gathered up a wagon full of branches, and used them to create a realistic woodland. The scene worked well for both the actors and the audience, and

Belasco swelled with pride over the reward that the actors gave him (15). The very detail

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 which Hamilton and other critics thought would overwhelm an audience apparently proved helpful to the actors. And I believe that Hamilton and other theatre critics might not have taken into account the level of visual acuity the audience already possessed, or the visual language being nurtured during the early period of cinema. As reviewed in chapter 1 above, both Jonathan Crary and Jean Baudrillard examine and question cultural shifts in the western relationship with images. While these shifts cannot be nailed down to specific dates, American visual modernity and visual culture blossomed beginning in the early nineteenth century through the early twentieth century. Not only was Belasco’s stage version of The Girl of the Golden West popular, it was also adapted into a popular film, surely due in no small part to its written visuality that transferred easily to film.

The story of The Girl is that of a good woman redeeming a bad man during the

1849 California gold rush. After an interesting preshow display, which I detail later, the play begins in a California saloon owned by a character named Minnie who everyone simply calls “the Girl.” Johnson, a man the Girl met on a recent trip, enters the bar and begins to woo her. She does not know that Johnson, a white man, has been dubbed

“Ramerrez” by local law enforcement because all that they know about him is that he is the leader of a band of Mexican outlaws. The second act takes place at the Girl’s cabin in the mountains during the wee hours of the morning. Johnson visits the Girl for a midnight dinner after the bar closes but is shot by Sheriff Rance when he tries to leave the cabin, returning to it to hide from both Rance and the snowstorm outside. The Girl tries to hide Johnson but is forced to play on Rance’s love of gambling when he discovers

Johnson in the house. Minnie bets Rance, who also loves the Girl, that she can beat him in two out of three hands of poker in order to win Johnson’s safety. In the end, she must

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 cheat to win. Rance honors the bet and leaves her alone with her new love. In act 3, a week later, the miners still cannot work their claims because of the snow, so they come to the annual winter “school” the Girl hosts in the dancehall connected to the saloon. Agent

Ashby of Wells-Fargo, who has been searching locally for Ramerrez/Johnson all week, is finally able to catch the outlaw, bringing him to the bar a few hours after he said his goodbyes to the Girl. Johnson left intending to start a different life so that Minnie can join him, and they could be together. After seeing the love between the reunited Johnson and Minnie, the miners decide that the lovers deserve to be together and insist that

Johnson be set free. In a final tableau set in the prairie at dawn, the Girl bids goodbye to her beloved California mountains and commits to a life in the east with Johnson.

During the first six years of the twentieth century, six plays set in the American frontier found Broadway success with significant runs and positive critical receptions, including The Girl of the Golden West and The Great Divide.13 The motivation for this proliferation of frontier plays relates to an important cultural shift in attitudes towards wilderness in the United States between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. The incident most credited as the catalyst for this cultural shift was the release of a brief bulletin by the Superintendent of the Census in

1890. This bulletin stated that, while in the 1880s, the United States still had clear areas that were open for settlement, as of 1890 a clear line no longer delineated a frontier. This government document effectively declared the frontier closed. Nostalgia sparked by the

13 Richard Wattenberg names these six frontier plays as; “Augustus Thomas’s Arizona (1900), Owen Wister and Kirke La Shelle’s The Virginian (1904), Edwin Milton Royle’s The Squaw Man (1905), David Belasco’s The Girl of the Golden West (1905), William Vaughn Moody’s The Great Divide (1906), and Rachel Crothers’s The Three of Us (1906)” (3). While all of these are set in the frontier, the four which were not used for this dissertation used indoor or backyard settings.

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 census declaration was fanned with the 1893 Columbia Exposition presentation of

University of Wisconsin history professor Frederick Jackson Turner’s “The Significance of the Frontier in American History.” According to Martin Ridge, a historian who wrote extensively about Turner, the frontier hypothesis became fairly well known outside of academia not just because Turner wrote about it in Atlantic Monthly and gave lectures on it, but also because it gave the average American a sense of achievement. Not only was this an idea that was easy for most people to understand, but it lent an appealing sense of history, one that could not only be compared to European history with pride but could also give Americans a feeling of uniqueness (Ridge 12). “The Significance of the

Frontier in American History” is also, according to Ridge, far more of a manifesto than a piece of research (7), but its cultural significance cannot be underestimated because it created a western, and consequently uniquely American, mythology upon which artists still draw from for characters and themes—American exceptionalism, individualism, senseless but necessary violence, exploitation of natural resources, etc. (Ridge 12).

Historically in the United States, the frontier and any wild, untamed lands had been considered an enemy to be conquered. In the eighteenth century, synonyms for the word wilderness normally clarified it as being a waste of space (Cronon 70). But Turner argued that the very process of combatting the wilderness, first in New England and then moving westward, was the stone upon which the unique character of the American man was forged and what separated Americans from their European ancestors. Turner’s

Frontier Thesis, as it was later called, asserts that at each stage of westward progression,

Americans reduced their dependence on European imports, cast off European culture, and

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 formed a new identity (Jacobs 32). Ergo, the wilderness not only had value but was necessary to American culture.

Historian John Higham’s influential essay from 1965, “The Reorientation of

American Culture in the 1890s” argues that American culture in the 1890s had to adjust its beliefs about its character and outlook, based on this loss of the frontier, and find new outlets for the urge to explore that Turner argued was central to American identity. Some of Higham’s evidence includes surging interest in sports during the 1890s as well as “a revitalized interest in untamed nature” (27). Established in 1872, Yellowstone National

Park had been one-of-a-kind until the creation of three National Parks in 1890. Higham notes, during this decade alone, the formation of hundreds of nature-study clubs and the publication of fifty-two periodicals, as well as many novels and non-fiction, which focused on wildlife (29). Higham’s essay also argues that this social change reflected a growing interest in the natural environment, reshaping American culture for decades to follow. Higham asserts that in the decades before 1890 Americans “had submitted docilely enough to the gathering restrictions of a highly industrialized society” (27).

However, as of the 1890s, there was a mood shift, a desire to break free of “the sheer dullness of an urban-industrial culture” (27). As Cronon describes this period, “nostalgia for a passing frontier way of life inevitably implied ambivalence, if not downright hostility, toward modernity and all that it represented” (77). In other words, along with this romanticism for wild untamed lands came an almost automatic binary belief that urban-industrial civilization was artificial and contrary to human nature.

The argument that The Girl of the Golden West has wilderness as a dominant scenic motif is not as clear-cut as it is with other plays examined below. Of the four acts

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 detailed in the script, only the last, which is the shortest, takes place outside. Yet even though the three longer acts are set indoors, location and environment are established for the audience via the bookends of opening panoramas and the three-dimensional depiction of the western prairies in act 4, both of which won praise from critics and audiences for their beauty. The two opening panoramas were detailed landscapes that set the location for the play firmly in the minds of the audience. Marker described the play as representing “a peak in Belasco’s endeavors to present a suggestively picturesque as well as strikingly ‘real’ stage milieu” (139) in addition to depicting “the sublime and overpowering aspects of nature” (140). Along with these visual representations, the play also contains a snowstorm in act 2, partly seen through the windows, felt via sound, and experienced through the blowing snow that comes through cracks in the set. The wilderness setting for this play was necessarily ever-present via a wide variety of stage techniques and Belasco’s fabled wizardry. According to the anonymous New York Times review of November 15, 1905, the production was, “Atmospherically suggestive throughout, there were occasional moments–as in the blizzard scene in the second act– where the sensitive and imaginative spectator is forced in spite of himself to share in the discomforts” (11). This unnamed reviewer, while casually mentioning that the epilogue was unnecessary, also said that it was part of “evidences of the thorough and artistic manner in which Mr. Belasco puts on a play” (11). It is this attention to detail with not only the scenery onstage, but also the establishment of larger atmosphere, that made this play unique among the frontier dramas with which it competed at the beginning of the century. While Douglas Anderson never uses the word nostalgia in his essay “The West of Frederick Jackson Turner in Three American Plays”, he does imply it when he

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 explains the impact of the loss of the frontier on the American spirit as, “a loss of freedom, bringing with it an unsatisfied restlessness that becomes more and more self- defeating and dramatically harrowing” (90). Belasco’s scenic depiction of the frontier in

1849 is filled with visual spectacle even though Girl’s text lacks psychological realism.

Belasco’s scripts were intended to be adventures, not literary realism, but he demanded verisimilitude in the stage pictures. According to Anderson, “The ‘truths’ the audience was responding to with such acclaim are clear enough in their significance to a nation

(most of which had never heard of Frederick Jackson Turner) digesting its own sense of what the closing of the frontier felt like” (92).

In Belasco’s original production, the audience was first greeted by an act curtain14 depicting a sun setting over the mountains, bracketed by trees in the foreground. The act curtain, which was the first indicator of an outdoor setting, was lit from the second balcony with a lighting unit focused directly on the sun effect. However, the image on the act curtain was more stylized and theatrical than pictorial or mimetic. Then, after the house lights dimmed, this curtain lifted to reveal the first of two rolling panoramas, which

Belasco sometimes referred to as scenes even though they lacked both characters and dialogue (ed. Moses 57). These two rolling panoramas functioned to plant the location of the play and establish its importance within the minds of the audience, much as wide- ranging establishing shots do in films today. Sadly, no photographs of the panoramas exist, but they both received high praise for their beauty (Leppert 37).

When it comes to these two opening “scenes,” the version of the play published in

1926 in a volume edited by Montrose J. Moses uses more poetic language than the 1915

14 At the time of this writing, an image of this curtain could be found on the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts web page at https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/74199e70-2033-1de2-e040-e00a18062b2d

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Samuel French version, which includes indications of specific lighting changes and music used in the original production. A large landscape painting, depicting Cloudy Mountain in the Sierras of California, the first of the two panoramas, moved vertically to the second, taking the audience on a journey:

The two scenes, which precede the dialogue of the play…show the steep snow-tipped Sierras, the trail, the silent California night, deep ravines, and cabins of the miners of ’49 hid amongst the manzanitas and pines; in fact, the scene represents a little world by itself, drawn in a few crude stokes to explain more than the author could tell in a few thousand pages (Belasco, ed. Moses 57).

Unlike the painted landscape backdrops still occasionally in use when Girl opened and common in the decades before, the panoramas used before the play began were designed to incorporate lighting as part of the spectacle. Each setting depicted on the panoramas incorporated transparencies so that they could be lit from behind, making it possible for specific objects, such as the moon and the windows of the cabin, to glow. The images depicted a journey along a mountain trail by means of vertical rollers, creating an effect similar to that of a film or digital camera tilting downward, leading the viewer along a path starting with the Girl’s cabin near the top of the mountain and leading down to the bar she owns and runs. As Moses describes it, Belasco wanted “to make the moon and the stars, the sun and the flowers exude the time and the place, so now he resorted to moving scenery to carry an audience up the mountain side” (50).15 The version of

Belasco’s script published by Samuel French in 1915 gave stage directions for the use of both color and lighting in these opening moments:

15 I believe that Moses was confused in his use of “up the mountain” because in Belasco’s stage directions for the opening part of the description of the first image includes “the steep trail leading up to the cabin” (57). However, the next image is of Polka Saloon. Multiple times in the text it is clarified that Minnie/The Girl’s cabin is higher up the mountain than the Saloon. So, while the first image shows the trail that Minnie uses to go up the mountain, the journey between the images goes downward.

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It is night and the moon hangs low over the mountain peaks. The scene is flooded with moonlight, contrasting oddly with the cavernous shadows. The path to the cabin of the GIRL is especially flooded and the light pours down from the mountain above to form this. The sky is very blue and cold. The snow gleams white on the highest peaks. Here and there, pines, firs, and manzanita bushes show green. All is wild, savage, ominous. In certain places the mountains are very jagged—one deep sheer ravine is suggested, the purple mists rising up from the bottom. There is a faint light twinkling in the cabin of the GIRL. (11-12)

Another significant feature of this version is Belasco’s language choice in describing the cabin. “The cabin has steps and a little porch, held up by poles made of trees” (11). While modern architecture will occasionally incorporate living trees, it is doubtful that this is what Belasco meant, but it is telling that he did not use any of the many synonyms for dead trees. I contend that this very simple language choice is emblematic of the way Belasco’s play reflects the civilization’s dependence on the environment. To refer to these poles as trees also can be connected to the ecocritical argument that a forest should be valued for its own sake rather than merely as lumber-in- waiting (Garrard 35). As the panorama continued to roll the audience was led down the mountain to the exterior of the Polka Saloon, which the Girl owned and ran. In this second image, the saloon pictured on the left side contained large transparencies allowing the windows, the cracks in the door, and a lamp by the sign that hung out front to glow, thanks to lighting units placed behind the rolling painted curtain. On the other side of the drop, the miner’s cabins and other objects suggestive of mining could be seen at the bottom of the mountain.

Although the idea of a moving vista was not new, starting the play with this depiction of nature was not only important scenically but also for the lasting impression that it would leave on the audience as they watched the story. In an era before color

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 photography was common and when cinema was just beginning, the impact of this exotic far-off landscape should not be underestimated. Considering the effort Belasco put into creating the colors of sunrise via lighting design in the final act, it was surely the case that the colors for the opening vista were just as striking. Arnold notes, regarding scenery between 1905 and 1910, that “Actualistic realism was still a relative novelty on the stage, often exploited for its own sake. Many settings still combined grossly incongruous elements. . . Only . . . David Belasco and Clyde Fitch . . . sought exactness and authenticity [that] would have avoided these inconsistencies” (117-118). This exactness can also be seen in the scenography of the first three acts. Although these acts are set indoors, the connection to the environment experienced by the characters is clear via various small details, such as raw wood walls, continually fed fireplaces for heating, décor locally sourced (hides, antlers, garlands of cedar, etc.), and snow entering the cabin in act 2 via cracks in the walls. According to an anonymous article published in Current

Opinion in 1915, Belasco never placed flat backgrounds or simple suggestions of sky behind the windows on his sets; instead, he always used detailed landscapes. Marker states that when the second act started, the mountain forest could be seen from the windows. Then, after snow effects and gauze were added to obscure this background during the storm, it was replaced with a snow-covered replica (Marker 152). A different snow-covered backdrop was used behind the act 3 dancehall set so that the audience could view snow-laden fir trees through both the windows and the upstage center door

(Belasco Girl Samuel French 102). But, as stated earlier, it is the final act which burned

Belasco’s love of both the west and theatrical wizardry into the minds of the audience.

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For Belasco’s final act of The Girl of the Golden West, the three-dimensional depiction of the prairies did combine painted simulation with what Arnold called

“extreme actualism”, but the effect appears to be seamless when viewed in existing photographs.16 Moses’ introduction to the play references an interview with Belasco:

He tells us how for long, weary hours he practiced with his stage electricians to give not alone sunlight, but California sunlight to his scene. He tells us, in respect to his other plays, how similarly he has toiled to be true to that Nature, in whom he believes implicitly, and whom he tries to copy. (50)

In this interview, Belasco hinted at how important both the beginning and end of the play were to him, scenically and emotionally, and also implies a belief in the intrinsic value of the locations he was trying to recreate. As Wattenberg points out, Belasco had a deeper connection to the west than other writers of frontier drama of the time because Belasco was born in San Francisco and began his theatrical career in the west before moving to

New York (156). No doubt his personal knowledge of the difference between a sunrise in California versus New York inspired the exactitude with which he worked on the lighting for the final act.

Scenically, there are two things that make this play significantly different from

The Great Divide. First, the bookend nature of the wilderness scenery established place for the audience and then left them with a dramatic visual to take home. Second, the final tableau takes place in a different setting than the rest of the play. The bulk of the play takes place in the deep woods of the Sierra Mountains, but the final tableau is in the

16 At the time of this writing there were two images of this scene published online by the New York Library for the Performing Arts. One where Minnie gestures towards the mountains she is saying goodbye to https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/74199e70-2034-1de2-e040-e00a18062b2d and one where she and Johnson are talking https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47de-e216-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99 . Possibly for lighting reasons all interior images were shot with the blinds drawn so the backdrops could not be seen in the photographs of the interiors.

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 desert plains when the Sierras are just far enough away that Minnie feels she will not be able to see them by the following morning. The sunrise effect that Belasco worked so hard to achieve would only make sense in the open area of the plains, as the colors and quality of the light would be lost in the dense woods.

This change of setting is interesting in other ways as well. The last parts of the frontier to be claimed were not in California, but rather in the plains of middle America, making the place of the Girl’s goodbye reminiscent of the frontier that was recently lost.

Also, because of the way the stage is set up, the mountains to which the Girl is saying goodbye cannot be seen. There are distant foothills behind her on the painted backdrop, but based on the photograph, she says her goodbyes to an offstage-right mountain which

Belasco allows the audience to imagine for themselves.

Precisely when American culture made the shift from a primary valuing of the auditory to valuing the visual cannot be pinpointed, as it occurred gradually. Increasing notice of the value and popularity of visual stimulation in turn-of-the-century theatre can be marked as one of the signposts of the transition. One specific change that can be tracked is the transition from gas to electric lighting in the theatre. The first theatre in

New York to use electric lighting was the People’s Theatre in 1883 (Held 144), but by the time Grace T. Hadley wrote an article about it for Theatre Magazine in 1919, it was the chief source of illumination in American theatres. A mandatory change in the backdrop painting process occurred because of differences in the color of the light thrown by the new electrical instruments. Electric light required far more specificity and detailed perspective in a painted backdrop because the audience could see it more clearly, even though it was placed farther away from the proscenium (Arnold 71). This new lighting

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 encouraged much more rapid changes in scenery, which arguably developed into a whole new artform at the beginning of the twentieth century.

In examining early twentieth century frontier dramas, Wattenberg’s main argument is that characters often stood in for and symbolized a stark conflict between eastern civilization and western savagery. He argues that even though both main characters in Girl are from California, Minnie—due to her efforts to educate and civilize the miners—embodied eastern civilization, while Johnson/Ramerrez, even though he dresses and carries himself like a San Francisco gentleman, he is still a road agent,17 making him closer to the image of a western savage. Wattenberg argues that Belasco’s play ends differently from most other frontier dramas of the period since, although the

Girl has agreed to move east, she has given her love over to the west because of her commitment to Johnson (165-66). Even though she journeys east, she takes the west with her, thereby giving intrinsic value to the wild and untamed. Scenically, by ending with the tableau of the prairies and western sunrise, Belasco was also visually privileging the west and wilderness over eastern civilization. Given the interest in wilderness among his

New York audience, many might have found this treatment quite understandable.

The following year, Belasco produced and directed a play he co-wrote with

Richard Walton Tully, The Rose of the Rancho. Although this play was also set in the west, it focused on the clash between two civilized cultures and it limited the outdoor scenography to courtyards. However, in the same year, William Vaughn Moody’s The

Great Divide used settings to create a visual interpretation of each of his main characters as they also struggled with the nature/culture binary.

17 The term “road agent” is used frequently in the script to refer to Ramerrez. This term means bandit or highwayman, particularly during the stagecoach era. See https://www.dictionary.com/browse/road-agent

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Frontier Plays in New York City – The Great Divide (1906)

The process that brought The Great Divide to the stage exemplifies a tradition of

American theatrical production methods that was fading by 1906. In this tradition, shows were initiated by a lead actor (or in this case, lead actress Margaret Anglin) who signed a contract with a writer for the use of the latter’s text. Author William Vaughn Moody, a literary man and poet, was not steeped in the theatrical world, but he did understand the new genre of realism and brought this understanding into his shaping of the text. The way the script went from his hands to embodied presentation before an audience was as a star vehicle with the production coordinated by an actor-manager, a position which might be understood as a cross between a director and a stage manager in today’s theatre. In this system, left over from the nineteenth century without a guiding hand like that of

Belasco, scenery often simply consisted of painted backdrops hastily produced by technicians or scenic artists who were not given enough lead time to allow for originality

(Larson 12-13). What is unique about the design for Divide was the influences of both

Henry Miller, who played the male lead and served as the actor-manager, and of the author, Moody. Both men played significant roles in helping the scenery reflect the realism of the text.

Similar to The Girl of the Golden West, The Great Divide was written by an author who was relatively well-known and popular at the time, but in this case as a poet.

In 1964, Moody biographer Martin Halpern said that Divide had “one of the most successful runs to date in the American commercial theatre” (116). The success of this play added to Moody’s reputation, but since Moody passed away four years after The

Great Divide, having written only one other prose play and two verse plays, his theatrical

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 body of work was not large enough to overcome changing tastes. The Great Divide was considered a significant step towards realism in American drama when it opened, but by the middle of the twentieth century critics considered it much closer to melodrama than realism. One of Halpern’s stated goals was to advocate for Moody’s work, that it remains relevant and could stand the test of time. This may still be true of his poetry and other plays, but the sexism in the main romantic relationship in The Great Divide is too problematic for production in the twenty-first century.

The Great Divide has a female lead character who, like the eponymous Girl of the

Golden West, is largely written as strong and intelligent. Unfortunately, Ruth Jordan is not always as respected by the men around her as the Girl. In act 1, Ruth has come to

Arizona to help her brother with his cactus farm. When she is left alone in the cabin, three drunk men break in, and intend to rape her. Ruth bribes the least aggressive,

Stephen Ghent, by promising to give herself to him in marriage if he saves her from the other two. He does so by giving the men all of his gold, and the act ends after Ruth leaves a note for her brother telling him that she is running away with a lover the brother never knew. Act 2 takes place years later outside another cabin on the edge of a canyon, with Ghent’s mine unseen below. Ghent is making plans to build a grand house for the upper-class wife he loves, but unbeknownst to him, she has made and sold crafts to tourists at the local hotel the entire time that they have been together. Ruth has just returned from the hotel, where she was spotted and thereafter followed by a childhood friend and his wife. Ruth tells the friend and his wife that she is happy in her new life and sends them away, but once they are gone, she presents Ghent with a string of gold nuggets, saying that she wants to use them to buy back her freedom. Ruth tells Ghent

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 that she is pregnant and does not want to raise her baby in a relationship with a history like theirs. Act 3 takes place in the Jordan family sitting room in Boston some months later. Ruth has given birth to a baby boy, and the rest of her family reflects on how happy they are to have escaped the financial troubles resulting from the loss of the cactus farm. Ghent had secretly followed Ruth back east when she left, and through Ruth’s mother and sister-in-law, has helped the family get back on their feet. However, after months in Boston, Ghent has now found out that his partner is trying to wrest sole ownership of the mine. Ghent comes to see Ruth, who did not know he has been in town all this time, and he tells her that he wants her back. He says that he is willing to let the mine go and find another, but he wants his family back together. After learning how long he has been in town and what he has done for her family, Ruth finally admits that she does love Ghent and agrees to go back to the west with him.

It is no coincidence that the two plays with western frontier settings examined in this chapter were produced within roughly a year of each other. These two plays, along with the other four popular frontier dramas also produced within a six-year period, reflect an interest in the American west most vocally expressed among the elite of the east coast between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century.

Both Roger A. Hall and Richard Wattenberg, in their respective monographs on frontier dramas, give credit to the events and societal shifts of the 1890s for this short-lived but significant surge of interest in the frontier. As Wattenberg expresses it, “The civilization/savagery opposition remained key to turn-of-the-century frontier representations, but the way in which ‘civilization’ and ‘savagery’ were construed underwent a certain modulation” (24). In other words, the savage landscape that had

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 helped to create the American identity, once lost, became the stuff of nostalgia. These plays “met a particular demand for dramas about the frontier, but they also succinctly addressed the attitudes about the Wild West that their original audiences brought to the theatre. Indeed, at that time, when the actual frontier was supposedly disappearing, the mythic frontier became a major national preoccupation” (Wattenberg 3). While frontier drama was not new, this brief period can be considered a theatrical pinnacle for the genre.

Even though the original audiences for The Girl of the Golden West and The

Great Divide lived in an urban environment during an industrialized era, there can be little doubt that the life experience of many would include a greater understanding of life outdoors and the labor of farming than those of current generations.

Go back a few generations, and everyone was connected, everyone was a farmer or connected by family to a farm. Everyone knew how to kill and pluck a chicken. Most of these people endured a lot of hard, physical work, much of it out of doors, to eke out a living, and they certainly wouldn’t have called their times the good old days. I explain [in this book] how in just a generation or two, people went from hands-on interaction with the land, with its heat, dust, and barnyard smells, to an insular lifestyle of conditioned air, landscaped views, canned deodorants, and an industrial agriculture system that delivers a chicken in parts on a diaper in a foam tray wrapped in clear plastic. (Sterba xxiv)

For example, Brooklyn was the third largest city in the United States in 1898, before it become part of greater New York City, yet farmers within Brooklyn city limits were still the main supplier of fruits and vegetables for their neighbors living across the East River in Manhattan, with at least a handful of farms left in Manhattan in 1890 (Eldredge 8-9).

Throughout the country, and even in New York, heating one’s home often still involved the manual labor of loading a woodstove, or later, shoveling coal into a furnace.18 Both

18 As late as 1940, according to the United States Census that year, 75% of homes were still using wood or coal as their primary heating fuel.

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 home heating and the railroads began to transition to coal after the middle of the nineteenth century, but the demand for lumber continued (Cumbler 40). However, in

1904, as the cutting of timber reached its national peak with 46 billion board feet

(Williams 152), the state of New York owned and had set aside for permanent preservation more than 1.4 million acres in the Adirondacks and 104,524 acres in the

Catskills (Stradling 102-103). The impetus for this preservation, which preceded the ability of the United States President to create national parks, was more about water issues for the cities along the Hudson than protection of forests. Whatever their motivation, both members of state government and citizen groups from downstate, like the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks, worked in tandem to maintain the wooded landscape of the state of New York (Eldredge 100-105).

The Great Divide scenically changes with each act, but unlike in Girl, one of this play’s longer acts takes place outside. Act 1 takes place in a rustic cabin in the wilderness, much like all of the interior sets used for The Girl of the Golden West, except in this case the décor is unmistakably southwestern.19 Similar to the act 2 cabin in Girl,

Divide’s act 1 cabin has a window in the back of the set designed to allow the audience to see the outside environment. In this case it is not a forest of trees, but rather “the desert…intensely colored, and covered with the uncouth shapes of giant cacti, dotted with bunches of gorgeous bloom” (Moody 362). The setting for act 3 is an east coast living

19 At the time of this writing, an image for the act 2 setting was available on the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts web page at https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47de-e689-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99 However, similar to Girl, the upstage center picture window had the curtains drawn for the photograph so no backdrop could be seen if there was one. Much of the décor that gave this cabin its southwestern feel came from Moody who had gone on a trip to New Mexico in 1906 to gather authentic objects from the region (Wattenberg 171).

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 room, but it is the act 2 setting20 that taps into the visual idea of wilderness. The entrance to Ghent and Ruth’s current home sits on far stage-left, with stone benches for the actors to sit on, a stone border wall upstage, and a painted backdrop beyond. The backdrop painting creates the illusion that the near side of the canyon is just below the border wall, while the far side is shrouded in distant mist.

Even though the influence of romanticism in art was fading and Hudson River art had lost favor by the time The Great Divide was produced in 1906, the impact of this artistic style on New York City should not be overlooked. For over fifty years in the middle part of the ninteenth century, dozens of well-known painters would spend their summers journeying north on the Hudson to make preperatory sketches that for landscape paintings crafted in their city studios during the winter months. While the language that environmental historian David Stradling uses is “seemingly realistic landscapes” (77-78), the question of defining realism or placing these paintings in art history was not his objective. Instead, he focuses on the ubiquity of Hudson River art in the city up to and through the turn of the century and how its influence could not be overestimated:

They dominated the National Academy of Design for decades. They hung on the walls of wealthy patrons and in public buildings, in galleries and steamships. Hudson River landscapes graced painted china, calendars, and less expensive lithographs. They appeared in myriad publications—books as well as magazines. Even New Yorkers who rarely traveled might think they knew the Skawangunks, or Kaaterskill Clove, or Lake George, so often had they seen them, in so many paintings… They were lessons, each of them, on how to view nature, how to frame a picturesque vista… Their work was steeped in romanticism and represented the powerful cultural shift away from positing nature as a force to be conquered and toward an appreciation of nature as a critical component of human life. (Strandling 79)

20 At the time of this writing, an image for the act 2 setting was available on the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts web page at https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47de-e687-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

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While nostalgia for the lost frontier swept across the county, many residents of New York

City had grown up surrounded by a very visual, romanticized view of the natural world, some of which can be seen in the way the canyon was depicted in the act 2 backdrop of

The Great Divide. Add to this history the nineteenth century normality of rail lines that allowed a growing middle class to take short summer retreats, even if just a week away at a boarding house in the Catskills, or to visit to the American Museum of Natural History

(first opened in 1878) for the afternoon:

The natural history museum before the age of movies, television, and even books with lavish color illustrations was the main connection between urbanites and the natural world that most of them had no hope of ever seeing ‘in the flesh.’ To this day, world-class natural history museums remain the best thing next to actually being in the same place in the natural world. (Eldredge 73)

The city also installed high-caliber zoos in Central Park and the Bronx in 1859 and 1899, respectively. These had the advantage over the American Natural History Museum in that they displayed live animals, with the drawback that the habitats in which these animals are caged usually reflects the location of the zoo more than the natural habitat of the animal. Natural history museums, on the other hand, painstakingly create meticulous dioramas that copy habitats throughout the world with pinpoint accuracy (Eldridge 73-

74). In this era of nostalgia for wilderness at the beginning of the twentieth century, the museum contained visual references which worked in tandem with Hudson River art to influence New York City residents in their perceptions and attitudes towards wild places in the United States.

Both Girl and Divide are set adjacent to mining camps, but these depictions were eastern sentimental interpretations of western mining in which the romantic beauty of the land is not destroyed. While the woods of the Adirondacks and the Catskills, the

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Museum were all close by and ever-present to New Yorkers, mining was something that took place far away without a significant visual reference. The Girl of the Golden West is set prior to the mass influx of would-be miners that caused radical environmental change.

The stereotypical image of a miner panning for gold was only accurately representative for a short time. This method was quickly replaced by sluicing, a process which destroyed whole ecosystems (Crane 196-197). The rolling panorama at the beginning of

Girl, for example, gave audiences the impression that mining was an activity that did not disturb the natural beauty of the forests. Whether Belasco, who grew up in San

Francisco, was aware of the process of gold mining, or only visualized classic pictures of miners in his head, he and his scene painters projected a romanticized image that his New

York City audience would find desirable in order to enhance the upcoming melodrama of the play and to suit their nostalgia for the western wilderness.

The Great Divide is also tied to mining, but in this case, it takes place in Arizona, where hard rock or underground mining was the norm. However, the painted drop beyond the Ghent home in act 2 depicts a canyon which appears to be shrouded in romantic mist, calling to mind some of Thomas Cole’s famous Hudson River paintings.

This tradition of landscape painting was not one of realism, but rather one of reconstructing the composition of the land to suit the artist. Landscape paintings tamed and beautified the American wilderness (May 79). With Divide, not only does the audience not see the mine shaft, they also do not see any of the support systems for the mine, such as train tracks, ore carts, or homes for workers. Ghent wants to build a new, beautiful home for his wife in a setting that would appear to the audience to be a pristine

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 wilderness by a rocky canyon. However, if the mine is down in that canyon, the view would not be the wilderness setting that the New York City audience assumed it to be.

The settings were romanticized to play on the audience’s nostalgia and expectations.

During the early part of the twentieth century, outdoor plays were not at all unusual. Like many of these, Divide features a setting (for act 2) that is basically the front yard of a house, but the location of this house is unique and far more of the landscape is presented to the audience than in the typical front or backyard setting of the period. Photographs in Theatre Magazine often depict sections of houses richly decorated with flowering vines near a grassy yard confined by bushes or fencing, and

Moody copied part of this trend when he called for “vines loaded with purple bloom” and

“cactus plants in blossom fill the niches of the rocks” (382-373). But instead of using the house as background, placing a small grassy yard between the house and a barn, or limiting the space with a fence and bushes, this production created a clear visual depiction of the broader landscape by having scenic artists create an original backdrop depicting the wide canyon behind the actors. Naturally, this feels metaphoric, since the main action of this act is that Ruth tells her husband that she is leaving him. Similar to the last image from Girl, this setting is a far different landscape than audiences would have encountered in the area surrounding New York City. Also, the time period in which

Divide is set remains unspecified. While Belasco made it perfectly clear by naming the year in which Girl took place, Moody does not provide such information with his play.

However, the implication is that this play also takes place in a time well before the closing of the frontier, as Ruth’s brother Philip homesteads land for his cactus farm in act

1 and Ghent suggests in act 3 that he will simply find another mine if his partner steals

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 his share, which suggests that there were still lands open to prospecting. Also similar to

Girl, Divide does not take the environment as the antagonist. Instead, the conflict is between people. The environment, much as Turner argues, shapes who they are and how they behave, but they are not fighting to survive on it. In both plays, “the east” and being torn between east and west are factors in the main romantic conflict, but since none of the characters struggle for survival, the environment is fair game to be romanticized. In

Divide it is the female, Ruth, who is symbolic of the civilized east and Ghent, the would- be rapist, who symbolizes the savage west. By the final act, even though they agree to continue their marriage in the west, Ghent can be seen as having been civilized by his time in the east. Such romanticization would have satisfied expectations of nostalgic

New York audiences who had enjoyed the works of western novelists such as Zane Grey,

Bret Harte, and James Fenimore Cooper.

I argue that even though the period covered in this chapter occurred well after the beginning of the industrial revolution and well before environmentalism, two modern concepts can be used to broadly analyze the depictions of wilderness during this time.

First, because realism was applied through scenic design in the American theatre before it was embraced textually, these early stages of three-dimensional settings worked as a counterfeit attempting to reflect reality, or what Baudrillard called the first order of simulacra. As I explained in chapter 1, in the context of this dissertation’s focus on depiction of the environment on the theatrical stage, scenic design can be examined from a different perspective. While interior settings can easily be made mimetic, as Belasco proved with his exact replica of Child’s Restaurant in The Governor’s Lady, and by transporting all the contents of a rundown tenement bedroom to his theatre for The

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Easiest Way (Larson Scene Design 25), mimetic scenery, especially when it involved vast open spaces, can never be truly representational. When limiting an examination of design to outdoor landscapes depicted in the confines of a stage, there is always a paradox in that there are obvious differences between the representation and its referent.

Baudrillard was never analyzing style in art, but rather the nature of representation. In the transition years between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, both artists and audiences struggled to adapt as stage design quickly evolved from a simplistic painted backdrop, to a painted backdrop with scenery in front of it, to eventually largely dropping the painted backdrop altogether (for a while, anyway).

Baudrillard argues that art in the stage of first-order simulacra was a counterfeit which attempted to reflect reality. Much like Baudrillard’s example where an automaton serves as an analogon for a playful counterfeit of a human (Symbolic 74-75), the three- dimensional scenery, combined with the painted backdrop of both The Girl of the Golden

West and The Great Divide, attempt via pictorialism to be signs which interpreted nature.

A copy of wilderness cannot be created on the limited space of the stage, but since the art of three-dimensional scenery was still so new during the period covered by this chapter, it was not influenced by either the abstraction of New Stagecraft philosophy or the impetus to parody which came with later stages in Baudrillard’s analysis.

Second, while these designs were promoting the aesthetic value of three- dimensional scenery, they were also asking the audience to consider and question the value of wilderness. While finding anyone who would have argued for the intrinsic value of non-human life would most likely have been even more rare before the modern age than it is now, nostalgia for the lost frontier planted seeds of preservationism and a

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 recognition that wilderness, at least as a concept, has value. While the designs and texts for Girl and Divide perpetuated the culture/nature binary, the designs also encouraged a valuing of open space as something to be left alone rather than as a potential farm, a stand of lumber or some other commodity waiting to be exploited.

In the following chapter, I introduce the philosophy behind New Stagecraft, which added layers of intentionality and artistry to scenic design that pictorialism did not strive to achieve. The subjective reality of the design for The Emperor Jones (1920) might have been a radical departure from the pictorialism of this chapter, but by the time Of

Mice and Men (1937) was staged on Broadway, choosing to combine three-dimensional objects with a painted backdrop was not only a technique no longer frowned upon, but one that received praised from critics.

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CHAPTER III NATURE OUTSIDE THE WINDOW AND THE EMERGING THEATRICAL DESIGNER 1915-1945: THE EMPEROR JONES AND OF MICE AND MEN

“The most unreal thing on any stage is a real tree.” - Cleon Throckmorton “Scenic Art” 277

One can read this simple quote by Throckmorton as both ironic and deeply philosophical. In the early part of the twentieth century, more and more theatre critics argued against the brand of pictorial realism seen in the designs of the previous chapter.

Simultaneously, once the first blush of nostalgia for the lost frontier faded, citizens of the

United States had to negotiate the use of the remaining wilderness and open spaces. Two events in 1916 had a significant impact on the ways Americans interacted with open spaces. Congress passed the first of a series of Federal Aid Highway acts and also created the National Park Service (Sutter 170). The growing affordability of automobiles for the middle class in the mid-1910s and the availability of low-cost, post-war, surplus camping gear a few years later combined to encourage nature tourism in the form of car camping. But this chapter begins in 1915, the year in which the New Stagecraft first appeared in American scenic design. New Stagecraft is the name given to a movement which argues that scenic design is an important element in theatrical storytelling and should not be treated as an insignificant background (Larson 72-73). That the stage environment’s artistic value should be comparable to any of the other elements of the production (e.g., script or acting) was a cornerstone of New Stagecraft philosophy.

Scenery should support the themes of the production, created by a designer rather than by a director or an actor-manager, as was the case with the designs in the previous chapter.

So, as scenic artists argued for the importance of the visual in theatre, Americans were

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 transitioning away from the nostalgia of the previous chapter and into a period of ambivalence between two poles. This chapter ends in 1945 with the end of World War

II, as many of the same conditions that existed during the Depression, such as the need for backyard gardens to provide food, continued during the war. After the war ended, as will be examined in the following chapter, sentimentality towards nature became rare in a nation overcome by its own economic momentum. The two scenic designs of this chapter serve as cultural artifacts of both changes in design styles and an American ambivalence towards the more-than-human world. I argue that while these designs reflect the New Stagecraft mandate to add meaning to the production through design, these depictions were also intended to create a simile between the themes of the play and/or characters’ feelings/emotions and still represent nature as nature.

The two scenic designs examined below were devised to serve texts by canonical authors Eugene O’Neill and John Steinbeck, but what is possibly more significant to this dissertation is the fact that the scenic designers, Cleon Throckmorton and Donald

Oenslager, were also leaders and icons within their profession. Throckmorton, designer for the original production of The Emperor Jones (1920), created sets for hundreds of plays from the 1920s to the 1940s and was associated with several historically significant theatre companies, including the Provincetown Players,21 the Theatre Guild, and the

Neighborhood Playhouse (Owen 446). He was also an early advocate for the philosophy of New Stagecraft in America. Sadly, although Throckmorton’s designs were both innovative and influential, he did not write and publish as much as fellow New Stagecraft advocates (notably Lee Simonson and Robert Edmond Jones), so his name and works are

21 The Provincetown Players produced The Emperor Jones.

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 not studied in the same way. Oenslager, who designed the original set for Of Mice and

Men (1937), published two books, various articles about design, and won a Tony Award for scenic design in 1959 for A Majority of One. In 1925, when he first started designing on Broadway, Oenslager also began commuting from New York City to New Haven to teach theatrical design at Yale University, a platform from which he achieved a far- reaching, multi-generational influence in his field. Both of the scenic designs in this chapter featured natural landscapes with prominent trees, but they were rendered quite differently. While Throckmorton and Oenslager were both early advocates of New

Stagecraft, implementation of the basic philosophy and the aspects receiving priority changed over time, a phenomenon reflected in Oenslager’s design more than a decade and a half after Throckmorton’s.

To contextualize these two settings within the milieu of other settings selected by

Broadway playwrights, I turned to the Burns Mantle Yearbook of Best Plays and the chart in appendix A. The Yearbooks were published annually from 192022 until 2009, providing readers with summaries of the ten plays the editors considered the best of each season, primarily based on the quality of dramatic texts. These books create a snapshot of each Broadway season to use for comparison. Between 1920 and 1945, a total of five

American plays in the Yearbooks were set partially in open space wilderness, including

The Emperor Jones and Of Mice and Men. Some productions had short runs, which may explain why photographs were not taken, were limited, or were not preserved by the New

22 As noted in chapter 2, in 1944 smaller versions of the Yearbook of Best Plays were created to look back at the beginning of the century. Unlike the regular publication which published summaries of ten plays per year, only two volumes were created, one covering 1899-1909 and another covering 1910-1919. Rather than picking the ten best plays for each year, the contents of each of these two volumes have only one representative play for each year.

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York Public Library. For other productions, New Stagecraft philosophies (discussed below) encouraged a level of visual simplicity within which there is simply not enough scenery to analyze.23

Since the Yearbooks of Best Plays, in contrast with Theatre Magazine and Theatre

Arts, were published consistently for nearly the entire period covered by this dissertation, a comparison of the settings across chapters is helpful in tracking changes. During the period from 1920 to 1945, 3% of the American plays selected by the Yearbook editors were set in open space wilderness and 18% were set outdoors. While the comparison might not be fair since only twenty plays were selected for the 1899-1909 and 1910-1919 volumes created by Mantle and Garrison P. Sherwood, it is still interesting to note that two out of those twenty plays were set in open space wilderness, and half had at least one outdoor setting. Again, since the 1915 to 1945 period includes 197 American plays, this comparison might prove unfair, but it does leave lingering questions of what a broader study might find and how this would compare with the cultural changes, reviewed below, which encouraged many Americans to spend less time outside.

Even though Theatre Magazine ceased publication in 1931, fourteen years before the end of the period covered by this chapter, the final sixteen years covered in appendix

B provide images of two plays with open space wilderness settings not profiled in the

Yearbooks. However, they were both performed with simplistic sets.24 The images in

23 Wild Birds (1922) by Dan Totheroh uses several outdoor settings, including far out in the prairie, but this play only ran for 44 performances, so information was limited. In Abraham’s Bosom (1926) by Paul Green has two scenes set in the woods, but the only preserved photographs were from indoor scenes. The Green Pastures (1930) by Marc Connelly set half of the eighteen scenes outdoors, but the original design created by Robert Edmond Jones was extremely simplistic. Some outdoor scenes were performed on an empty stage with a leafy proscenium border. 24 A Little Journey (1918) by Rachel Crothers had very few three-dimensional set pieces for the outdoor setting, which was performed in front of a painted drop. White Eagle (1928) by Edwin Milton Royal, a

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Theatre Magazine also reflect a continuation of the trend away from settings featuring a prominent painted backdrop. To summarize, forty-two published photographs in the

1901 to 1910 period documented the prominent use of painted backdrops in design, versus nine published between 1911 and 1919, and only three published between 1920 and 1931. While this might reflect preferences on the part of the magazine editors more than use in design, the New Stagecraft movement encouraged the shift away from painted backdrops. While their use resurged after World War II, these later painted backdrops were stylistically different than those influenced by landscape painting in earlier periods

(Larson 151).

Begun in 1916, Theatre Arts Magazine25 was smaller in dimensions and much simpler in production value than its direct competitor, Theatre Magazine. Initially, published photographs were rare in Theatre Arts Magazine, but this changed after 1922 when Edith Isaacs took over as editor. Since a stated goal of the earliest version was to promote New Stagecraft, several innovative designs were featured even if the shows had short runs. Even though there were a total of thirteen plays with open space wilderness design sketches or photographs published in the magazine between 1916 and 1945, the designs selected for analysis in this chapter were the two most canonical and which also had the largest accessible number of extant photographs and reviews.

New Stagecraft Design and the Forest – The Emperor Jones (1920)

The Emperor Jones, a one-act play in eight scenes, transferred to Broadway not long after starting off-Broadway. The play is set on an unnamed Caribbean island, but

musical based on The Squaw Man, was equally simplistic in its use of scenery. This time, there were a few bushes and cacti in front of a painted backdrop. 25 The following reflects the name changes to the magazine over time: Theatre Arts Magazine 1916-1923, Theatre Arts Monthly 1924-1938, and Theatre Arts 1939-1945.

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 only the first scene takes place inside a building. Both the second and the eighth scenes take place just outside what O’Neill refers to as the Great Forest and are the only two scenes set in the same location. Scenes 3 through 7 each take place in various locations inside the forest. The story of the play follows Brutus Jones, a black American ex- convict who came to the island several years before and became emperor of the native people. However, he was more thief than ruler and is about to face a rebellion when the play begins. Having predicted this eventuality, Jones had a plan of escape, but in order to get to the docks and freedom, Jones must go through the forest at night. His confidant, the white trader, Smithers, warns him,

Ternight when it’s pitch black in the forest, they’ll ’ave their pet devils and ghosts ’oundin’ after you. You’ll find yer bloody ’air ’ll be standin’ on end before termorrow morning’. (seriously) It’s a bleedin’ queer place, that stinkin’ forest, even in daylight. Yer don’t know what might ’appen in there, it’s that rotten still. Always sends the cold shivers down my back minute I gets in it. (O’Neill 126)

However, although Jones replies, “Trees an’ me, we’se friends” (O’Neill 126) the action of the play is foreshadowed by Smithers. Then, throughout scenes 2 through 7, Jones hears native drums which increase in pace and volume. His encounters with what

O’Neill calls “Little Formless Fears” (132) begin even before he enters the forest.

Starting in scene 3, Jones encounters ghosts from his past, including the man whose death sent Jones to prison, the guard he killed when he escaped, the slave traders who sold his ancestors, and a Congo witch doctor. Finally, in scene 8 Smithers listens at the edge of the forest with one of the rebels, Lem, as Jones is finally killed, and the drums stop beating.

In reading the published version of the play, Jones could give an initial impression of magical realism. During the scenes set in the forest, Brutus Jones is either having

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 hallucinations or is being haunted by spirits conjured by the natives of the island.

However, the stage directions for the settings paint almost photorealistic pictures, conveying that O’Neill intended realism in the execution of the environment. As Timo

Tiusanen points out in O’Neill’s Scenic Images, however, that expressionism was historically often found in productions, not in preserved texts, as is the case with Jones

(97). In my own first encounter with this play, I did not understand why my teacher kept calling it expressionism until I saw photographs of Cleon Throckmorton’s original design for both the off-Broadway and Broadway premieres. Along with being considered expressionistic, this design was also one of the early successes of the New Stagecraft movement.

Orville K. Larson titled his book Scene Design in the American Theatre from

1915 to 1960 because he argues that the scenic designer first appeared in the United

States as separate and distinct from scenic artists and technicians in 1915. This is not an unusual stand, as many theatre historians have accepted the setting and costume design created by Robert Edmond Jones for The Man Who Married a Dumb Wife as publicly introducing a new kind of stagecraft to Broadway in January of that year. A few years prior to Dumb Wife, Jones spent time in Germany learning progressive European design techniques from designers at Max Reinhardt’s theatre but returned to New York due to the looming threat of war on the European continent. The design Jones created for Wife was a setting of simple geometric shapes in black and white that served as a strong contrast to the period costumes created in bright primary and secondary colors. This play is set in medieval times, with anachronistic costumes set against a largely simplified — even abstract — setting. Although often credited as the first realized American design of

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 the New Stagecraft movement, Jones was not a solitary voice of change. At the end of

1914 two different small theatre groups—the Washington Square Players and the

Provincetown Players—were formed by groups of intellectuals who wanted to introduce

European ideas of realism in playwrighting and simplicity in design to the New York audience. If not for critic-advocates who spread the philosophies of New Stagecraft nationally, including Sheldon Cheney, Kenneth Macgowan, Clayton Hamilton, Stark

Young, and others, their small community of off-Broadway audiences may have been the only group to notice their efforts. (Chansky Composing 70-97, Larson 48-52).

A succinct listing of the specific principles espoused by various authors who promoted New Stagecraft in the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century can be found in Jerrold Allan Phillips’s unpublished 1975 dissertation The New

Stagecraft in America: A History of the Development of Scenic Design, 1915-1949.

Phillips not only creates the specific list of qualities found below, he also examines nineteen significant scenic designs from this period and creates an argument for how he feels the philosophy evolved over time in America.

The characteristics of this style are: 1) The rejection of facsimile realism replaced either by imitative settings or simplified suggestion. 2) The use of the setting in order to express meanings within the drama rather than to prove the illusion of place. 3) The use of the setting to create mood and atmosphere. 4) The direct use of design elements such as line, mass, color, and light for their expressive qualities. 5) The goal of a unified production, in which the scenery operated with the actors and other theatre artists to realize the values of the drama. 6) A plastic26 use of the stage space.

26 Since the word “plastic”, defined as a synthetic, often glossy and shiny material, is a part of the argument addressed in chapter 5 below, the intended use of the term by Phillips should be clarified. Phillips is using the term in a more general sense meaning something easily shaped or mailable. He clarifies this term to mean that the stage should be used to provide a variety of levels and planes for acting so as to increase options for the use of the actor’s body through blocking (59).

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7) An essential economy and simplicity of design. (Phillips 60-61)

Throckmorton’s design for The Emperor Jones is one of the nineteen designs Phillips examines in relation to the above list.

The realistic design practices that garnered the most disparagement by early- period New Stagecraft critics were those of David Belasco. Specifically, Belasco’s exact replica of a Child’s restaurant in The Governor’s Lady, which is still mentioned or pictured in many theatre textbooks, was repeatedly berated for its lack of economy and simplicity of design (Brockett and Hildy 373, Brockett, Mitchell and Hardberger 206-

207, Larson 23-26, Sporre 32). As Christin Essin explained in “Designing American

Modernity,”

Critics like Sheldon Cheney, Clayton Hamilton, and Kenneth Macgowan advanced the New Stagecraft theories of European artists like Edward Gordon Craig and Max Reinhardt, who rejected painterly, illusionary staging in favor of simplified, architectural environments that, they believed, gave fuller expression to the central ideas of dramatic texts… Cheney, editor of Theatre Arts Magazine, the journal linked to the art theatre movement, argued that Belasco’s productions were excessive and vulgar, distracting spectators with a barrage of visual minutiae (34).

Part of Essin’s argument is that Belasco’s design for The Governor’s Lady was representative of the period because of the ways that it replicated the industrial design of

America’s first chain restaurant, Child’s. Having an exact replica of Child’s down to the smallest detail was so visually recognizable to the audience both in New York and in neighboring cities that it created a form of visual shorthand as soon as the curtain opened.

The audience instantly recognized the restaurant as well as the type of clientele served there. Essin argues that Belasco capitalized on the early stages of public interest in standardization (32-33). However, in Belasco’s own time, the scenic realism he strove to

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 create was seen as lacking artistic merit by the critics above, as well as many New

Stagecraft designers. Phillips lists “The rejection of facsimile realism replaced either by imitative settings or simplified suggestion” as the first and most important characteristic of New Stagecraft philosophy (60). By making the set design for The Emperor Jones suggestive rather than naturalistic, Throckmorton created a rainforest which blended with the madness Jones expressed in the text, resulting in visual expressionism. As Phillips expresses it, “Throckmorton made no attempt to present any naturalistic portrayal of the jungle elements that O’Neill specified in the stage directions but sought rather to suggest the presence of these elements simply and with great economy” (129), a very clear break from Belasco’s style of naturalism.

While Belasco’s naturalism primarily paired with melodramatic texts, experimentation in the American theatre in the early part of the twentieth century included many different styles in both playwrighting and design, one of which was

O’Neill’s expressionism. In his series exploring and defining different theatrical styles,

Modern Drama in Theory and Practice 3: Expressionism and Epic Theatre, J. L. Styan examines various early incarnations of expressionism. As a generalized definition, Styan says that expressionism can be used as “a term which could identify any play or production that departed from realism and showed life in a highly personal, idiosyncratic manner, the form of the play ‘expressing’ its content” (2). He further clarifies that the application of the genre differed, dependent upon the country where it appeared. In the

United States and specifically with O’Neill, Styan argues, the style was adopted as a way to express intellectual disillusion with the American dream. While The Emperor Jones has structural elements in common with German expressionism, the realistic scenes

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 bookending O’Neill’s play distinguish it from the German form during that period. But the play’s attempts to tap into and express the subjective, to explore a psychology of fear, and examine of the spirit of a character are consistent with German Expressionism (Styan

100-102). The term ‘expressionism’ is still used occasionally especially in relation to design, but as a writing style it has been overshadowed in America by realism.

In Staging O’Neill: The Experimental Years, 1920-1934, Ronald H. Wainscott explains exactly why The Emperor Jones performed off-Broadway for such a relatively short period of time. The Provincetown Players opened the original production on

November 1, 1920, planning for a two-week run. The popularity and good reviews this production received led to the decision to continue performances until December 27 while commercial rights were negotiated to move the play. The Broadway version began with special matinees at the Selwyn Theatre before reopening in the Princess Theatre on

January 29, 1921, for a total run of 204 performances (Wainscott 40). This production was Throckmorton’s first scenic design assignment in New York, but according to the original program, the credit he received was “settings designed and executed with the assistance of Cleon Throckmorton.” This partial credit is likely due to the fact that the decision to install the permanent plaster dome cyclorama at the back of the

Provincetown’s stage—a major design feature for this production, which took up most of the season’s budget—came from the director/lighting designer, George Cram “Jig” Cook

(Wainscott 47-49). Even though there are several surviving photographs, the style of the lighting design limits the legibility of many of them. In several scenes, most of the lighting focused on the plaster cyclorama, leaving the trees and actors in front of it largely or completely in silhouette. The surviving black and white photographs from the

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 original production often led to discussions relating the scenography to metaphors of black and white within the text, even though the plaster cyclorama was actually flooded with blue light in the original production (Wainscott 49, Throckmorton 275).

Since the surviving photographs are only in black and white, the other colors used in the scenography for The Emperor Jones are largely unknown—the colors of the trees, the shade of blue used in the cyclorama, how changes in the lighting color impacted other existing colors in the design. Given that the designs for this production are not naturalistic, unlike those of the previous chapter, the colors cannot be assumed. Setting aside the first scene of Jones as irrelevant to this dissertation, the forest in the rest of the play is rendered in a variety of ways for different scenes,27 relying heavily on the use of vertical lines and chiaroscuro to create an otherworldly and expressionistic effect. At times, the foliage seems to be dense and the cyclorama is hard to see28 while at other times, even in the same scene, the foliage thins out and individual tree trunks can be

27 Rarely noted even by design scholars like Phillips are the possible inconsistencies in the photographs held by the Museum of the City of New York and by the New York Public Library. For example, each holds an image from scene 4 which looks to be exactly the same (Museum version https://collections.mcny.org/CS.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=24UP1GRHI9I9I&SMLS=1&RW=1536&RH=722, and the Library version https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47dc-3bc6-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99 ) but one of them was printed backwards, making it hard to know which is accurate. Another issue is with the three images from scene 5 held by the New York Public Library. Two images have the same setting (https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47dc-3ba0-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99 and https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47dc-3ba7-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99), but one is radically different in both the hangings and the platform on which the actor stood (https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47dc-3bca- a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99). Throckmorton told the story of having forgotten to build the scenery for one scene and therefore needing to borrow from another, so the last image might be the use of the scenery from scene 7 (https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47dc-3b9b-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99) before the correct trees for scene 5 were built. These differences are so structural that it makes no sense, given the text of the play, for these changes to have happened during the course of performing the scene. These changes could be alterations made during the first weeks of production or when the play moved to different venues, but all three were labeled as from 1920 in the Provincetown Playhouse. 28 At the time of this writing the New York Public Library photograph labeled scene 4 could be found at - https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47dc-3bc5-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 distinguished.29 The lines and shape of the fabric hangings provide a very clear representation of tree trunks in silhouette. In scene 4, the forest is still fairly dense, obscuring most of the cyclorama, but the trees seem to have gotten larger. Thick trunks give the impression that the foliage is somewhere above the proscenium. In one open area of scene 4, but more noticeable in scene 5, are the unnaturally tall trees with thin trunks.30 Since the trees in this design do not have much of the angular qualities usually associated with expressionism, it could be argued that the thin trees which hint at bars on a jail cell help to create the visual expressionism of the design. As Throckmorton described his design, “the giant, forbidding trees were merely chunks of old scene canvas hanging on lines from above, and if enough light did not hit them, they were perfectly satisfactory” (274).31 These strips of canvas were hung on battens above the stage and attached to wires which could be pulled to allow the canvas to hang in a variety of patterns (Selden 130-31).

As mentioned above, the cyclorama and the lighting were major factors in the design of this production, but not in scene 8, based on the photograph held by the New

York Public Library.32 Scenes 2 and 8 are both set at the “end of the plain where the

Great Forest begins” (O’Neill 130). Cook’s vision of the outdoor scenery was that as

Jones goes deeper and deeper into the forest, it “begins… thick forest at first…steadily

29 Both of the following images are labeled as being from scene 4: https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47dc-3bd2-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99 and https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47dc-3bc6-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99 30 Both of the following images are from scene 5: https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47dc-3ba0-a3d9-e040- e00a18064a99 and https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47dc-3ba7-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99 31 Because of the lighting, the “giant trees” are hard to distinguish, but some can be seen off to the side in this image the library labeled as from scene 7: https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47db-bb75-a3d9-e040- e00a18064a99 32 At the time of this writing the photograph from this scene was posted on the New York Public Library page at https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47dc-3bbb-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 thinning out…scene after scene…to pure space” (Kenton 26). At the end of the play, the setting returns to the outside edge of the forest where scene 2 took place for the final scene. The design for this scene used a nearly solid black backdrop that blocks out virtually all of the concrete cyclorama behind it. In front of this are several strips of canvas that are each approximately a foot wide. Throckmorton indicated that these trees were connected to the stage in some fashion when he discussed how the actor, Charles

Gilpin, reacted when Throckmorton forgot to place the rocks onstage for scene 2 as the stage directions dictated. On this night, when the rocks were not onstage, Gilpin “took a beautiful revenge by vigorously kicking all my massive trees up by the roots and leaving them hanging there” (Throckmorton 274). The exact colors of these tree trunks cannot be determined from the photographs, but they read as so dark that they could be black with random specks and splotches of a much lighter color that looks almost white. The shape and the color contrast encourage a reading of these strips of canvas as tree trunks, possibly covered with a lighter colored moss. So, while the trees are not built to look realistic, containing no branches or leaves, the shape creates evident inferences. It could be argued that even though these trees were not overtly realistic in their design, the connection to the natural world is still unmistakable. Also, depicting very thick vegetation at the edge of a forest is consistent with the tendency for newer forests or forest edges to have a greater density of plant life, as they do not yet have tall trees to block out sunlight as the interior or older sections of a forest typically do. Just as Cook wanted, the canvas hangings cover less and less of the cyclorama with each scene as the play progresses, allowing the “concrete dome to catch and dissolve their lights, so that even on their little stage they can now get such illusions of distance and the wide

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 outdoors as few of their uptown rivals can achieve” (Woollcott 88). Even though the

Great Forest was rendered with a design that captured the mood and atmosphere of the play, it also conveyed a natural environment that the audience could easily read and recognize.

Because many consider New York City the central point in a northeastern megalopolis that stretches from Maine to Virginia, it is hard to imagine that the land on which so many cities, towns and suburbs rest was once part of a heavily forested landscape. In fact, when Europeans came to settle on the Western side of the Atlantic, three-quarters of all the forests in what is now the United States were located on land east of the Mississippi river (Sterba 24-25). To many of these early settlers who were accustomed to the pastoral lands of Europe, the forests of New England proved as annoying as they were endless. Advice given to farmers as late as the beginning of the nineteenth century was to avoid the difficulty and wasted energy of pulling up the stumps of felled trees. Peirce F. Lewis points out in “The Northeast and the Making of American

Geographical Habits” that farmers agreed that the wisest course of action was to burn any forest or growth of trees on the land and plant a farm in the ashes since there would always be more trees to harvest (83). This idea of just burning away forest lands was not a new idea imported from Europe. According to Michael Williams’s “Clearing of the

Forest,” the narrative that Europeans landed in New England and found it populated by an indigenous forest-dwelling population of hunter-gatherers ignores the fact that even the earliest settlers found fields of corn, squash, beans and other cultivation in places where forests had been burned away by Native Americans (147).

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The use of wood from trees cleared to make way for farming to build cabins and heat them was only the first step in deforestation, as timber later became the primary building material in the United States. Yet, by the beginning of the twentieth century, the rampant deforestation that had consumed most of the east coast was moving back in the direction of reforestation in New England.

The area where the original colonists settled played a role in this reforestation at the turn of the twentieth century because large portions of New England and northern

New York are less than ideal for farming. By the middle of the 1800s, there was very little forested land left in southern New England, but the people who tried to farm the

Connecticut River valley were known to joke that their most plentiful crop was rocks

(Lewis 85). So, left without the ability to create commercially viable farms, many New

Englanders took to the sea, learned to manufacture goods for sale, or migrated westward into parts of upstate New York and northern Ohio in search of richer soil. One of

Lewis’s major arguments is that two distinct cultural bases spread westward and largely did not intermingle. Settlers or descendants who started out in Pennsylvania spread across southern Ohio and southern Indiana, while New Englanders initially stayed largely in the north, moving into Maine and all parts of New York. However, unless they kept moving westward, migrating New Englanders did not find the farmland they craved.

Many New Englanders found it easier to find work in the cities, consequently evolving this region of the young nation into a largely urban place, the same becoming true in other regions of the United States by the time of the 1920 census. Between the declared closing of the frontier in 1890 until the 1920 census, the United States had transitioned from a largely rural, agricultural economy to a mainly urban, industrial-based economy.

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The 1920 census reported “more Americans living in towns or cities of 2,500 people or more than in rural environs” (Wattenberg 25). By the end of the 1800s both the migration to the west and industrialization

…had almost depopulated most of rural New England; by the middle of the 1900s, most of New England had reverted to forest. Indeed, seen today from the window of an airplane, much of rural New England looks like primordial wilderness. Walking in the woods reveals another story, however, as one stumbles through a ghostly rural landscape of tumbled- down stone walls and country cemeteries overgrown with trees and vines. (Lewis 86)

While today these second-growth forests are well established, in the 1910s when Eugene

O’Neill spent his summers in the area, they would have been relatively young and therefore very dense forests. In other words, when Eugene O’Neill was drafting his story of a single American experiencing a struggle between the civilized and the natural worlds in the Caribbean, “New England had become an overwhelmingly urban place, an archipelago of hundreds of cities and towns, set down in a vast unbroken ocean of second-grown forest” (Lewis 86).

According to Lewis Sheaffer in O’Neill: Son and Artist, these New England woods were one of the direct influences for The Emperor Jones,

His physical surroundings helped to activate the play forming in his mind. As Old Snail Road led from the highway toward the dunes and Peaked Hill, it passed through a clump of woods in which the overarching trees were so thick that they shut out the sky; even in daytime the area, over a hundred paces long, seemed broodingly quiet and secretive, but at night “the dark place,” as Provincetowners called it, was altogether spooky. Whenever O’Neill traversed “the dark place” it reminded him, he said, of his gold-prospecting in Spanish Honduras – particularly the bottomless black nights in the Honduran forests. (28)

Because Throckmorton came into the design process at the last minute when another designer’s work was not satisfactory to director and co-designer Cook, it is unclear

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 whether Throckmorton ever communicated with O’Neill about the look of the forest.

Also, Cook’s vision of a thick forest that slowly cleared to open space does relate to the stage directions but does not follow them precisely or with the amount of naturalistic detail provided by O’Neill. The foreboding second-growth forest that inspired O’Neill probably proved familiar to Cook as well, so the irony of the design is that while things get more frightening for the character of Brutus Jones, the environment grows progressively more open, which often implies less risk of sudden unseen danger.

While O’Neill’s New York City audience might not have shared his interactions with the density of a new-growth forest, they were also not estranged from forestland issues relating to reforestation or conservation. One of the long-standing philosophical differences and sources of political debate was between conservation and preservation.

Conservationists stood for “wise use or planned development of resources” (Nash 129), while preservationists felt that the nation and individual states should set aside large chunks of park land which would remain untouched in perpetuity for the benefit of those who would want to visit and explore. In the beginning of the twentieth century, conservationists believed that only experts should be in charge of managing resources, and New York became a leader in producing those experts with forestry programs at both

Cornell University and Syracuse University. With the guidance of these experts who managed lands for both recreation and logging, New York voters agreed to create a fund to purchase lands for the Palisades Interstate Park and Adirondack Park. By 1927, the exhausted fund added 294,000 acres to the lands already managed by the state of New

York (Strandling 146-147). Voters were much more willing to contribute their tax dollars towards forestry preservation due to a post-World War I rise in the popularity of

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 outdoor camping, encouraged by the increased availability of military bivouac equipment and expanded accessibility to camping areas with the completion of new roads. “In 1929 nearly 130,000 people camped at state campsites in the Adirondacks alone…” (Strandling

151). Yet, driving to a campsite is often a form of exploring the edges of the wood, allowing visitors to know just enough to not want to be lost in them in the dark of night.

This common experience might have led to a felt identification of the forest with the dark style of expressionism.

As one aspect of this project seeks to examine American attitudes towards the environment and the progression of disconnectedness from nature, one approach to that examination arises from the work of Jim Sterba, who refers to the collective current

American condition as a “denatured life”. In the third section of Nature Wars, Sterba introduces as a given the idea that twenty-first century Americans are largely disconnected and insulated from the environment outside our doors and windows. Sterba points out that from the time of the first settlers until the manufacturing revolution of the

1880s, a period of almost three hundred years, Americans were deeply connected to and reliant on the landscape around them. Not only did manufacturing lead to affluence, it also led to the creation of modern conveniences which allowed Americans to spend less and less time outside (Sterba 187-189). To prove his point that Americans have transitioned from “doers to viewers” regarding their interaction with the environment,

Sterba relies mostly on stories that demonstrate conditions arising during the twentieth century. Merritt Ierley, on the other hand, never mentions a deteriorating environmental interaction, but this topic seems to underlie the entire theme of his book, The Comforts of

Home: The American House and the Evolution of Modern Convenience (1999). Using

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 three main documents as a starting point, Ierley examines the varying definitions of a modern home during three periods when major innovations lead to cultural shifts in home amenities. Representing 1926 was the January issue of House & Garden and the March issue of Popular Science Monthly, each of which ran articles inspired by the late 1925 exhibit of modern home furnishings at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. A post-World War I housing boom in the 1920s led to an increase in homes wired with electricity, with appliances designed to make life easier following soon after. Yet it is logical to surmise that as more chores were done inside, less time was spent outdoors, just as the appendix charts demonstrate that fewer plays were set outdoors. The electric vacuum meant less time outside beating rugs. Indoor water closets meant no trips outside to use the privy. And the first electric fans, followed eventually by air conditioning, meant that Americans could comfortably stay indoors in the summer and leave nature outside the window.

Even though this early part of the twentieth century seems to usher in the

American disconnection from the natural environment documented in chapter 5, it could yet be argued that, at this earlier time, there is still enough of a connection to give agency to the forest in the design for The Emperor Jones. Even though the design reflects expressionism, the trees still clearly represent trees, not metaphors for something else.

For example, the expressionistic rendering of the trees, including the unnatural thinness or the dark lighting used, helps to create an experience for Jones with the forest as a forest. The little formless fears, ghosts, and memories that overwhelm Jones inside the forest emerge in a place that the audience of the time would consider primitive. But by today’s standards, when research like that of Peter Wohllenben in The Hidden Life of

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Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate is starting to recognize the depth and breadth of the social life of trees, maybe the dark place that O’Neill experienced outside of Provincetown held whispers of life that we still do not understand.

Depression, Dust Bowl and New York – Of Mice and Men (1937)

Of Mice and Men, a three-act play told in six scenes, opened on Broadway in

November of 1937 and ran for 207 performances (Internet Broadway Database). Even though four of the six scenes are set indoors, the location for scenes 1 and 6 is by a river near farmland in California.33 In this way, Of Mice and Men is similar to The Girl of the

Golden West in that both plays bookend their stories with reminders of the natural environment. In the first scene, the audience is introduced to the two farm laborers who are the main characters of the play. George is a short man who is not related to Lennie but is devoted to caring for his friend. Lennie is an extremely large, unusually strong man who, though capable of difficult physical labor, suffers from some sort of unnamed mental deficiency. It is the combination of Lennie’s strength and his inability to control it which has caused them to lose several jobs, frustrating George even as the play is just beginning. One of the bonding forces between these itinerant farmers is a shared aspiration of having land of their own to farm, raise chickens, and fulfill the American dream. The middle part of the play takes place in the bunkhouse and barn of the ranch where the two friends work until Lennie, who does not know his own strength, kills the boss’s daughter-in-law. Returning to the riverbank for the last scene, George takes care of his simple friend Lennie one last time via a mercy killing. To make it clear to the

33 As of this writing photographs from scene one and scene six could be found at the Museum of the City of New York’s web page at - https://collections.mcny.org/CS.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=24UP1G1Q52PD

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 audience that this is an act of love, George brings Lennie back to this patch of uninhabited open space, asks him to look across the river, and to fantasize about all the things that they will have on their farm before George shoots Lennie in the head.

The general public likes to imagine that unbuilt, open spaces like these have long been virgin, untouched or uninhabited by humans. Unlike the forest in The Emperor

Jones, which falls within the traditional definition of wilderness, open spaces like the riverbed setting in Of Mice and Men occupy a gray area of feral land which most people do not normally consider wilderness. The stretch of land where George and Lennie choose to camp is left fallow because it is too close to the river and therefore simply unused by the farmers nearby.

Stylistically, both the novel and play Of Mice and Men are social realism, a genre dependent on identification with characters to create pathos. Oenslager, a second- generation follower of New Stagecraft, was challenged by a script which demanded realism in an outdoor setting, but also by his own commitment to use design to add to the mood and atmosphere of the play. Part of how Oenslager accomplished this was to combine two and three-dimensional landscapes, much like those from the previous chapter in which New Stagecraft techniques expressed meaning through metaphor.

Jerrold Allan Phillips argues that the designers in the early period of New Stagecraft in the late 1910s and 1920s (such as Throckmorton above) wanted a distinct departure from the realistic design practices of that era, yet by the time the next generation of New

Stagecraft designers began working on Broadway, this need to break away from what came before was not as pressing. Phillips argues that designs of the 1935 to 1949 period:

displayed many of the characteristics of the ‘new stagecraft,’ while displaying, as well, a significant change in the utilization of realistic and even facsimile realistic

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scenic elements. This change does not seem to have indicated a complete change in style however, but rather an evolution which permitted the use of realism and the ‘new stagecraft’ simultaneously…It remained of primary importance that the setting be able to reflect meanings from within the dramatic text, as well as enhancing the mood and atmosphere that was found in the text. (443-44)

Even though Phillips clearly states that the conclusions he drew for each period only apply to the designs he examines, and he chose to analyze Oenslager’s Born Yesterday, I would contend that the outdoor design for Of Mice and Men also fits within his argument.

Robert Edmond Jones originally published The Dramatic Imagination in 1941, and his first pieces of advice to young designers focused not on simplicity but rather atmosphere. Jones stated, “Every play—or rather, every performance of a play—is an occasion, and this occasion has its own characteristic quality, its own atmosphere, so to speak. It is the task of the stage designer to enhance and intensify this characteristic quality by every means in his power” (70). Oenslager created a wilderness setting using many of the same kinds of realistic scenic elements used in the two designs examined in chapter 2, such as the combination of a three-dimensional foreground that blended into a detailed two-dimensional backdrop. However, Phillips argues for designers in this period that “it remained of primary importance that the setting be able to reflect meanings from within the dramatic text, as well as enhancing the mood and atmosphere that was found in that text” (444). Similarly, in direct reference to Of Mice and Men, the statement “Literal as the settings must be, they must also look beneath the surface and contribute to the heartbeat of the drama” (Oenslager 78) clarifies that this blend of two-dimensional and three-dimensional realism, while simultaneously capturing the mood, is exactly what

Oenslager sought to achieve with his naturalistic yet expressive tree.

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The riverbank setting which opened and closed the play consisted of a water feature downstage and a gently rising platform, without much height or depth, that ended in a painted landscape backdrop. According to The Theatre of Donald Oenslager, the riverbank was “mounted on one rolling platform and was as carefully detailed as a natural habitat in the Museum of Natural History” (Oenslager 78). On stage left, Oenslager created a rather large bush or forest of reeds which not only hid the edge of the backdrop but also characters, as was dictated by the script. At center, painted on the backdrop, is the Salinas River “which, like their dreams, meanders away to the far horizon”

(Oenslager 78). The base of the giant sycamore tree sat stage right. One unusual thing with this setting was that the tree was partly three-dimensional and partly two- dimensional. Pictures show giant roots coming out of the ground and Lennie leaning against the base of the tree, so, clearly, these parts were rendered in three dimensions.

However, one of the two thick trunks which emerged from this base was mostly painted onto the backdrop. This two-trunk tree, I would argue, is symbolic of George and

Lennie. The tree has one base but splits into two large trunks at about Lennie’s shoulder height, which gives the impression that two nuts planted close together merged over time into one unit, much like George and Lennie, who knew each other since childhood. Yet, while one trunk grew straight and might have continued as three dimensional, the other which was clearly rendered in two dimensions on the backdrop, not only leans stage left away from the other tree, it also extends two long branches stage left like reaching arms.

To the audience who do not know the characters in the beginning, the leaning tree might be Lennie in the first scene. In this scene, George seems to be the straight-and-narrow character, but Lennie yearns for the farm and urges his friend to dream big. By the last

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 scene, the desire to be free of Lennie that George expressed at the beginning makes more sense, and the symbolism of the tree shifts to represent George reaching for freedom while leaning away from Lennie. Either way, the tree as the dominant design element in these scenes captures Oenslager’s description of the theme of the play, “the loneliness and craving for affection of migrant workers” (78). The two surviving photographs at the

Museum of the City of New York are black and white, but a clue to colors can be found elsewhere. A color rendering that Mrs. Oenslager donated to the Morgan Library and

Museum34 depicts the land and sky in shades of tan, the tree in tan with gray highlights and gray leaves, and the bush at stage left with washed out, grayish-aqua leaves. This seems to match what Oenslager wrote in the book he was working on before he died.

Oenslager describes the design as rendered “all in dusty tones of parched autumnal leaves” (78). The simplicity of the tree (most of the leaves or branches are implied to be above the frame of the proscenium) and the metaphor that can be read into the shape of the tree do make this design relate directly to the themes of the play, as well as staying true to the characteristics of New Stagecraft. Yet even though a metaphor can be read into how the tree is depicted, it is still very much a naturalistic tree. Oenslager, in trying to stay true to the social realism of the text gave agency to the natural environment through respectful representation. While realism is not a requirement for respectful representation, as was seen with The Emperor Jones and with other designs analyzed in chapter 5, what matters is that the metaphor does not take priority and does not make the tree into a sign with no referent in nature.

34 As of this writing, an image of this rendering can be found on the USITT web page at http://sightlines.usitt.org/archive/v49/n08/stories/MorganFeature.html 103

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About two months after Of Mice and Men opened, another play opened on

Broadway: the original production of Our Town, a play partly made famous for its supposed lack of a set. Both productions were still running in April 1938 when the essay

“Scenery or No Scenery” was published in Theatre Workshop. This essay was a text- based symposium in which well-known scenic designers, playwrights, actors and critics were asked to respond to a letter that Hallie Flanagan had recently sent out to directors, actors, designers and producers working on the Federal Theatre Project. In this letter,

Flanagan expresses why she feels “the necessity for elimination of much nineteenth century realistic scenery” (7). Most respondents argue for shades of gray, with the understanding that style in design should match style in the text or the performance, but

John W. Gassner flatly disagreed with the proposal to fully eliminate realistic scenery, using Oenslager’s design for Of Mice and Men as an example of the best use of these techniques. Gassner argues that realism in design in the 1930s was more suggestive and set a mood rather than aspiring to the photorealistic copies of actual places favored by

David Belasco. Social realism, arguably the genre of Of Mice and Men, does not require a realistic look in design but does require a realistic interpretation of society on which the text’s conflict is based. In this case, Oenslager’s design helped to achieve that in a decade where Americans were aware that the environment was impacted by the activities of humans. To have George and Lennie on an empty stage could make them into larger- than-life characters outside of space and time. The realistically rendered tree makes them appear part of the world in scene 1 and made small by the world in scene 6, but in both scenes, they are in the world. Oenslager might have slightly heightened and made specific choices about shape and scale of the natural world he presented, but that realistic

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 look connected the play to the economic and environmental issues with which the 1930s are still identified today.

Even though Of Mice and Men did not deal directly with many of the environmental issues of the 1930s, those issues seemed to linger in the background as the unspoken problems that inspired this work of social realism. Economic depression, which left many young men out of work, and the devastating drought in the central plains known as the Dust Bowl both hit in the same decade. Even though Of Mice and Men is set in northern California, the idea of the depression-plagued farmhand would naturally bring up images of the families who abandoned their farms, loaded into pickup trucks, and migrated to California desperate to make a living. At the time when Of Mice and

Men was produced on Broadway, John Steinbeck’s novel that actually focused on the

Dust Bowl, The Grapes of Wrath, was still two years away from publication, three years away from being released as a film and fifty-three years from being adapted for the stage.

For New Yorkers in the early 1930s, who had never felt grit between their teeth because they made the mistake of talking while outside on a windy day, and who had never seen the sky rain mud, magazine images of black haboobs35 rolling across the land and children in gas masks would seem like the stuff of B-movie science fiction. Yet by 1937, these images were well known. With the rise in popularity of national magazines, stories and images of struggling farmers and dust-covered plows were not uncommon, so New

Yorkers who could still afford to go to the theatre to see a play in 1937 would be well aware of the failure of the American dream in much of the country. The drought that

35 For those outside of Texas Tech University, a haboob is a rolling dust cloud that can blow in suddenly and blanket a town like Lubbock. From personal experience, the density of the dust in the sky can vary but while it is blowing through the air can be so thick with dust that the light turns rusty red.

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 devastated the central United States, hitting hardest in eastern Colorado, western Kansas, eastern New Mexico and the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas, had lasted roughly seven years by the time Of Mice and Men premiered on Broadway (Lookingbill 21-22).

California would also seem a world away for New York audiences, but the wilderness images which bookend Of Mice and Men looked similar to environments they could have found just a short drive away.

Much like in New England, farmland in upstate New York had become overworked and progressively abandoned by the beginning of the twentieth century, but many of the forests which began growing in New York were intentionally created thanks to the efforts of Franklin Roosevelt. At the end of the 1920s, Franklin Roosevelt was governor of New York. After the 1929 crash on Wall Street, Roosevelt “saw the nation’s many depression-era problems through a lens shaped by his experience in upstate New

York. Saving the country required saving the countryside” (Strandling 159). Franklin did not come to a conservation philosophy from the same perspective or background as his distant cousin, former President Theodore Roosevelt. The two had similar childhoods spent outdoors and a similar fascination with plants and wildlife, but young Franklin studied human interaction with the environment from a more intellectual perspective.

His own childhood home, an estate in Hyde Park, had been farmed for two hundred years, and he observed how trees could rejuvenate the land. For him the idea of planting a forest on unused land was not a romantic notion about increasing wild spaces but rather an ecological and economic one meant to rejuvenate the land while simultaneously producing a new crop to harvest. During his run for governor, improving the problems of rural areas was part of his platform, and as governor he began programs of buying idle

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 farmland to transform into new woods and forests. Simultaneously, Roosevelt created programs for unemployed young men to plant saplings, which inspired the Civilian

Conservation Corps (CCC) under his presidency. The programs started in New York under Roosevelt were both instrumental in his election to the presidency and a model for the national programs that he inspired (Stradling 157-164).

After the stock market crash, life changed for many New Yorkers, and far fewer could afford to go to the theatre. For many, basics like paying rent and buying food were difficult, if not impossible. When churches and charities could not provide enough help, people were encouraged to plant subsistence or thrift gardens wherever they could, which later made victory gardens during World War II an easily workable idea. The work crews created by Roosevelt during the depression years provided New York City with an opportunity both to expand the park system and to add recreational facilities to existing parks. New York State modeled the benefits of the conservation movement that in turn inspired much of the rest of the country (Stradling 163-171). Yet one of the things that

Oenslager’s image of California might have provided for depression-era New Yorkers was a reminder that green places still existed on the other coast. Brad D. Lookingbill argues that national magazines and local newspaper articles not only kept New Yorkers informed but also stoked fear that refugees of the Dust Bowl would need to be absorbed by coastal cities, which were already overcrowded and suffering from unemployment

(28-29).

In far different ways, Oenslager’s tree image supported Steinbeck’s text just as fully as Throckmorton’s design supported The Emperor Jones. Despite differing styles, each design was clearly readable as containing trees or woods, and both related to

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 environmental issues existing at the time; yet they also related to questions within theatre about the place of scenic design. One of Flanagan’s two arguments against realism in scenery is “movies have beaten realism at its own game,” and she argued that this leads to stage exteriors which always look faked. While this may be true on the surface, the photorealistic appearance of a Child’s Restaurant in Belasco’s The Governor’s Lady can be viewed as teaching an audience how to read more into an environment than a time and place. The movies were also teaching audiences to interpret visual signs in scenic design, rather than just the auditory ones from the text. In his response to Flanagan, Norris

Houghton cites an interview he conducted for a magazine in which Robert Edmond Jones told Houghton that he believed that the future of the American theatre might well be one without scenery. Jones felt that, thanks to the radio, “the American public was becoming more and more ear-minded and in proportion, less and less eye-minded” (17-18). History has proven true the precise opposite.

Many of the same designers working on Broadway before World War II continued to design after the war or came back after military service. The same blending of realism with metaphor continued, but it could also be argued that it was heightened, particularly in the work of Jo Mielziner, one of the most popular and prolific designers of the postwar period. The silent tanks at the war’s end became the roaring bulldozers initiating rapid change in the American landscape, accompanying a sense of chemical victory over the environment, both of which I posit were reflected in the way nature was depicted on stage.

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CHAPTER IV ENVIRNONMENTALISM OF THE BORDERLANDS AND MODERNISM IN DESIGN 1945-1970: SLEEPY HOLLOW, DEATH OF A SALESMAN AND A CLEARING IN THE WOODS

“Better Things for Better Living…Through Chemistry” - DuPont advertising slogan 1935-1982

The years 1945 and 1970 serve as bookends for a convergence of American social changes related to post-World War II (WWII) chemicals, tract housing and environmentalism. In her book Silent Spring (1962), Rachel Carson connects chemical weapons research during WWII with a significant uptick in the United States’ creation and implementation of synthetic chemicals as pesticides and herbicides, meant to control and tame the environment, directly after the war (16-17). Industrial growth in cities such as New York and exhaust from automobiles powered by leaded gasoline led to ever- intensifying air pollution. This in turn exacerbated suburban migration. Workers kept their jobs in the city while attempting to move their families away from the bad air and closer to an American dream that included owning pieces of nature. However, Long

Island, the home of some of the largest postwar suburban housing developments, later became ground zero in the 1950s and 1960s for both the spraying of DDT and contamination by industrial and synthetic chemicals, which were eventually found to be polluting the well water used in these homes. The popularity of Silent Spring inspired established national conservation groups to find common ground with smaller regional groups impacted by environmental damage in the fight for environmental justice, a significantly different cause than the conservation versus preservation issues of the past.

Connecting this variety of environmentally conscious groups created not just outcry

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 events like the first Earth Day (April 1970)36 but also helped to establish the federal

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970. Yet this only arose after more than two decades of growing American reliance on chemicals to tame the more-than-human world, a reliance that continues to this day. Meanwhile, in commercial Broadway theatres, post WWII modernism in design was being shaped by designers working to balance the abstraction techniques they learned from their New Stagecraft mentors with the realism given to them by playwrights. I argue that, from our current vantage point, the depictions of the more-than-human world during this period, while visually appropriate for the scripts they served and aesthetically groundbreaking, are some of the most problematic of the roughly one-hundred years covered by this dissertation. When viewed from a deep ecology perspective, the three sample designs reviewed below reflect, via their metaphoric representations, an escalating disconnect of Americans from the environment.

In each of the two previous chapters, I used both literary and visual canonical standing when selecting open space wilderness designs to profile, whereas in the current chapter, the major criterion for choosing scenic designs for analysis was receiving a Tony

Award nomination for excellence in scenic design a play partially set in open space. The limitation that case study plays were Tony-nominated or produced Tony-winning designs implies that they were considered scenographically forward-thinking or representative of the era by fellow professionals. Since the first awards were given in 1947, this criterion lines up well with the starting date of this chapter. Unlike previous chapters, I did not use

36 As will be reviewed in the next chapter, the naming of “Earth Day” is a bit misleading, since the first event took place over the course of a week in many locations.

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 the Burns Mantle Yearbook series37 and period magazines like Theatre Arts for play selection, but rather compiled a snapshot regarding trends in outdoor settings selected by playwrights.

During the twenty-five years reviewed in this chapter, the editors of the Yearbook of Best Plays considered 173 American plays exemplary. Of these, six contained a prominent open space setting,38 forty contained at least one scene set in an outdoor space modified by humans,39 and 128 were set predominantly indoors. During this period of

1945 to 1970, the percentage of American plays set in open space wilderness was 4%, which is only slightly higher than the period of the previous chapter at just 3%.

However, there was a noticeable increase during the 1945 to 1970 period of plays set in any outdoor space. This rose to 26% over the previous period at 18%. I would argue that these statistics were partially impacted by a brief period of popularity for plays at least partly set in backyards, as I discuss below with Death of a Salesman.

Appendix C40 was created based on images of scenic designs published in Theatre

Arts,41 which published strong visual content for much of its history. Since the photographs were often taken before the show was reviewed by New York City

37 Because appendix A was constructed using only the ten plays selected as “best plays” by the editors for publication in redacted form in the Burns Mantle Yearbook of Best Plays, and because I further reduced the list to only American plays, the resulting appendix A does not constitute an exhaustive search of all plays produced on Broadway in a given year. It should also be clarified that the Yearbooks contain a retrospective of the theatre season both in New York and throughout the United States, but this larger bank of information was not used. 38 The only one of these seven to be nominated for a Tony for scenic design was A Clearing in the Woods. The others were Home of the Brave, Brigadoon, In the Summer House, Kataki and Gideon. Sleepy Hollow was not selected by the Yearbook editors as a best play. 39 Death of a Salesman falls within this group. 40 This chapter does not include an assessment of appendix B because Theatre Magazine ceased publication in 1931. 41 This name will be used as a simplification for the publications Theatre Arts Magazine (1916-1924), Theatre Arts Monthly (1924-1939), and Theatre Arts (1939-1964)

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 newspaper critics, the selection of images used in Theatre Arts was not always based on the success of the production or the quality of the script. Instead, images most likely were selected for visual interest, which probably explains the inclusion of Sleepy Hollow, a production that closed after only twelve performances. This setting by Jo Mielziner, a popular and prolific designer who made a lasting impression in the field, was one of five scenic designs for which he won a Tony in 1949.42 Not only was all the scenography reviewed in this chapter Tony-nominated/winning, but the designs were also considered visually interesting enough to attract Theatre Arts editors and readers.

Modernist Metaphor – Sleepy Hollow (1948)

Much as the postwar migration to the suburbs provided men who had jobs in the city with a taste of life in the country, symbolized by a tiny piece of land they could call their own, the modernist stage philosophy of the postwar era was based on metaphor and small or incomplete pieces representing larger landscapes.

The dominant style in the American theatre from the late 1940s until about 1960 was a theatricalized realism compounded of acting which emphasized intense psychological truth and of visual elements which eliminated nonessentials but retained realistic outlines. It combined near- naturalism in performance with stylization in settings. This mode was popularized by the director Elia Kazan and the designer Jo Mielziner through such productions as A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) and Death of a Salesman (1949). As this approach gained wide acceptance in the 1950s, settings increasingly moved away from full-stage representation to a few pieces which suggested the whole. This trend has yet to be reversed. As its leading exponent, Mielziner remained the dominant designer throughout the 1950s. (Brockett Century of Innovation 573)

42 In the early years of the scenic design Tony, the awards were given for one’s body of work in a season rather than an individual production. The five plays/musical sets designed by Jo Mielziner, which were all winners for scenic design at the 1949 Tony Awards, are Sleepy Hollow, Summer and Smoke, Anne of the Thousand Days, Death of a Salesman and South Pacific. Arguably, South Pacific might have qualified for analysis in this chapter, but since the design featured dwellings and other signs of civilization on the military base in almost every scene, this design was rejected in favor of Sleepy Hollow, which featured several scenes set in overgrown forested locations without structures.

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While designers still owed a great deal to their New Stagecraft mentors, and followed most of the tenets laid out in their revolution against pictorialism, modernist stagecraft in the postwar era found a middle road where facsimile realism was not completely rejected.

The popular designs of the postwar modernists usually contained unifying visual logic that added meaning through slight forms of abstraction easily understood by the audience, designs that still influence Broadway aesthetics today (Brockett Making the

Scene 317). This blending of the pictorial with the symbolic can be seen in Jo

Mielziner’s Sleepy Hollow, where the style used to render the more-than-human changes from scene to scene in order to create visual metaphors reflecting the changing emotions of the characters.

If the scenery of Sleepy Hollow in 1948 had not been designed by Jo Mielziner, the play might have been utterly forgotten. This reimagining of Washington Irving’s short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, set in a village near the Tappan Zee section of the Hudson River in New York, unsuccessfully changes the gothic tale into a musical comedy. Mielziner’s biographer, Mary C. Henderson, makes a single-paragraph mention of the production in Mielziner: Master of Modern Stage Design, blaming the work’s failure on the fact that the show was rushed into production (166). Howard Barnes’ review in the New York Herald Tribune states that Mielziners’ setting and lighting were part of the “sheer splendor” of a “more sleepy than stimulating” production (20). In his review, Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times states his dissatisfaction with both the book and the staging, stating that Jo Mielziner had crowded the stage with scenery, leaving little room for dancing (26). Ultimately, the reasons why the show failed are lost to history, but some factors might also have included the attempt to do a traditionally

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 horror-based story that many people associate with Halloween as a musical comedy in

June.

The following is a breakdown of scenic locations for the unpublished Sleepy

Hollow as written by Russell Maloney and Miriam Battista.43

AI, S1 – crossroads near town AI, S2 – graveyard AI, S3 – schoolhouse and clearing outside 44* AI, S4 – lovers’ lane, tree-shaded path beside the mill-pond, evening AI, S5 – farmhouse kitchen AI, S6 – evening outside the church on a hill*

AII, S1 – barnyard (barn and house visible) AII, S2 – banks of the Hudson, by an old oak tree, sundown AII, S3 – bedroom in Eva’s house AII, S4 – living room/dining room AII, S5 – haunted road, near cemetery, night* AII, S6 – same, but at dawn 45

Since Mielziner served as both the scenic and lighting designer for this musical, some of the renderings he made were depictions of lighting effects he intended to use within a scene. One example, held by the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, is a drawing for act 2, scene 5 when the Headless Horseman appears to Ichabod Crane in a dream. This rendering depicts how Mielziner intended to create the Horseman as a lighting transparency effect on a scrim.

The action of the play takes place in a small village along the Hudson River during the autumn of 1795. In Irving’s original short story, “The Legend of Sleepy

43 This is provided here because this is one of the few plays for which a similar breakdown is not provided in appendix A. 44 The scenes with an * are those assumed to be associated with scenery sketches made by Jo Mielziner are held by the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Because the notations on the sketches do not clarify the act or scene, best guesses were made based on available information, as is noted in the analysis below. 45 Melziner published a black and white version of his rendering for this scene in his book Designing for the Theatre.

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Hollow,” protagonist Ichabod Crane is a poorly paid transient schoolteacher who relies on room and board provided by various parents of his students. The musical version has many of the traditional characters, but unlike the original, where Ichabod covets marriage to only child Katrina Van Tassel in the hope that he will thereby gain ownership of the family’s prosperous farm, this iteration of Ichabod is not all that interested in Katrina.

Instead, he simply wants to journey west as a pioneer, but is tricked into staying to be a schoolteacher, becoming unwittingly involved in a love triangle. After several attempts to disentangle himself from the residents of the town and his teaching commitment,

Ichabod goes to a party, drinks too much, and, while walking home, has a dream encounter with the Headless Horseman. The sleepy and confused Ichabod is found passed out in the woods the next morning by Katrina’s younger brother, a character who did not exist in the original story. Jacob gives Ichabod some money and agrees to tell the townspeople the traditional disappearance story involving an encounter with the

Horseman, freeing Ichabod to follow his dream of starting his own farm out west.

Sleepy Hollow was neither Jo Mielziner’s first encounter with depicting nature onstage, nor his last. For Sleepy Hollow, Mielziner used mostly painted backdrops to depict trees, vines and other growing things, while a year later for Death of a Salesman, as discussed below, the yard and the trees were created solely with light. Although

Mielziner claims that he knew since seeing Belasco’s Child’s Restaurant in The

Governor’s Lady as a young boy that precise mimicry was not fitting to the illusion that theatre should create (Designing for the Theatre 20), he also admits to his own misstep in the use of literalism. Similar to Sleepy Hollow, the play Solitaire (1942) by John Van

Druten had a short run of only twenty-three performances. The setting for this play

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 alternated between two locations, the exterior of a home in California and an overgrown arroyo nearby. In his book Designing for the Theatre: A Memoir and a Portfolio,

Mielziner uses his own design for Solitaire as part of his argument against realism (what he called literalism) in stage design, as well as arguing against rented foliage. Mielziner states that the firms that make and rent artificial greenery for the theatre use the same molds over and over so that “Each leaf is the same size, the same texture, the same color, as every other leaf” (20). Since this produced a painfully obvious counterfeit, Mielziner brought in actual tree roots that his property man dug up for him, and he painted the rented, plastic leaves in a variety of colors. Later, Mielziner felt the gods of theatre punished him for his design by giving him poison oak, claiming “I learned once again that when the theatre simulates nature, it succeeds; when it copies nature, it fails” (20).

So, having acquired this lesson, Mielziner states, “When I designed an exterior set like the verdant graveyard for Sleepy Hollow, I depended not on fake leaves but solely on the light and shadow that can come out of a sympathetic paint brush” (151). Mielziner decided to simulate nature through slight abstraction in two dimensions rather than copy non-human life in three dimensions. I contend that, in addition to this, Mielziner also chose to design his painting trees and other foliage to visually mirror the emotions of the characters in each scene. Mielziner’s flora was not only tamed and controlled like the chemically sprayed plants belonging to homeowners and farmers of his era, but the life of

Mielziner’s painted stage forest was also subjugated to simply serve as a metaphor.

While using metaphor in this way was exactly the kind of practice advocated by the second generation of New Stagecraft designers, it is highly problematic from a deep ecology perspective.

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As reviewed in chapter 1, while clarifying the qualities of postmodernism, Arnold

Aronson explained two qualities of modernist design: a universalized/universalizing metaphor, and simplicity/suggestion/abstraction. As part of the second generation of modernist designers, Jo Mielziner, Donald Oenslager, Mordecai Gorelik, and their contemporaries focused less on economy and simplicity than their New Stagecraft predecessors. Instead, in the postwar years, the predominant style change was to balance the mimetic with metaphor and abstraction when designing sets in support of scripts that were largely based in realism (Larson Scene Design… 149-150). Mielziner wrote about designing with the feelings and impressions left over from research and ending up with subtleties that an audience would probably never recognize (Designing… 21). Gorelik articulated his design approach through the word “metaphor.” In his 1961 essay

“Metaphorically Speaking”, Gorelik argues that a setting should not only create the geography and a functional space for acting but must also be poetically correct for the play. The metaphor that Gorelik would strive to execute visually would help Gorelik create a mood with lighting or scenery pieces that might only be subtly or subliminally perceptible to the audience. In fact, Gorelik argues that the metaphor should never be obvious, saying that such crude expressionism belongs in the past (“Metaphorically

Speaking” 100). To deal with audience expectations created by film, and later by television, Broadway sets became larger and often contained multiple locales at once, allowing for scene shifts via lighting rather than time-consuming movements by stagehands (Larson Scene Design… 150). Another trend was a return to the painted backdrop, rather than reliance on the blue-sky cyclorama. While the painted backdrop had never gone out of fashion with musicals, it was now used with far more frequency for

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 legitimate drama than it had been before the war (Oenslager’s design for Of Mice and

Men, reviewed in chapter 3, being a notable exception here) because it “allowed designers uninhibited freedom of imagination”, enabling the use of a wider variety of styles and techniques (Larson Scene Design… 151). However, for Mielziner’s Sleepy

Hollow, it also allowed for radical changes in the look of the environments, since each scene could be given its own backdrop.

Rather than maintaining a consistent environment, Mielziner used at least three differing styles to render the visual representations of trees, reflecting three distinctive character moods in Sleepy Hollow. The first of the available drawings was for act 1, scene 3. At first glance, the rendering looks as if it might have been for act 2, scene 1, since both a barn and another building are visible, but Mielziner labels the sketch as

“school scene”. In this depiction, there were six black trees drawn between two buildings made of stone and wood, which were rendered in blue, gray and rose tones, as well a handful of black trees in each of the far edges of the drop. All the black trees in this sketch match the style of another Mielziner rendering of black trees, labeled as a cutout but without a scene label. The thin trunks of all Mielziner’s black trees from these two renderings seem to stretch unnaturally high for their thin width, making them reminiscent of some of Throckmorton’s expressionistic trees for The Emperor Jones. The few branches that sprout from the trunks go downward, then back up again in sharp, angular ways usually associated with expressionism. The trees between the buildings have no leaves at all, but the ones off to the edges of that rendering and those in the cutout have fronds that look similar to palm fronds, which might also be read as looking like pine.

The most prominent foliage is at the center of the cutout, where each branch ends with

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 little tufts of spikes that create the impression of a pincushion. To accentuate the sharpness, these trees also have broken remnants of limbs or budding limbs that suggest thorns on a rosebush. In the scene using this setting, Katrina rejects her suitor Brom, saying that morning is no time for romance when, in reality, she is mostly bored with him. After they exit, Ichabod cuts a switch from a bush in anticipation of heading into the classroom. He hates being a disciplinarian, which is one of the main reasons he has given up teaching, preferring to head out west. Attempting to demonstrate how domineering he will be as their teacher, Ichabod causes one girl to cry at the sight of the switch. Ichabod responds by breaking the stick, revealing that everything he had said to the class represents a persona that he felt he had to adopt as a schoolmaster. After the students frustrate him into dismissing them early, Katrina returns and admits while singing with Ichabod that she wants to be swept off her feet. As these two main characters express their dissatisfaction with their present circumstances, Mielziner’s silhouettes of trees described above support their feelings of frustration and discontent in their angular, nearly lifeless form. Katrina feels hemmed in by expectations that she must give herself into marriage as part of a financial arrangement, so she, like Ichabod, is stuck on the thorns of responsibility that the trees represent. These shapes that give the appearance of trees do not express a fear of the environment as did Throckmorton’s trees for The Emperor Jones, since the discontentment of the characters is not related to their surroundings. In other words, they are not trees distorted in shape to accentuate a fear of the environment, which would heighten the audience’s awareness of the many emotions that direct interaction with a dense forest can cause, nor is the shape of the tree simultaneously symbolic while also giving flora agency as a living thing, as with

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Oenslager’s tree for Of Mice and Men. Instead, Mielziner’s depiction of the more-than- human environment for this scene only signifies trees as a secondary function. Instead, metaphor took primacy over representation, so that the trees primarily functioned as a visual depiction of the mood and feelings of the major characters in this scene. In her analysis of the play The Kentucky Cycle, Theresa J. May notes that while reading a tree as a metaphor for life is common in traditional literary criticism, “a deep ecology perspective would re-literalize the oak: it is a tree, another living being” (172). While abstract visual depictions are not problematic simply on account of being abstract, a deep ecology perspective would find them problematic when the life of the trees is negated for the sake of metaphor. As seen from our current vantage point, Mielziner tamed the environment as completely in the theatre as science of the time sought to do in yards and on farms through the use of chemicals.

The second depiction style for flora in this musical was used in act 1, scene 6, where both the trunks and the foliage of the trees were rendered in highly colorful shades of mustard, rust, tan, and three tones of green. Mielziner’s sketch labeled “church scene” does not depict a church but does contain gravestones in and among fully grown trees, implying that the forest has reclaimed the area. It is in this setting where Ichabod is first introduced to the story of the Headless Horseman. Brom and his friends attempt to make

Ichabod look weak and afraid by teasing him about the Horseman in front of Katrina.

The boys are clearly unafraid of an old legend, but it does provoke trepidation in Ichabod.

While some trees in the rendering seem to have vines snaking up the trunks, which could generate an ominous or spooky mood, a light-hearted atmosphere is maintained in the design for this scene due to the brightness of the overall coloring. Foliage that is multi-

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 colored and shaped more like petaled flowers than leaves amplifies this light-hearted tone. Mixed in are other shapes that seem to imply pine tree branches, tying this design to the earlier scene. For this setting, however, branches are rendered as thick and green.

The overall look of these painted pine branches implies curved, frayed feathers, rather than the pincushion look of the earlier design. Here, the angular qualities of the branches are minimized. Even though this scene takes place near a graveyard (as many scenes do in this play), this one is clearly overgrown, and the few gravestones are dwarfed by the

Disney-esque, densely packed second-growth forest depicted. Once again, however,

Mielziner’s seems to have prized symbolism over representation. With the variety of autumn colors and curved shapes, this design is a radical change from the angular black trees. This scene is more intentionally comedic than the earlier scene, so I argue that the design of these trees serves to encourage Brom’s opinion that Ichabod is less than manly.

Off to the side on the same sketch is a drawing of what seems to be Ichabod, based on the thin frame of the character and the formal looking attire. While the sketch might have been made for ease of scale when communicating with the director, it might also demonstrate the colors that costume designer David Ffolkes planned to use. If so, the brown of the suit is a visual companion to the colors of the environment, which adds to the implication that the cartoonish rendering is connected metaphorically with Ichabod.

When compared with the earlier design, the non-human life depicted does not create a consistent sense of place, a consistent interpretation of nature, or even a consistent interpretation of a human relationship with the non-human; rather, it serves to accentuate the audience’s perception of Ichabod as silly. The shapes of the implied trees in this

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 rendering represent a cross between the feelings of Ichabod and those of the boys taunting him, rather than to give any agency to the environment.

The final two drop sketches for review illustrate the last two scenes of the play, one at night and the other the following morning in the same location. The trees, drawn on backdrops for the last two scenes, maintain some consistency with those in the scenes reviewed above, but Mielziner has stripped away many of the more stylized elements from each. Unfortunately, Mielziner’s published version for the final, morning scene is in black and white, so colors are unknown. The night scene, drawn in mostly gray, tan, and white, makes clear use of moonlight to highlight the shapes of the trees and lend an eerie glow to the outlines of the gravestones. The daylight version has beams of lightly shaded areas, implying light beams falling diagonally through the trees, while the nighttime version has horizontal whisps of white to imply fog. The shapes of these trees, with thick trunks tapering to thinner branches, are more naturalistic than the earlier wispy, black trees. While the shapes are naturalistic, the style is reminiscent of Japanese landscape art, where colors are minimal, and the focus remains on outlines and shading.

The feather-like leaf patterns used in the graveyard at the end of act 1 were also seen on both versions of the trees rendered at the end of act 2, but they are more noticeable in the daylight design, leaving me to wonder if similar colors were used in act 2. This final scene in the morning makes light of Ichabod’s encounter with the Headless Horseman, returning to the levity of the rest of the script. On the other hand, in the design for the night version, many of the trees end in cloud formation-style leaf clusters, with highlights and shadows giving them a softer, even less angular look than the curved feather-style leaf patterns. This is appropriate, since low-light situations tend to leave large shapes

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 visible while fine details blur. In these last two scenes, the shapes of the trees are identical, but the design for scene 5 at night is arguably the only time where the trees are simply trying to represent trees rather than the mood of the characters. Notably, this is the only scene in the play meant to be scary or to project the fear of a character. While the look is quite different, the objective of the design parallels Throckmorton’s objectives for

The Emperor Jones. Nature is stylized in both cases, but each designer attempted to capture and represent the nearly universal human fear of being lost in the woods at night.

The woods are simply the woods, without being a metaphor for something else. In this scene, Ichabod Crane drunkenly stumbles into a wooded, overgrown graveyard, hears noises, and eventually sees the horseman. In the new light of the following day, he admits that it must have all been a dream, and the design of the leaves changes to project this happier mood.

Overall, the design for this show seems to blend the horror aspects we typically associate with a fog-filled encounter with the Headless Horseman in a forest outside of the village of Sleepy Hollow with the whimsical aspects of musical comedy that Maloney and Battista intended in their interpretation. As will be discussed below, by painting trees on the backdrop and avoiding the use of three-dimensional facsimiles of trees and leaves,

Mielziner’s design uses nature in an analogous way to Death of a Salesman, i.e., symbolically and as a creator of mood, but mostly without substance. Mielziner’s design relies on the literal shape and look of the woods only in the moments when he wishes to generate fear, while in the other scenes available for analysis, he distances his audience from the more-than-human world via the stylization of his designs.

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As Theresa J. May argues, “Always an immediate, communal and material encounter among embodied performer, audience and place, theatre is ecological even as it is representational. Ecocriticism, like feminism, post-colonial or multi-cultural theory, addresses injustices felt in the body—the body of experience, of community, of land”

(“Greening the Theatre” 86). The use of ecocriticism, much like the application of other ideological criticisms listed, has often been a project of examining historical, canonical dramatic literature to argue what we might now perceive to be environmentally problematic. Part of the project of this dissertation is to do the same with canonical scenic design by examining the eco-aesthetics of theatrical design. Therefore, the question to be raised regarding Mielziner’s design for Sleepy Hollow, as we look back on it from our current moment of environmental crisis, is whether or not seeing the more- than-human solely as a tool for metaphoric expression denatures nature. Mielziner’s scenic metaphor draws on a Judeo-Christian tradition of casting the non-human as servants of humans. If the environment is depicted within that tradition, which is to say only in relation to the emotions of the humans in the scene, the more-than-human is erased. While many of Mielziner’s designs were progressive three-quarters of a century ago, are his depictions of nature problematic now? In performance studies, there has been a great deal of reexamination of the performances of animals and anthropomorphizing animals via human performance. One salient example of such work is Animal Acts: Performing Species Today, a collection of essays edited by Una

Chaudhuri and Holly Hughes. But if place is also being embodied onstage, design studies should reexamine the use of trees as metaphors, just as many theatrical ecocritics have sought to reexamine how the text of plays discuss the environment. While I argue

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 that some designers creating stage settings after the birth of environmentalism found ways to use abstraction without taking agency away from the more-than-human (see chapter 5), this was not the case with the design for Sleepy Hollow, or any of the designs in this chapter.

The Coveted Backyard – Death of a Salesman (1949)

In the ten-year period between 1945 and 1954, more plays were set in backyards than in the preceding thirty years or the subsequent twenty years. Here, I am limiting what I mean by “backyards” to the lawn/grassy spaces near homes, not churches or other non-residential structures.

Number of American backyard-plays selected by Yearbook of Best Plays

1915-1924 = 1 1925-1934 = 2 1935-1944 = 4 1945-1954 = 846 1955-1964 = 2 1965-1974 = 1

This increase in use of backyard settings is concurrent with the postwar American suburban housing boom, a discovery that motivated me to add an analysis of Death of a

Salesman to this chapter. Even though this setting falls outside the original dissertation goal to analyze scenic depictions of open space wilderness, one of the other goals of this dissertation has been to relate scenic depictions to prevalent attitudes towards the non- human world in each period. If “nature” encompasses a spectrum of environments, with wilderness at one end and city parks and vacant lots on the other, then this term is fluid in

46 These eight plays include Arthur Miller’s All My Sons (1947), Moss Hart’s Christopher Blake (1947), Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (1948), Carson McCullers’ The Member of the Wedding (1950), Joshua Logan’s Wisteria Trees (1950), William Inge’s Picnic (1953), Louis Peterson’s Take a Giant Step (1954), and John T. Latouche’s The Golden Apple (1954).

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 how it may be defined (Nash Wilderness… 6). Environmental historians have pointed to the significant rise in suburban sprawl as a catalyst for the birth of environmentalism (as reviewed below), proffering another reason to examine how the landscape of the suburbs are treated visually onstage during this period. I have limited my analysis to the yard used in Death of a Salesman (1949), arguably the most canonical of the eight plays containing backyard settings in the postwar decade. More importantly, though, Jo

Mielziner’s design for this play is the only one of the eight to receive a Tony Award or nomination.

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller is a modern tragedy about an aging New

Yorker, who fails to achieve the American dream partly because he put too much stock in the value of an affable personality. While the play predominantly resides in realism, it borrows cinematic techniques of non-linear structure that were still relatively new in the

1940s to add an air of non-realism. The forward momentum of the play finds the lead character, Willy Loman, too tired to make his usual sales trip to New England, unable to convince his boss to make accommodations, and frustrated with his sons for their lack of success. The lighting in the original production, also designed by scenographer Jo

Mielziner, was one of the main indicators that the action was shifting into a flashback of past events or to internal spaces where Willy is visited by hallucinations of his dead brother. It is left to the audience to decide whether or not Willy has some form of mental slippage, but depictions of the past are used to forward the story, showing rather than telling the foundations for Willy’s troubles both at work and at home. In the end, the title is realized off-stage when Willy kills himself in a car crash, hoping to provide his family with a better future via his life insurance.

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The nonlinear cinematic structure was part of the construction of the play when Jo

Mielziner was first offered the job of designing. Mielziner states that it was his idea to make the house the centerpiece and simplistically render the other scenic environments on the apron (Designing… 26). After he shared his ideas with Miller and director Elia

Kazan, the three agreed that Mielziner’s solutions to the problems presented by the play would allow for a smooth flow without breaking for scene changes. They also agreed that

Miller had a great deal of rewriting to do to accommodate this change (Mielziner 24-26).

This design influence on the narrative might be why Brooks Atkinson’s New York Times review praised the way the “play, acting, directing and scene designing fused into a unit of expression” (X1). Most reviewers of the original production praised Miller and the actors, while offering only a passing mention of Mielziner’s work in scenic and lighting design. Arguably, this is due to the seamless blending which Atkinson noticed. One of the most poetic mentions of the design came from the Chicago Daily Tribune's Claudia

Cassidy, who said, “Jo Mielziner’s skeletal setting is etched in a soaring dusk, dappled with foliage when remembered summer comes” (A3).

As the play begins, Willy and his wife, Linda, are introduced, followed by their two adult sons who are speaking in an upstairs bedroom. Willy goes outside into the yard, whereupon the lighting changes and the first flashback occurs. The backyard flashback scene is set up by a conversation in the first scene when Willy and Linda discuss the trees that used to be on the neighboring property, and which have been replaced by the large apartment buildings now surrounding their home. Set on the apron of the theatre in the original production, Willy’s nostalgic memory of his tree-filled yard was created by lighting projections of green and yellow leaves. The remembered trees are implied to be

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 old and well-established, thanks to the lighting blanketing the set, indicating the trees were quite large. Neither the age of the home or the date the Lomans moved into it are clarified in the play, but if the play is set in 1949 and the family lived there during the boys’ teenage years, the house clearly predates the postwar housing boom, but for those in the audience it still stands as a timeless reminder of the freestanding house as the center of the American dream.

Suburban living was not a new concept in postwar America, but the number of homes in this borderland between the urban and the rural increased radically. Kenneth T.

Jackson’s comprehensive suburban history, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States, argues that large cities in North America, such as New York, had suburbs well before the Revolutionary War (13). However, the concept of living on the fringes and commuting into the city for work was born in the early 1800s thanks to trains and trollies. The suburbs continued to expand in the early 1900s when cars and highways made commuting easier (Jackson 231-245). In these pre-WWII years, backyards were generally locations for outhouses or gardens to provide food in times of scarcity

(Steinberg 12). The post-WWII spike in suburban housing and the use of the backyard as an extension of living space can be traced back to a construction company run by

Abraham Levitt and his two sons. During WWII, the Levitt and Sons construction company experimented with mass production techniques when they were awarded large contracts to erect multiple buildings on domestic military bases. Starting in 1947, Levitt and Sons transitioned from building a handful of high-end homes to mass production of lower-middle- and working-class housing. The new company strategy was to buy construction supplies in bulk, pour multiple concrete slabs to avoid the costly and time-

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 consuming process of digging basements, and then move specialized workers from one building to the next in an assembly line process that allowed for the simultaneous construction of hundreds of affordable homes. The result was a community called

Levittown in Long Island, N.Y. where the first 10,600 cookie cutter homes were erected in only three years47 (Rome 15-16). One of the many reasons why owning a home outside Manhattan in the postwar era became more and more desirable was unregulated urban industrialization and car exhaust. Even as early as the late 1940s, organizations had formed to campaign against the soot in the air from these pollutants, as well as from the burning of both coal and plastic (Stradling 181-182). Although the Long Island community was only the first of several built by Levitt and Sons, it became the model for builders nationally who could afford to buy land and create whole developments. The previous norm had been to build only one or two houses at a time. Unfortunately, because public transportation was not part of the planning for the most of these projects, home buyers became completely dependent on the private automobile, commuting not only to work, but also to get groceries, go to schools, etc. What was part of the Levitt and Sons planning, however, was that each house would have continuous curb appeal with a mostly ornamental yard.

At the time the first incarnation of Willy Loman stepped into his memory of a lost backyard, the Levittown developments were just beginning to influence American attitudes towards yards. Traditional housing construction was based on pedestrian travel with stores close by at the end of short blocks, but in these postwar developments, nearly all vendors were moved to the end of several long blocks or several miles away (Jakle

47 By 1951, this community had grown to 17,544 homes (Steinberg 18-19).

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303). Because of the spacing of the homes and the necessity to travel by car to acquire basic goods, social discourse between neighbors and casual acquaintances, commonly exchanged from the front steps of urban row houses or the front porches common in older suburban homes with a shallow front yard space, did not take place in these developments. Nor was there any functionality to the new, deeper front yard, with the possible exception of harvesting from one of the fruit trees planted on each property by the Levitts. The outdoor social area of the home shifted to the backyard, which provided a large turf-carpeted meeting hall for private gatherings of invited guests. The well- manicured front yard was then largely a symbol of what Abe Levitt called “good neighbors, as desirable citizens” (Steinberg 26).

The apartment buildings painted on the backdrop of Mielziner’s original design for Salesman could hardly have been desirable neighbors, and the expressionistic way in which they were rendered heightens this. It is no wonder that Willy would idealize the yard he once had and the neighboring open space. Given that it is one of the great works of American theatre, many analytical articles have been written focusing on the themes and ideologies confronted in Death of a Salesman, but two essays which concentrate on the yard and the design are the ecocritical analyses by Theresa J. May and the design analysis by Arnold Aronson. May argues in “The Ecology of Willy Loman” that even before ecology was a term in common use, Miller wrote a play rooted in a postwar environmental crisis. “[That] there is neither light nor nutrients to grow vegetables in the

Lomans’ yard is not merely a metaphor for Willy’s personal impotence; it is a signifier of a national ecological culture increasingly dependent on synthetic, often toxic chemicals”

(May “Ecology” 67). May argues in this essay, as well as in “Greening the Theatre:

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Taking Ecocriticism from Page to Stage”, that “Willy did not leave home. It left him”

(90). Part of this is communicated via scenic design. “Scenic designer Joe [sic]

Mielziner amplified the oscillation between the landscape of substance and home and that of loss and exile through a scenic scrim that could transport the audience’s imagination with Willy’s back and forth from past to present to past” (May “Greening…” 91).

However, this is the extent of her examination of the design. Unlike the published version of the play, the early version that Mielziner first read described the house by saying, “It had once been surrounded by open country, but it was now hemmed in with apartment houses. Trees that used to shade the house against the open sky and hot summer sun now were for the most part dead or dying” (Mielziner 25). Mielziner describes working closely with his lighting mentor Edward Kook, owner of Century

Lighting Company, to create the look of both environments and to craft the smooth transition between them in just seconds. The present circumstances of the Loman home were created with a painted theatrical backdrop on lightweight muslin, also known as scrim in the theatre. Because this material is so thin, when Mielziner’s backdrop was lit from behind, the windows of the tenement buildings would glow and seem to loom over the house while blocking out the sun. For the multiple transitions to the past, Mielziner and Kook flooded the stage with projections of leaves and green trees with such saturation that, when they hit the stage, they effectively superimposed the past in a way that obliterated the present both literally and symbolically (Mielziner 35 and 145).

However, since Mielziner used patterns of light all over the stage, his design implies that even Willy’s nostalgic memory of his own yard was half shaded by trees rather than direct sunlight. The carrots and lettuce that Willy wants to plant later in the play would

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 do fine in a half-shaded lawn, but since beets prefer full sun, growing them might have been problematic if his yard really did once look the way Mielziner depicted it (Miller

119).

The main argument of Arnold Aronson’s essay “The Symbolist Scenography of

Arthur Miller” is that while Miller’s characters and their actions are very grounded in realism, the worlds the playwright created for those characters to live in are theatrical and should be scenographically executed via symbolism. Aronson argues that Mielziner’s design realized the symbolism in Miller’s writing in a very theatrical way, contra

Mordecai Gorelik’s more literal metaphor in the backyard for another Arthur Miller play,

All My Sons. Gorelik created a very realistically rendered, shallow backyard, along with the back porch and façade of the home of the main characters. Gorelik’s symbolism was subtly executed with a slight mound in the yard to imply a grave for the dead son whose memory haunts all the characters. Mielziner went much further by wrapping scrim around the house so that he could oscillate between the realism and Willy’s idealized memories of the past with lighting. Willy Loman’s beautiful memory of the nature that once existed in his backyard is a nostalgic glorification via unreliable memory. Yet, this

“perfect yard” that Loman dreams of is similar to the one created by the marketing department of the Scotts Lawn Care Company at the time of the play’s production

(Steinberg 39-42). Over the course of the twenty-five-year span covered in this chapter, the American dream of owning one’s own piece of nature turned into a labor-intensive, highly commercialized nuisance, but in 1949 home ownership with a piece of land was a dream becoming reality for many. Because the flora in the original design for Death of a

Salesman was created in a completely ephemeral way via light, it gave the desired

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 impression of idealized memory and according to Aronson implied that “…the real landscape was the one inside a character’s—and by implication, the spectator’s—mind”

(80). While this seems fully appropriate dramaturgically, when examined via ecocriticism and in relation to the attitudes towards the more-than-human world in the postwar years, it can be argued that this design was one of a myriad of factors heightening the distancing of Americans from the non-human.

While tracking a disconnect between humans and the environment can be a difficult process, in an article for Perspectives on Psychological Science, researchers

Selin Kesebeir and Pelin Kesebeir documented the use of English language nature-related terms in popular culture. After creating a large bank of searchable nature-related terms, the pair explored the use of these terms in literary fiction, song lyrics, and films, noticing a steady and consistent decrease in these terms from 1950 to 2000. While this cannot be taken as definitive, they argue that this can be used as one metric supporting a cultural disconnect from nature in the English-speaking world beginning in the 1950s. In

Mielziner’s design, the non-human becomes a distant metaphor for Willy’s own idyllic wishes, rather than anything with its own intrinsic value. The home of the past was a home in the exurbs before the city reached out and expanded around him, taking away an ecosystem he felt he had a right to control, even if he did not have legal ownership of the land next door.

One of the main conclusions of the report by Stephen R. Kellert et. al., “The

Nature of Americans: Disconnection and Recommendations for Reconnection”

(discussed in greater detail in chapters 1 and 5) is that, in the twenty-first century, many

American adults express an interest in nature but feel unable to pursue their interests

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 because they tend to perceive nature as something distant and far removed from civilization (3-4). While one theatrical design in New York City, like that of Mielziner’s set for Death of a Salesman, would not be the cause of such a widespread American attitude, I argue that it can be read as a cultural text and indication of the beginnings of what Kellert et. al. found to be a problematic ailment. Mielziner’s trees, leaves and grasses made out of light were a simulation where no referent exists, and because of this the design erases the non-human, relegating its only value to the metaphors it provides for humans. Rather than trying to recapture living things through inanimate and lifeless stage objects, a yard made of light neutralizes these design problems while also allowing the gaps in the stage picture to be filled in via the audience’s imagination. The resulting idealized yard is far distant from the one to which the audience will go home, since it never needs to be mowed, never needs chemical fertilizer, and contains no bugs. To erase the yard that Willy is left with after the apartments are built implies that only wilderness and faraway places contain nature. Through simplification and abstraction, neither the ecosystem that might have once existed around Willy’s house nor the yard that still exists are given intrinsic value in Mielziner’s design. However, it was those

Americans who rejected postwar distancing and embraced the nature in their own backyards who began the environmental movement in the 1960s.

Nature and Home – A Clearing in the Woods (1957)

Unlike Sleepy Hollow and Death of a Salesman, A Clearing in the Woods by

Arthur Laurents takes place in one location, making it logical that the original design was a unit set. The main playing space, as realized by Oliver Smith, was a grassy yard with

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 two large tree stumps48 behind a summer cottage surrounded by woods.49 In act 1, the cottage itself was not seen; only the porch, with a gazebo above, jutting out from upstage right, was visible, seeming like a dock. Smith created a grass-covered platform upstage center and upstage left with a slight rake and sharp ninety-degree edge, giving the impression that the ground has been carved by human hands. Stage dressings of vines on the gazebo posts and a swing hanging upstage left are easily dwarfed in comparison to the dominant feature of this set, the forest background. For act 2, the edge of the cottage was pushed onto the stage, only remaining for the first ten minutes or so before it receded. This, as well as several unmotivated lighting changes, helped to highlight the non-realism of the play, even though the environment on which it was staged looked largely realistic.

In a preface created for the Random House version of the script, Laurents chooses not to name a genre for the play, but his stated objective is “the urge to soar above the confines of naturalistic theatre” while examining the idea that loneliness comes from not accepting oneself as an imperfect human being (vii). The Dramatist Play Service online description of the play calls it a fantasy, but I would consider it a form of surrealism or even theatrical cubism based on the way the characters are drawn. In the first act of the play, the main character, Virginia, wanders onstage to a place that seems vaguely familiar, and over the course of this act meets most of the other characters, including three girls of various ages. While Virginia does not recognize them, each is a younger

48 In this regard, images published in the Random House version of the script and in Orville Larson’s Scene Design in the American Theatre from 1915 to 1960 (156) contradict Smith’s rendering (link below) which depicted one stump and one chair. 49 Oliver Smith’s rendering for this production sold online in 2012, but as of this writing an image could be found at - https://www.liveauctioneers.com/en-gb/item/11577517_488-oliver-smith-a-clearing-in-the-woods-set-design

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 version of herself. This fractured Virginia does not recognize Jigee, as she was called at ten; Nora, the name she gave herself at seventeen, based on Ibsen’s character from A

Doll’s House; or her twenty-seven-year-old incarnation, Ginna. The girls, who are onstage before Virginia arrives but scatter into the trees when they hear her coming, each know Virginia, as well as the men she loved at each of their ages—her father, her boyfriends, her ex-husband. Virginia, on the other hand, is a blank slate, as if her memories have all gone into the other incarnations of herself until she needs to remember something to further her own journey of self-discovery. She becomes irritated with the girls, tries to banish them, and only realizes who they are at the end of the first act, long after the audience is expected to have figured it out. It could be argued that this act is one long exposition, meant to help the audience grasp the style of the play, because not much happens other than introducing characters and clarifying how each version of Virginia feels about them. In the second act, Virginia sends each of the girls to find the person who liked her best. As a group, they confront the men from act 1, as well as Andy,

Virginia’s current fiancé, who first appears in this act. Andy introduces the idea that it is

Virginia’s need for perfection, from both herself and others, that is the source of her unhappiness, and the rest of the act focuses on her and her alters processing relationships in that light. Laurents’ title is meant to be a play on words for the audience to discover, with a set constructed as a misdirection to a surface level interpretation of the title. In the second act, it becomes quite clear that the clearing does not refer to a place or setting, but rather to a clearing that happens within the mind of the main character. Of all settings covered in this dissertation, this one, thanks in part to the non-realism of the text, is the most placeless, even though it relies heavily on many of the traditional signifiers of

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 location used in realistic scenic design. Over time, however, the audience is asked to realize that the scenic depictions of a forest which they see on stage do not signify a collection of trees, but merely metaphors of memories that need to be cleared away.

In her monograph Staging Place: The Geography of Modern Drama, Una

Chaudhuri establishes a new method to analyze drama based on place and space. She then examines the discourse of home and the twin problems of “a victimage of location and a heroism of departure” (xii) found in various Western plays. Her selection of plays for study was not based on country of origin or genre, but instead depends on place-as- subject as the basis for examining how both modern realistic and non-realistic plays wrestled with what home means to the characters. Chaudhuri clarifies that genre is not relevant to an examination of space and/or place, saying:

Expressionism, epic theatre, absurdist theatre: all these movements have tinkered with but not essentially altered either realism’s geopathology or its logic of total visibility. The dramatic texts they have produced depict character in what I would call ecological transit, utterly and irremediably at odds with their environments. While a variety of attitudes have been developed toward this condition, from Beckett’s dark pessimism to Brecht’s buoyant optimism, its terms remain those of a politics of home and a poetics of exile. (81-82)

Yet unlike the plays that Chaudhuri examined, A Clearing in the Woods does not take place at anyone’s home. While the outdoor space where the play is set is ambiguous regarding ownership, the stage directions clearly describe the briefly seen building as a summer cottage, meaning that, much like my own cabin described at the beginning of this dissertation, it could be on government land, it could be a rental property, or simply not usable year-round. Thus, it is not a residence or anyone’s home. Virginia gives a clue to the ambiguity of location with the first lines she says to herself after wandering onto the empty stage. She claims that she is “back, back where I always ran to catch my

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 breath…Am I Back? Where am I?” (3-4). Later she twice clarifies that where she lives is “in town” (15 and 27), and her father adds to that, saying, “After your divorce, you moved out and you haven’t spent one night here since” (27). It is not surprising that the first character Virginia recognizes is her father, but nothing is ever clarified about his ownership of or habitation at the summer cottage. At the very end of the act, Virginia begins to recognize the girls, declaring, “You have no right to be here. I live here. This is my home” (93) and they each mimic her with “I live here” (94). Before any of this occurs, however, the stage directions read, “A hollow, reverberating sound begins; like an oscillating heartbeat. Faint at first, louder and louder until the curtain. Slowly, Virginia backs away from Nora. The clearing is quite dark now. She is in a pool of light, the three girls in a half-shadowed semicircle around her” (93). Lighting has been used to remove her from the scenery. The place that Virginia claims with the word here is internal, in relation to herself, her body or her mind, not an external environment. Yet, according to Laurents, “The play does not have flashbacks; it is not a dream or a nightmare or a hallucination; it does not take place in the mind of a woman. To seek some such explanation is to seek a realistic approach, to cling to naturalism because it is familiar and, thus, safe” (ix). But later he also adds, “unlike most plays, this one has no offstage life…The characters are aware only of the events that happen as they happen…the one reality in the play: emotion” (ix-xi). Laurents seems, then, to be insisting upon a certain amount of placelessness.

Based on what Chaudhuri says about the United States, it is not surprising that A

Clearing in the Woods was written and produced here. She states, “Through its alliance with the principles of progress and homogeneity, the figure of America first signified a

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 kind of ultimate placelessness, a guarantee of the absolute unmeaning of place as a component of human experience” (5). Chaudhuri is not alone in this assessment.

According to the editor of The Making of the American Landscape, Michael P. Conzen, a metaphor that runs through most of the environmental history essays in this collection is that of mobility (8). Peirce F. Lewis’s chapter “The Northeast and the Making of

American Geographical Habits” best explains American mobility, in terms of citizens moving away from the place where they were born and raised, via an argument that hints back to Frederick Jackson Turner:

For people who had already migrated once, there was always a propensity to migrate again – and yet again. It was all very well for Englishmen to have special attachments to special places – indeed, to take their names from the places where they and their ancestors had lived since the beginning of time. In England (indeed, in the Old World in general), one knew one’s place, both socially and geographically. That was never the American way. Mobility – the willingness to abandon places when they had served a particular purpose – was the key to success, whether success was defined in economic or social terms. And the passion for mobility has left its distinctive marks on the American landscape: a chronic inclination to spend money on public roads; an uncritical admiration for the latest machines of transportation, whether steamboats, or speeding locomotives, or fast cars, or jet aircraft; and the unromantic willingness to abandon things that had outlived their immediate usefulness – beer cans discarded beside the highway, old farm houses, or indeed whole cities when they outlived their usefulness. But none of those habits are new. All are deeply rooted in colonial America, and in the attitudes of the English people who settled her land. (83-84)

While this phenomenon is not new, mobility—and consequently, a fluctuating connection with place—took on a whole new meaning in the postwar years.

Although the automobile was not a new technology to come out of the war, the booming economy led to a skyrocketing ability to own one, which produced a domino effect of other changes. The argument of John A. Jakle’s “Landscapes Redesigned for the Automobile” begins with the proposition that “No other technological innovation has

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 so transformed the geography of the United States as the automobile” (293). What theatre designer Norman Bel Geddes envisioned with his “Highways and Horizons” pavilion at the 1939 World’s Fair, sponsored by General Motors (GM), started to become a reality in 1946 when construction began on the New York State Thruway; it became national with the passing of the 1956 Highway Act (Strandling 173-174). Bel Geddes’s display and ride dramatized American cities with multilane highways, theatricalizing a future straight out of the GM executives’ wildest dreams, albeit dreams they worked hard to actualize. Considering that the 1954 transportation advisory committee to President

Dwight Eisenhower included the director of a large oil company, the Teamsters Union head, and the head of a large construction firm, it is not surprising that no real consideration was given to a public transportation infrastructure (Jakle 299). The resulting highways built after 1956 did create ease of transportation but dismantled the economy of small towns and hamlets by allowing farmers to buy and sell goods in distant towns and cities. The landscape that the average motorist encountered on these highways became a steady monotony of pavement with grass borders, differing only slightly from one coast to the other (Jakle 301-302). In The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and

Decline of America’s Man-Made Landscape, James Howard Kunstler sums up the lure of car-culture in his trenchant assessment:

There was nothing like it before in history: a machine that promised liberation from the daily bondage of place. And in a free country like the United States, with the unrestricted right to travel, a fast geographical territory to spread out into, and a national tradition of picking up and moving whenever life at home became intolerable, the automobile came as a blessing. (86)

Kunstler’s argument, however, is that this blessing grew into a curse as a multitude of factors over many years created a hegemony of sameness, turning America into a vast

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 wasteland. A repercussion of this, according to Chaudhuri, is a nation of the figuratively homeless: people who have not only escaped the daily bondage of place but have lost all connection to it. Becoming increasingly unmoored from geographical locations is one of the geopathologies that Chaudhuri finds to be highly problematic in the face of our current ecological crisis (250-251).

All other scenic designs examined in this dissertation serve as a representation of a place that exists for the characters, even if that existence is drawn from memory (the yard in Death of a Salesman) or in a fever-dream (the forest in The Emperor Jones), but this is not true of the clearing Smith made in the woods. Long before there was a word for it, the character Virginia entered a form of virtual reality. While Laurents argues that,

“Unlike most plays with the element of fantasy, this one does not have symbols, ghosts or vagaries for characters” (ix), in fact it very much has those things in the setting. Brooks

Atkinson described Oliver Smith’s design in his opening night review for The New York

Times as “a necromantic forest with a spectral summer house” (18). In Orville K.

Larson’s Scene Design in the American Theatre From 1915 to 1960, Smith’s design for this production is pictured as an example of “the growing tendency during the fifties to use scrims as an integral part of the setting in conjunction with three-dimensional objects” (156). The design of the set is clearly intended to match the nonrealistic style of the play. What the audience was presented with is a pair of three-dimensional trees, against which actors could lean and behind which they could hide. Beyond that was a backdrop made of scrim with a painted impression—but only an impression—of a multitude of trees. The depth of the forest is created by the shade and size of the tree trunks. There is no foliage whatsoever on any of the trees. The trees have a naturalistic

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 shape with a taper as they rise, occasionally splitting and leaning towards the sun, as one would see in any collection of trees in the woods. Each tree trunk is outlined in a darker shade than the center of the trunk, and the impression of depth is created by gradation, implying that the more ghostly trees are much further away, conjuring the feeling of a deep and endless forest. I argue that Smith’s design is not a stylization of nature, but rather an attempt to join Laurents’s text in a realm where place is erased. While Virginia is searching inside and interacting with disconnected aspects of herself, the trees are merely an outline, a shell with hollowed out insides. They do not represent actual trees or any identifiable forest or location, but instead represent only memories.

Twice in the play, references are made to the woods being full of memories (26 and 91), the woods are once described as “enchanted” (47), and several times, the other versions of Virginia hide in the trees while talking to her or laughing (26, 60 and 124).

Virginia also talks about her desire to soar over the trees in search of freedom (165-169), and in the end, with a stage direction that is not explicit in intention, Laurents wrote,

“Again the echo and the light and the last trees clear and warm and lovely” (170). The implication that I take from this is that Smith’s painted scrim trees vanished in the end, creating a final clearing of the woods which represented Virginia’s memories and emotional issues. The final impression upon the audience is that there were never trees there in the first place; they were, instead, a sign with no referent.

Once again, while the metaphor is appropriate for the script, if examined in a historical context via ecocriticism, the more-than-human is once again erased. Since this design was created during a time when the dominant ideology was one of conquest over the environment via synthetic chemicals, a reexamination of the way this design speaks to

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 an audience could prove educational. While Mielziner’s design for Death of a Salesman was visually different from Smith’s (since Mielziner’s trees and leaves were created via lighting), both nonetheless achieve the same effect, as both ask an audience to interpret the proffered metaphor. If Laurents is creating an analogy with his title, then the implication is that the clearing of past emotional baggage is akin to finding a space where the woods have been removed. Smith’s design adds to this analogy by creating ephemeral trees. Again, the argument here is not that these designs lacked forward thinking and creativity. Rather, I seek to question the ways in which such designs distance the observer from the physical presence of the more-than-human, and subsequently, from environmental issues.

Rise of Environmentalism – Dead Zone 1957 to 1983

Early in the planning of this dissertation, an unexpected question arose: why did not a single scenic depiction of open space wilderness garner a Tony nomination between

1957 and 1983? My examination of the Yearbook series established a statistical decrease in the number of plays with outdoor settings in the 1960s and 1970s. During the postwar period of 1945-1950, there was an average of 2.4 plays with at least one outdoor setting per year selected by the Yearbook editors, and from 1950 to 1960 this stayed relatively consistent, with an average of 2.2 plays per year. However, between 1960 and 1970, this average dropped to 1.2 plays per year, and from 1970 to 1980, the average dropped again to .6 per year. While I cannot surmise a cause for either a decline in playwrights choosing outdoor settings, or a decline in the Yearbook editors’ consideration of such plays for its Ten Best list, the statistical decline might help to explain why the Tony

Awards selection board did not nominate any open space wilderness designs for the

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 twenty-seven years between 1957 and 1983. This period was, however, a significant time of attitudinal change in the United States, as these years gave birth to environmentalism.

After WWII, the American debate between conservation (an anthropocentric view that natural resources should be used slowly so that they would still be available in the future) versus preservation (an ecocentrist view that humans should maintain perpetually untouched or limited use lands in the form of state and national parks) changed as concerns slowly shifted to protecting the environment against human-created damage.

While Adam Rome’s The Bulldozer in the Countryside; Suburban Sprawl and the Rise of

American Environmentalism took a generalized, national look at how the suburbs led to environmentalism, Christopher C. Sellers’ Crabgrass Crucible: Suburban Nature & the

Rise of Environmentalism in Twentieth Century America focused more specifically on the suburbs of New York and Los Angeles. Sellers defines environmentalism as a different philosophy from its predecessors in two major ways: First, environmentalism focuses on the problems of environmental contamination that impacts public health; and second, environmentalist movements began with grass-roots organizations mobilizing millions, rather than an outcry originating from select high-profile conservationist/preservationist experts (7). In the greater New York area, environmentalism began with water issues.

Two major pollution issues in Long Island inspired grass-roots organizations, mostly because they involved environments close to home. The first was discovered in the 1950s when the natural processes that purified wastewater from cesspools and septic tanks as it returned to the underground water table could not process the petroleum-based soaps flowing from thousands of new dishwashers and washing machines. Eventually, the water in the upper aquifer became unfit for human consumption, and homes had to be

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 put on a public water supply or connected to lower, uncontaminated water supplies

(Sellers 110-122). The second issue was the mass spraying of DDT. While it took several tries by different groups from Long Island, eventually a class action lawsuit was successful in proving the harmful effects of DDT, and a new era of fighting for environmental protection was born in the late 1960s (Strandling 186-192).

This chapter ends with 1970. This was the year of the first Earth Day, as well as the founding year of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In the era covered by the following chapter, five plays with open space wilderness settings were nominated for

Tony Awards in a twenty-nine-year period—more than in any previous time period. Yet, as mentioned above, the Kesebir study found that the decrease in use of nature-related words in literary fiction, song lyrics, and films steadily continued in a downward direction right up to the end of their study period in 2000. This article also cites evidence that, in animated movies, there had been a decline in depictions of outdoor environments between 1937 and 2009 (Kesebir 260). While an uptick in open space wilderness settings in the theatre during the 1970 to 2012 period can be seen as a sign that those in the urban environment of New York City valued nature, depictions of non-human life were not without problems. As will be seen in the next chapter, while a mountain, a fairytale woodland, and an African grassland were each given intrinsic value through design, the woods of Kentucky and the forests of Neverland were not.

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CHAPTER V

ENVIRNOMENTALISM AND POSTMODERN DESIGN 1970-2012: K2, INTO THE WOODS, THE KENTUCKY CYCLE, THE LION KING AND PETER AND THE STARCATCHER

In 1970, Americans seemed nearly united around the issue of environmental protection. The impacts of various forms of pollution had ended the main historical debate between preserving untouched wilderness lands and conserving resources for future use. Instead, the debate—in an extremely simplified summary—gradually transitioned to one pitting environmental protection against economic progress. While

Roderick Nash observed that it is mainly people living in cities who appreciate and fight for wilderness protection (Wilderness… 44), most urban and suburban Americans have spent far less time outdoors in recent years than in previous decades. According to Jim

Sterba in 2012;

On average… Americans now spend 90 percent of their time indoors, and they pay more heed to the nature conveniently packaged on their electronic screens than to the nature around them. Their direct experience with nature tends to be visual – a goldfinch on the bird feeder outside the living room window, or a deer in the road beyond a windshield that is about to be shattered. (xxiv)

This distancing, and an examination of the visual images of open space wilderness within the confined space of the theatrical stage, are two of the motivations behind this dissertation. During the period from 1970 to 2012, the number of Tony Award nominated/winning theatrical depictions of open space wilderness increased significantly, reflecting a wide range of design styles. This same period ushers in a rapid change in attitudes towards environmental issues. I posit that, in an age when pollution-based environmentalism transitioned into concerns about climate change, and as Americans

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 became more disconnected from the outdoors and the nature they professed to love, the scenic designs of open space wilderness in the forty-two years covered serve as cultural artifacts reflecting this disconnect rather than working to counter it.

During this period, not only were there more Tony Award nominated/winning designs set in “natural”/open space than in periods discussed in earlier chapters, but there was also a gradual uptick in all nature designs. Using only American plays from the

Yearbook of Best Plays series started by Burns Mantle in 1920 as a basis for analysis, breaking it down a decade at a time from the 1970-1971 theatre season until the end of the 1979-1980 season, there were arguably three plays selected by the editors set in an open space wilderness environment: The Creation of the World and Other Business

(1973), Seascape (1975), and Bent (1979). None of the scenic designs for these plays were nominated for Tony Awards, but Seascape, with its beach setting and anthropomorphized married lizard couple in conversation with a human couple, has been the subject of articles by several ecocritical scholars (see essays by Chin-ying Chang and

Matthew C. Roudane). During this same decade, eleven American plays were set at least partly in outside spaces designed for human use, such as porches, gardens, parks, yards, and roads. There were also fifty-eight plays with predominantly or exclusively indoor settings.50

From the 1980-1981 theatre season until the 1989-1990 season, there were arguably four plays that had at least one significant setting in an open space wilderness environment, including K2 (1982), Into the Woods (1987), A Walk in the Woods (1988),

50 During the period covered within this chapter there were plays listed in the Yearbooks which relied heavily on staging where location is clarified with dialogue rather than scenery. So, if this was the case and there were only one or two scenes out of several set “outside,” the play was counted as “Inside.”

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 and Once on This Island (1990). Of these, both K2 and Into the Woods51 were Tony- nominated for scenic design, with Ming Cho Lee’s set for K2 taking the award. During this same period, there were twelve plays which were at least partly set in outside spaces designed for human use,52 while there were fifty plays with predominantly or exclusively indoor settings.

In the decade between the theatre seasons of 1990-1991 and 1999-2000, there were five plays at least partly set in an open space wilderness environment, including The

American Plan (1991), Crazy for You (1992), The Kentucky Cycle (1993), Love! Valour!

Compassion! (1994) and The Lion King (1997). Of these, only The Lion King had a

Tony-nominated scenic design; Richard Hudson won for this design in 1998. During this same decade, five American plays were at least partly set in outside spaces designed for human use, and there were forty-seven plays with predominantly or exclusively indoor settings.

Looking at 2001-2002 until the last season covered by the Yearbooks before they ceased publication, 2008-2009, there were no plays noted which were set in open space wilderness. However, the first three decades covered in this chapter brought a steady escalation in the number of open space wilderness settings with each decade. In the

1970-1980 period, 4% of the plays in the Yearbooks used open space wilderness settings.

In 1980-1990, this rose to 6%, and in the 1990-2000 period it rose again to 9%.53 If one

51 At the1988 Tony Awards, when Tony Straiges was nominated for Into the Woods, Maria Björnson took home the scenic design Tony for The Phantom of the Opera. 52 In 1984 Tony Straiges, who designed the original set for Into the Woods, won the Tony award for his scenic design to accompany Sunday in the Park with George. 53 The final period from 2000 to 2012 has been discounted because during this time there were fewer plays selected for each issue of the Yearbook. Also, many had to be discounted from Appendix A because they were off-Broadway or off-off Broadway plays.

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 were to add Redwood Curtain54 and its Tony-nominated set into the mix, this last percentage would jump to 11%. This steady increase might well imply a growing cultural interest in visual representations of the environment “conveniently packaged” as

Sterba described.

This chapter starts with the year 1970, which is a significant and positive year to

American environmentalists, while also the start of opposition from conservatives and business interests for some of the same reasons. In April, the events that fell under the umbrella of Earth Day—some lasting as long as a week—collectively had a larger participant count than any civil-rights or anti-war demonstration that came before it

(Rome Genius x). At the end of that same year, Republican President Richard Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This agency helped to write the

Clean Air Act of 1972, the Endangered Species Act of 1973, and created many other smaller pieces of legislation and regulatory policies to combat pollution. However, some legislated changes were slow in their implementation or became stalled by court challenges, while other environmental issues were barely addressed. Cities such as New

York were mired in pollution and environmental injustice problems that had been accumulating for decades, which did not simply fade because an agency was formed and federal laws were passed. Some of the hardest hit places were Brownsville, Harlem, and the South Bronx, where communities of color began to become more involved in a political issue which had inspired outcry primarily from the Caucasian community previous to the 1970s (Strandling 210). Yet, while this extremely successful forward momentum was turning 1950s and 1960s protests into 1970s legislation and action, an

54 Redwood Curtain was not selected as a Ten Best play by the Yearbook. In 1993, John Arnone took home the scenic design Tony for The Who’s Tommy.

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 opposing force stole a page out of the environmentalist handbook and began bubbling up via grassroots organization.

As discussed in the previous chapter, corporate pollution and the environmental movement altered the landscape from a debate between conservation (an anthropocentric view that natural resources should be harvested and used slowly so that they will still be available in the future) versus preservation (an ecocentrist view that humans should maintain perpetually untouched or limited use lands in the form of state and national parks) as concerns slowly melded into a broader-based championing environmental protection. While direct opposition to clean water and breathable air is almost nonexistent, conservatives began to create coalitions between disparate groups based on points of overlapping opposition to specific elements of environmental regulation. Two specific linchpins were a belief in “freedom of individuals from government interference and economic efficiency, assumed to result from markets unfettered by government regulation” (Layzer 2). While neither of the aforementioned acts has been repealed as of the submission of this document, conservative rhetoric demonizing government overreach is credited by Judith A. Layzer in Open for Business: Conservatives’

Opposition to Environmental Regulation as a contributing factor in the Republican party gaining control of the White House and the Senate in 1981. Instead of publicly repealing large measures which were predominantly popular, conservatives used rhetoric about reducing the financial burden placed on business and industry by the federal government to chip away at how legislation was implemented, preventing any forward momentum on things like newly discovered climate change challenges.

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By the time Into the Woods was produced in 1987, the United States had already been transformed in many ways by the presidency of Ronald Reagan; however, the

American public was still largely sympathetic to the goals of the environmental movement. Since many environmental organizations had sprung up and solidified after the 1960s and 1970s, they were able to spread word to their membership when conservatives went after pollution control policies. Not as many people rallied or protested, however, when the issue was relaxing biodiversity conservation policies.

Instead of large sweeping pieces of legislation, amendments were attached to relatively unrelated, destined-to-pass bills in order to forward an antiregulatory agenda, while, simultaneously, conservative judges used their interpretive powers to alter how current regulations were enforced (Layzer 3-6).

Even though the national trend was moving in the conservative direction, residents of New York City were keenly aware that the environmentalist fight was not over. The longstanding problem of the disposal of literally tons of trash generated by the city annually received national attention in the same year Into the Woods ran on

Broadway, thanks to the two-month journey of the garbage barge Mobro as it searched for a place willing to take the load it carried (Strandling 219). But the site of the most significant battle against garbage and decay in the 1980s was Central Park. Even though the park is an entirely architectural creation, it is often the main location for many

Manhattanites to experience trees, grass, and other growing things. However, the challenging financial times the city experienced in the 1960s and 1970s left the park strewn with trash, covered in graffiti, and in a general state of disrepair. In the 1980s, however, volunteers joined with the Central Park Conservancy to successfully reclaim the

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 park (Strandling 230). In greater New York City, where suburban sprawl continued to spread through the 1970s, awareness grew regarding the need to preserve more open spaces. Although the over 20,000-acre Sterling Forest State Park, a woodland located a mere ninety-minute drive northwest of Manhattan on the New Jersey border, was not established until the late 1990s, it is not surprising that the 1980s would feature two

Broadway plays set in the woods.

President William “Bill” Clinton and his environmentalist running mate Albert

“Al” Gore took office in January 1993. Choosing Gore as a running mate was a key part of a theme of environmental protection as a campaign tactic, but unfortunately it had already become a very polarizing issue. According to “Bill Clinton, Environmentalist?”, an editorial in the New York Times in January 1993, “No issue inspires more heat and hyperbole. But money and laws have not achieved consensus. America is swarming with green activists—and with critics who believe that the cleanliness crusade exacts too great a toll in jobs and economic growth.” Even though Clinton appointed environmentalists to head many of the agencies under his purview, their accomplishments were often blocked by conservative appointees installed over the previous twelve years in the legislative and judicial branches. Conservatives tried, with little success, to make changes to the Clean Air Act during Clinton’s tenure, and achieved only moderate success in challenging the conservation of endangered species. Arguably, their greatest success in the 1990s was in preventing significant action regarding climate change

(Layzer 187-188). This might indicate that environmentalist groups were clarifying once again that the issues which touched backyards most directly were a greater motivator for

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 new mobilization than issues which felt distanced in both space (faraway endangered animals) or time (climate change).

Environmentalism has become an umbrella term, reflecting any and all concerns for the environment, but has far more commonly been applied in the 2010s and beyond to activism related specifically to the climate crisis. Daily news reports covering the climate as a major voting issue in the 2018 and 2020 political campaigns recently reflected

American interest in this issue. However, unlike our early twentieth century ancestors who spent more time pursing outdoor activities, inspired by frontierism to treasure the dwindling wilderness (discussed in chapter 2), contemporary Americans are becoming more distanced and disconnected from wilderness environments, even as environmentalism become increasingly ubiquitous. A team of social scientists conducted a national study in 2015-2016 of 11,817 adults and children with a focus on attitudes toward nature. They stated that their most significant finding was that “Americans face a significant gap between their interests in nature and their efforts, abilities and opportunities to pursue those interests” (Kellert et al 3). The report resulting from this study, “The Nature of Americans: Disconnection and Recommendations for

Reconnection”, details a host of attitudes related to and causing this disconnect. One finding of the study significant to the arguments of this dissertation is a difference in how adults and children define nature. For children it is often any open space near them or right outside their front door, such as “yards, woods, creeks, and gardens…But in contrast to children, adults tend to set a high and even impossible standard for what they perceive to be ‘authentic’ and unforgettable nature, believing that it requires solitude and travel to faraway places, which reinforces their perceptions of the relative inaccessibility

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 of nature” (Kellert et al 4). Accordingly, in examining the case studies below, I explore how scenic depictions of nature may have reinforced this high standard, thereby exacerbating distancing, versus how theatrical design might be used to make the inaccessible more present.

One of the foundational arguments of deep ecology, and consequently ecocriticism (discussed in chapter 1), is that a recognition of the interconnectedness and interdependence of all living and non-living things necessitates an acknowledgment that the non-human world has intrinsic value. Even though ecocriticism is a term that was not then, nor is it now, part of the everyday language of most theatrical audience members, in literary circles it became well-established during the period covered in this chapter.

Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm edited the first anthology of major journal articles using ecocriticism as a form of analysis, published in 1996 as The Ecocriticism Reader.

By 2002, ecocriticism had become common enough to be one of the forms introduced to students in Peter Barry’s second edition of Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. But while ecocriticism can be applied to any play and has been used to look back on many canonical works, it could be argued that Broadway ecodrama begins with The Kentucky Cycle.

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Visual Ecology versus Textual Ecology – K2 (1983) and The Kentucky Cycle (1993)

Although K255 by Patrick Meyers and The Kentucky Cycle56 by Robert Schenkkan were written and performed in different political environments with different authorial goals, putting the designs for these productions in conversation with ecocriticism can yield interesting arguments about the uses of design. While both plays are based in realism, K2 is not a play with an environmentalist theme, but The Kentucky Cycle is.

However, the ways in which the designs approach the realism of the text, with regard to the environment created onstage, prove quite different.

In the opening lines of the promotional article published in The New York Times, two days before the Broadway premiere of K2, Nan Robertson wrote,

There are three characters in this play. Two of them are men. The third is the mountain. It is a menacing vertical wall of artificial ice that rises from the basement and disappears into the shadows five stories above the stage of the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. The mountain fills almost the entire hole framed by the proscenium arch, from back to front and side to side. (C9)

The story of the play clearly makes the mountain the main antagonist. The two men in the play are climbers Taylor and Harold, who are stuck on a ledge near the summit of K2 in the Himalayas, the world’s second highest mountain, after an avalanche cost them most of their equipment and caused Harold to break his leg. A length of rope hidden far above the top of the proscenium arch could be used to save them if Taylor can get to it before the pair freezes to death at an elevation of 27,000 feet. One of the marvels of the

55 CTPost, the online version of the Connecticut Post newspaper, posting an article written on Nov. 27, 2013 about an exhibit of Ming Cho Lee’s work. One of the color images posted with this article is of the actors on the K2 set. The dark shape in the top left corner is Jeffrey DeMunn, the actor who played Taylor, as he scaled the set. At the times of this writing, this article and image were available at: https://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Exhibit-charts-legendary-stage-designer-s-career-5017028.php#photo-5513126 56 As of this writing three color images of the design for this play can be found on designer Michael Olich’s web page: https://michaelolich.com/shows/kentucky-cycle-ITC.html

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 original production was watching Jeffrey DeMunn, who played Taylor, literally scale the set using spiked toe shoes and other mountain climbing gear. However, it is not without irony that the Tony Award for best scenic design in 1983 went to this design containing much of the same mimetic spectacle that New Stagecraft designers and critics railed against roughly sixty-five years earlier.

That Ming Cho Lee’s K2 setting was spectacular is not up for debate, but whether or not that spectacular setting is problematic depends upon which lens one uses: that of

New Stagecraft or that of ecocriticism. Similar to what Robertson wrote three days before, Frank Rich’s opening night New York Times review begins by talking about the set:

Chances are that you’ve already heard the one unassailable reason to see Patrick Meyers’s play “K2”: because the mountain is there. This scenic wonder is astonishing. When the curtain rises at the Brooks Atkinson—very slowly, like a striptease—the audience seems to stop breathing. (C16)

While Rich did not entirely disparage the dialogue of K2, he did comment on the writing being uneven, perhaps hearkening back to Sheldon Cheney’s 1928 comment that “the time for spectacular display in settings is when the drama is weak” (27). Lee himself considered his set for K2 to be “gimmickry, not design” (Aronson Ming Cho Lee 212).

So why, then, if this set falls clearly into the realm of spectacle, was it lavished with the highest praise in the form of not just a nomination, but the scenic design Tony Award for that year? Arnold Aronson rightly points out that the superrealism of the ice cliffs of

Lee’s design for K2 appeared just after the surge of artistic photorealism in the 1970s, but

Aronson argues that this trend in fine art did not inspire Lee. Instead, Arena Stage director Jacques Levy insisted on utter realism, and Lee quickly agreed, even though he had originally planned to go abstract (Aronson Ming 208). Delbert Unruh, author of The

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Designs of Ming Cho Lee, argues that the set was designed for the needs of the play and provided a “focus on the action and the emotion” (67), but chooses to ignore the way this mimetic design seems to break from the Broadway tendency towards minimalism. As was mentioned in chapter 4, designs like Jo Mielziner’s Death of a Salesman are still influential on Broadway. This design, classified as modified realism, helped to establish a practice where fragments of a setting represented something larger, expecting the audience to use their imagination to fill in what was missing. In the decades since World

War II, Broadway designs have mainly fallen under the styles of realism, modernism or modified realism. As a highly commercial product, ease of comprehension for the

Broadway audience has been a significant factor limiting experimentation (Brockett

Making the Scene 317). Lee’s former student Darwin Reid Payne seems to agree with

Unruh and validate his teacher’s design when commenting that “spectacle in the theatre, then, is most exciting and satisfying to the audience when the human performer is the center and cause of it” (241). Walter Kerr, writing in a “Critic’s Notebook” column for

The New York Times a few weeks after the opening of K2, contends he heard audience members saying, “Wouldn’t it make a wonderful movie?” Kerr argues that they could not be more wrong, that “[the] thrill stems from the audience’s subconscious realization that the kind of thing they are looking at is taking place where they least expect to find it. In a way, it’s twice as scary because it doesn’t belong…a movie could do it too easily…putting a mountain on stage should be impossible” (C20). Even though the description of the play in the published script from Dramatists Play Service notes that the play could be staged with an abstract setting, as Aronson argues, “In order for the play to succeed the spectators must believe that they are viewing the sheer face of a mountain on

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 which the climbers are trapped” (Ming 208). In other words, only because of the mountain’s actual presence, in concrete form and not just in the audience’s minds, can it participate in the conflict. The mass of Lee’s mountain heightened its power and engendered respect for this nonhuman antagonist. Through an immersion into realism, rather than modified realism or abstraction, the audience is able to visually and viscerally experience what a worthy adversary the mountain is.

From the deep ecology perspective, even though the text for K2 does not have an environmentalist theme, by making the mountain a character that is visually represented, nature is given more agency through design than in several of the designs which follow in this chapter, especially The Kentucky Cycle, a play which does have ecological themes.

If, as Dramatists Play Service suggests, K2 was to be mounted with an abstract setting, not only would some of the danger and thrill of the original production be lost, so would the “face” of the antagonist. Lee’s design brought the mountain to Muhammad, as it were, and brought audience members in contact with a landscape that most would never see within their lifetime. Yes, Americans are assaulted with digital images of faraway places and environments every single day, but as Kerr noted in reference to Lee’s mountain, “its wonder comes from an overwhelming visual image that is unexpectedly present in the playhouse in all its dimension, its chill, its destructiveness” (“Critic’s…”

C.20). If place matters, then the rendering of place also matters. Just like The Kentucky

Cycle, K2 puts the importance of place right into the title. The mountain as Lee designed it is not a metaphor for anything else, nor is it an environment that is destroyed, manipulated or saved by humans. The very conflict of the play is based in the fact that humans cannot always overcome or conquer our ecosystem. At the end of the play, after

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 an avalanche causes them to lose even more of their equipment, Harold begs Taylor to leave so that Taylor can share memories with Harold’s family. Harold waits on the ledge holding the rope they have left until he gets tugging confirmation that Taylor has made it to a ledge below. Harold lets go of the rope so that Taylor can use it to continue downward, unseen by the audience. The lights dim as the audience knows that Harold is about to die, but Lee’s mountain remained—gimmickry, pictorialism and superrealism— in a place where the audience would least expect it, like a flower emerging from a New

York sidewalk. I argue that through the very realistic depiction of the mountain, Lee has given it intrinsic value, and therefore the design is ecotheatrical.57

While the design used for The Kentucky Cycle was not nominated for a Tony

Award for scenic design, I wish to examine it specifically because it works as a counterpoint to the argument that I made above with K2. Even though Kentucky was written as an ecodrama, its New Stagecraft-based original presentation lacked ecotheatrical elements in scenic design. In this way, The Kentucky Cycle can also serve as a stand-in for the many plays listed in all three appendices which were set in open spaces, but which used minimalist design and were not eligible for analysis in this study.

Kentucky received a Pulitzer Prize in 1992, which might have been part of why it was recognized by the Yearbook of Best Plays editors, even though the Broadway production did not last long, and it was not nominated in any of the major Tony Award categories.

Downing Cless argues that it was one of the very few plays on Broadway to ever deal with environmental themes (79) and in 2005 Theresa J. May referred to it as a “landmark

57 While the design for Lanford Wilson’s Redwood Curtain (1993) fulfills the criteria to qualify as a case study for this dissertation because it was Tony-nominated and several scenes are set in the redwood forests of California, I argue that to do so would be largely redundant since many of the arguments I made about K2 would also apply to Redwood.

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 ecodrama” (“Greening…” 93). In her 1999 article “Frontiers: Environmental History,

Ecocriticism and The Kentucky Cycle,” May often refers to the “frontier imagery” invoked by the text without mentioning or analyzing the scenic design of the production originally produced in Los Angeles, then transferred to Broadway. The Kentucky Cycle is an epic work of nine realistic one-acts spanning two hundred years of American history that is usually shown over the course of two nights. Each playlet is linked to the next because most of the characters are members of the same three families. At the start of each new one-act, 30 to 40 years have elapsed, and if a character is still alive in the next act, they are usually played by a different, older actor. These three families struggle with each other and with best use of the land as each generation transitions from hunters to farmers to coal miners to political activists. One of the arguments that May makes in her article about the play is that even though playwright Robert Schenkken was trying to expose the myths of frontierism, what he wrote seemed to many observers to simply be another melodrama of the American west. May contends that confronting frontier nostalgia, an idea deeply ingrained in American culture, was an uphill battle contributing to the play’s failure on Broadway, even though it won awards in Los Angeles. Yet I contend that, by not living up to Broadway standards in design, the play also did not provide audiences with the visuals to support the themes that the text propagated.

Much as in K2, and to a lesser extent Into the Woods below, the text of The

Kentucky Cycle casts the land as a character, but Kentucky’s scenic designer, Michael

Olich, did not provide audiences with the same visual impact that Ming Cho Lee did.

Olich’s design concept seems to have been based in minimalism so that location was established with only the most basic indicators. This might have been a factor in an

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 audience’s lack of identification with the pillaging of the land, which is a key theme of the play. As Schenkken says in the Author’s Notes to the published version of the epic,

Finally, the “land” is a major, if silent, character in the play and some way must be found to keep its presence alive for the audience. In the Broadway design, this meant starting with an “earthen pit” in the center of the raked stage which was methodically covered over by wooden plugs through the course of the evening as the land falls beneath the axe and plow until, with the burial of Randall at the end of [the first night of performance], nothing remains. (9)

What I argue as problematic about this design and Schenkken’s use of emphasis via quotations is that, while the audience could see dirt as part of the setting, this was not kept alive in nearly the same way in which the mountain was in K2, a fact which critics of the period seem to have subliminally noticed as well. The short Newsweek review by

Jack Kroll makes no mention of design at all. The Time magazine review by William A.

Henry III quotes text from the play about the beauty of the land, but also makes no comment about the scenography. In The New York Times Sunday View article

“Smashing America’s Favorite Myths,” David Richards gives credit for changes in setting from one playlet to the next to lighting designer Peter Maradudin and sound designer James Ragland. Of the setting Richards says, “Although acted on a stark wooden stage with minimal scenery by Michael Olich—a rough-hewn pediment marking a home, a square of gravel serving as a forgotten burial ground—the enterprise often has the feel of a saga spun around campfire embers” (A.5). With this subtle implication that the set is so forgettable that the story feels like an oral history, the Richards review nevertheless tends to be more generous to the design than most. David Kaufman said in

The Nation, “With exposed scaffolding, a rear brick wall and little more than costumes to indicate the specific period, it all becomes a throwback to Thornton Wilder. (The

Kentucky Cycle is essentially an Our Town gone wrong…)” (740). Frank Rich, like his

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 colleague at The New York Times, praised Peter Maradudin’s lighting, but mostly glossed over the “bare-bones environmental setting…dominated by antiseptic industrial pipes”

(C.17). None of these reviewers found the land to be a character or even a participant.

Thanks to the video recordings held by the Performing Arts branch of the New

York Public Library, I was able to watch the entire Broadway production during a visit in

2015, and I argue that Olich’s adherence to New Stagecraft rules, to only put onstage what is necessary, left me yearning for more. If the land is a major character, simply having dirt onstage is likely not enough to provide a visual or visceral impression of the environment as a silent participant. I argue that, based on the MFA design thesis by

Yvette Weaver Greene, the Texas Tech University Theatre and Dance department’s 1996 production made the changes to the land far more concrete for the audience. While

Greene’s scenic budget of $2000 (55) was most likely far less than what Olich had to work with in the original production in Los Angeles or when the design was moved to

New York, she gave the audience an experience of environmental change in the scenic transitions that did not exist in the Broadway production. Greene was able to acquire old carpets removed from a building on campus under renovation and used them as ground coverings in early parts of the play (59). Later, these were stripped away much like strip mining pulls back and plunders the land. Having not seen this production, I equate what

Greene described with a far better known, more elaborate production with a much larger budget—the “Isle of Wonder” performance at the 2012 London Olympics opening

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 ceremony.58 This presentation by artistic director Daniel “Danny” Boyle59 was basically an elaborate, high-budget, extremely choreographed scene change which visually traces about two hundred years of British history starting with a segment called “Green and

Pleasant Land” transitioning into one called “Pandemonium.” The center oval of the arena was taken up at first with green grasses, wheat fields, a cricket pitch and small cottages. Everywhere there were people in eighteenth century costumes working, dancing around a May pole, or playing sports. Then to the sound of drums, throngs of people in nineteenth century costumes with dirty faces entered the stadium and literally carried out a massive change. Actor Kenneth Branagh led a group of top-hatted industrialists who inspected the farmland and waved it away to start the process of the industrial revolution, which in this case literally stripped away the green countryside to reveal an environment of concrete and steel. As participants rolled up and carried off vast sheets of Astroturf, smokestacks rose and billowed. Then other participants, their faces and clothes dirty as if covered in coal dust, joined the performance to work the gears and levers of industry. The lasting impression of both Greene’s and Boyle’s stripped-for-the-sake-of-progress scene changes, while drastically different in budget, were visually ecotheatrical in a way which Olich’s design was not. By starting with something green and lush, the audience was allowed to experience a loss as it was stripped away, which was not experienced when, in the case of Schenkkan’s play on

Broadway, all that was lost was green lighting with leaf gobos and a central brown dirt

58 As of this writing a recording of the whole opening ceremony was posted at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4As0e4de-rI&t=1955s with the beginning title for “Isle of Wonder” found at 9:45 and ending with five glowing Olympic rings joining together above the stadium at roughly 33:00. 59 Danny Boyle is primarily a film director who is possibly best known for his movies T2 Trainspotting (2017), Steve Jobs (2015), Slumdog Millionaire (2008) and others.

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 area shrank scene after scene as it was covered by a patchwork of brown wooden floor coverings shaped like parquet. What is problematic here is that, unlike the mountain which came to the theatre in K2 and became a participant, the state of Kentucky never arrived at the Royale Theatre. Peter Maradudin’s lighting did attempt to bring life to the old-growth forest of the first scene, but lighting transitions are easily accomplished and cannot plant in the mind of the audience the dramatic impact upon the land of strip mining. Even though Kentucky is over 600 miles away from New York City, the types of trees and look of the forests would have been easily identifiable in their similarity to those found in the city or upstate. If given more visual references, a Broadway audience would conceivably have been far less likely to consider that forest a far away or inaccessible environment. However, visual cues that would have helped them form connections with Central Park, Forest Park in Queens, Thain Family Forest in the Bronx, or Sterling Forest State Park upstate were not provided in the scenic design.

In May’s ecocritical analysis of the play, she argues that “few writers discuss the play’s clear, if subordinate, theme: people tend to fall in love with land … [R]eviewers mention the non-human elements of the narrative only in passing” (“Frontier…” 171).

But when seeing the production, the logo of the Blue Star mining company which dominates the stage for two scenes on the second night of performance became a far more memorable visual than anything that was meant to imply a natural setting. While the audience might be swept up in the pain that the characters feel as the land degrades around them, what they feel is empathy for the people, not for the environment. Since the play comes full circle, intending to remind the viewer of what Kentucky was like in the late 1700s with the intent that they should be moved towards environmentalism, then

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 an audience living in a visual culture should be presented with some sort of visual images that demonstrate what exactly has been lost to the ravages of strip mining. According to

May, Schenkkan’s play was based on a visit he made to the Cumberland plateau in

Kentucky where he witnessed the way mountains had been turned to gaping pits

(“Frontiers…” 173-174). Since he was not from the area, nor did he have any firsthand experience with the environmental justice issues which were raised in the play, critics accused him of cultural appropriation. While a different design from Olich leaning more towards modified realism rather than the austerity of New Stagecraft minimalism might not have changed the opinion of the critics, it might have helped them see what

Schenkkan saw and might have made the land an active character who was just as worthy of empathy as the characters played by humans.

Abstraction and Post-Modern Design Elements – Into the Woods (1987), The Lion King (1997) and Peter and the Starcatcher (2012)

In the section above, the arguments are largely based on mimetic designs, and whether they were pictorial or minimalist, they were based in realism and not depicted via abstraction. Here I examine three designs that contain abstract elements in their interpretations of the environment. The original productions for Into the Woods60 by

Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine, and The Lion King61 by Elton John, Tim Rice,

Roger Allers, and Irene Mecchi used very different types of abstraction, but I argue that

60 This production has been captured on DVD with the original actors such as Bernadette Peters and Joanna Gleason and as of this writing was still available for sale. The model of the woodland set created by Tony Straiges is held by the McNay Art Museum and as of this writing a photograph of the model is available at: https://collection.mcnayart.org/objects/11929 61 As a popular and long running musical on Broadway, there are quite a few images available online from this production that was still running when the Covid 19 pandemic hit. One image that might be helpful to the analysis below was published by the Chicago Tribune. While this photograph may be of the touring company, it also depicts the scenery/costumes of the living grasslands that I discuss in my analysis: https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/theater/ct-lion-king-chicago-review-ent-1207-20151206-column.html

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 each gave greater agency to the depicted environment via scenic design than the similarly abstract design used for Peter and the Starcatcher62 by Rick Elice. All of these designs depicted open space wilderness, and all were at least nominated for a Tony Award for scenic design.

Into the Woods is a musical by Sondheim with book and direction by Lapine. The plot weaves together the classic stories of Cinderella and Jack and the Beanstalk with a new story of a childless baker and his wife who sell Little Red Riding Hood the goodies that she will take to her grandmother’s house. The three main stories in act 1 are closely related to the fairy tales that we all know, but with the Baker replacing Little Red Riding

Hood’s Woodsman and as the man who buys Jack’s cow in exchange for magic beans.

The Baker has been sent into the woods to find four items a witch needs to make a potion on the promise that she will lift the spell which left the Baker and his wife barren. The ending of the first act finds most of the characters getting what they wanted just as in the fairy tale endings, but in the second act the characters are largely discontent again, so new journeys begin filled with more adult themes, including adultery, post-traumatic stress, and murderous selfishness. These darker themes, according to the producers, were

“meant as a subtle protest against the self-congratulatory individualism of the Reagan era” (Bland 96). Ergo, nearly the entire journey of the play has characters searching for the things they think they need in various locations in the woods.

62 Two web pages provided images from the original Broadway design for Peter and the Starcatcher as of the writing of this dissertation. The first is the web page of designer Donyale Werle who is currently also promoting designs for backyard gardens in New York so her theatre work is further down on this page: http://www.donyalewerle.com/ Another source is the web page for the properties construction company that helped to build the set, Paper Mache Monkey: http://papermachemonkey.com/peter-and-the-star- catcher/r88vlkoxwbadxiwogfk7eob3mrgfjl

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Critics in 1987 found problems with the dramatic structure of Into the Woods but credited the magic of the musical to the design team. Thomas M. Disch notes in The

Nation, “a steady succession of stage marvels…credit for these feats must be shared between Charles Reynolds, the ‘Magic Consultant,’ and set designer Tony Straiges… indeed, for brio, drollery and gosh-wow, what-next excitement, act 1 of Into the Woods is right up there with The Wizard of Oz” (726). Elizabeth Bland refers to the “dark psychological thickets and sudden clearings of enlightenment…mystical and eerie in

Tony Straiges’ design, spellbound in Richard Neilson’s storybook-colored lighting” (96).

But it was Frank Rich who most strongly captured the feeling of the design when he said in his opening night review for The New York Times,

The designer, Tony Straiges, transports us from a mock-proscenium set redolent of 19th-century picturebook illustration into a thick, asymmetrical, Sendakesque woods whose Rorschach patterns, eerily lighted by Richard Nelson, keep shifting to reveal hidden spirits and demons. Unfortunately, the book is as wildly overgrown as the forest. (C.5)

Yet, while this description brings to mind images of slightly scary children’s books, it still does not clarify the design enough for someone who had not seen it to be able to picture what Straiges did with his design: how he created abstract trees which were not cartoonish yet did achieve the goal of creating a forest.

Tony Straiges started with a literal design, but book writer/director Lapine wanted something simpler (Smith 151-152), so Straiges credits three primary sources of inspiration for his final design. The first source was the art of Bosch, Breughel and

Durer, whose styles Straiges mimicked for the downstage drop depicting houses surrounded by woods, used at the beginning of the musical to introduce the three fairy tales which are interwoven to tell the story. A series of walks in the woods in upstate

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New York when he would spend weekends visiting Lapine at his farmhouse provided the second source (Smith 152). While walking to the market through the woods, Straiges noticed that “Nothing was level—it’s all those hills and curves” (Stroller n.p.). Lastly,

Straiges credits a piece of box art by Joseph Cornell called “Bebe Marie” as his ultimate inspiration. Knowing how hard it is to put trees onstage, when Straiges saw this box containing a doll surrounded and covered in interlacing twigs, he found the solution to the tree problem. According to Straiges in an interview for an online article, “Jim Lapine likes to have a lot of things moving and swirling. He’s really good at maneuvering all this stuff. So, there were a lot of curved pieces and ramps… We made all these iron traceries, and we wove thousands of real branches through it” (Stoller n.p.).

A design does not have to be mimetic to support the intrinsic value of non-human life. The branch-based design of Into the Woods was an abstraction that gives the shape of trees with a wide base and a billowing out as it approached the top of the proscenium arch. Yet starting at the base where the main trunk of the tree would be, this abstraction of a tree is made of a lattice-like structure formed with interlaced branches. In many ways, this design is the polar opposite of A Clearing in the Woods (see chapter 4 above).

Clearing used a trunk-based design, and many of the trees were also transparent, while the Into the Woods design is branch-based. During the performance of Into the Woods, characters try to hide behind the trees, but the audience can still see many bits of their costumes and their movements through the branches, whether other characters notice or not. The woods conjured by the Straiges design are not placeless, but rather clearly inspired by and attached to the walks he took in the forest near Lapine’s upstate New

York home. The mass of branches which snake and weave through his abstract trees are

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 reminiscent of second-growth, vegetation-dense woodlands that are common in the

American northeast. These kinds of trees—oak, maple, pine, etc.—can grow very large with wide trunks if given enough time, but east coast forests, similar to those in Germany where the fables originated, tend to have varying amounts of undergrowth. Because the canopy of these trees is often not overly dense, much like Straiges’s lattice trees, light allows for the growth of ground cover, smaller trees, and bushes which obscures sightlines as people or objects get further apart, but it does not eliminate them until there is considerable distance. This is unlike the usual characteristics of most forests on the

American west coast, which either have very little groundcover or groundcover that tends to be close to the ground, such as ferns. The design for Redwood Curtain, for example, reflected this with wide pillars of tree trunks that imply an extremely dense canopy allowing for almost no vegetation to grow at the base of the trees. Jungles near the equator or in many extremely warm and humid climates tend to not support tall tree growth, but instead have denser vegetation growth at lower levels, allowing the human body to more easily hide than in Straiges’s design. Having several different tree formations that could slide in and out of the design, the set was ever-changing, as Lapine wanted. With two layers of Straiges’s tree formations and one of the three backdrops, at least one of which had a design pattern while another just represented the sky, the overlay gave the illusion of greater depth than that of the stage area. Unlike the trees in

Mielziner’s Sleepy Hollow design (see chapter 4 above), the shapes or look of the trees themselves did not change during the course of Into the Woods even if the configuration did. The moving, sloped platforms and the changing arrangement of the trees suggested location changes within the forest. Help from the lighting designer added more depth by

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 giving the branches texture and, most importantly, created changes in mood. Straiges’s woods became bright and cheerful or scary and ominous, much like any forest that

Americans are familiar with, based on the Tony-nominated lighting work provided by

Richard Nelson. This recognizable environment type allowed the forest, much like Lee’s mountain, to be a participant in the drama even if the woods were not an antagonist as they were to Brutus Jones in The Emperor Jones (see chapter 3 above). The woods were not realistic, but the woods still had life and created a sense of place. Straiges’s woods provide evidence that a design need not be mimetic to be ecotheatrical.

Similarly, although Disney’s The Lion King was not intentionally written to be an ecodrama, Ben Brantley did recognize that the ecofriendly aspects from the original animated film were replicated in the play (35), making Julie Taymor’s Broadway version ecotheatrical, thanks especially to design elements. Stylistically Taymor’s goal was to not only work against mimetic anthropomorphism with the characters, but also to work against realism in all aspects of design. The scenic designer, Richard Hudson, originally wanted to use lighting to represent the sun in the sunrise that opens the show but Taymor suggested strips of silk hanging on aluminum poles that slowly rise. For the audience, the shape and color eventually give the impression of the sun but also forced them to make this connection themselves. Taymor remarked that she could easily have made a projection of a sunrise but felt that this was best suited to film and television. She wanted her production to be theatrical (Anderson 69). By making the sun with thirty ribs of silk, the result had the look of desert heat rising from the ground as the fabric fluttered

(Taymor 78).

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As I write this, The Lion King is the most recent of my case studies to go dark— not because it was no longer profitable, but because of a global pandemic. Whether it will return to Broadway is still in doubt, as the reopening of Broadway theatres continues to be delayed. Yet, in its run from 1997 to 2020, The Lion King is without question the best known and most profitable of my case study productions. Set mainly in the savanna of Africa but with some scenes in the jungle, Hudson was tasked with depicting a wider range of wilderness environments than most of the other case studies. Yet, this is also the only design where the environment comes to life through the portrayal by actor/dancers.

The Broadway version follows the major plot points of the original animated movie, but more songs were added to make it viable as a full Broadway musical, and the casting was intentionally more inclusive. In the story of a young lion, Simba, who goes on a hero’s journey after being convinced by his uncle that he was responsible for the death of his father, theatrical director Julie Taymor found a disturbing lack of an active female presence. To combat this without significantly changing the main plot, Taymor converted the casting of the guiding shaman character, the baboon Rafiki, to be played by a woman. Taymor also requested that the book authors beef up the roles of the female characters from the original, giving Nala, Simba’s love interest, and the other lionesses larger roles to play (Lyman E.1). The other form of inclusion important to Taymor was that an African story should have black embodiment, especially since many of the members of the production team were Caucasian Americans. Maurya Wickstrom argues in a Theatre Journal article from 1999 that because of the many layers of Disney commodification, black bodies are also being commodified. Yet in an article published in Dance Research Journal, co-authored by Kenneth J. Cerniglia, Aubrey Lynch

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 responds from personal experience as an African American dancer who began in the chorus and was later chosen to train international casts. While Lynch directly acknowledges Wickstrom’s argument, she counters with her own lived experience based on the diverse casting of African Americans along with South African singers/dancers.

The intentional cultural diversity in casting was both problematic and educational backstage; but Lynch’s conclusion was that this production gave Broadway careers to many young dancers of color. However, what is more relevant to the topic of this dissertation are issues of anthropomorphism.

When talking about The Lion King, most of the visual attention has naturally been directed toward the costumes, which in some ways worked against classical Western anthropomorphism by having masks which allow the audience to see both the actor and the mask simultaneously, or see the actor within the animal puppet. Theatrical anthropomorphism and the intersections of theatre with animal studies has been an area of interest for Una Chaudhuri, who has not only published several essays on the topic, but also edited a collection of essays with Holly Hughes entitled Animal Acts: Performing

Species Today. In examining The Lion King, many of the arguments she has made in her essays about the depictions of animals can be transferred to an analysis of the performance of inanimate life, because the grasslands and jungle were each embodied by dance performances.

Julie Taymor set up one giant shop and studio for the design team due in great part to the impossibility of separating design elements in The Lion King. Not only did colors and patterns need to be compared, but much of the traditional division of labor was altered for this production (Taymor 50). As mentioned above, creation of the sun became

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 a duty of the scenic designer, rather than the lighting designer. Similarly, the lighting and scenic designers had to work closely to create a sense of a vast panorama of plains and/or sky within the confines of a proscenium stage. Not only was the cyclorama at the back of the stage lit with various colors, but light boxes63 as tall as the proscenium arch were added as masking for the wings so that the tones in the light on the cyclorama would envelope the stage on three sides (Taymor 74-75). But a truly unique design collaboration was the creation of significant parts of the environment via costumes by

Taymor. Both the grasslands where the play begins and ends, as well as the jungle where

Simba grows up, were brought to life by members of the chorus. Quite literally the marginalized background of the environment was brought forward and given kinetic life via performance. While most of the environment was created with traditional scenic design methods, such as Pride Rock (the huge rock formation where baby Simba is introduced at the start of the play)64, Rafiki’s tree, the receding waters of the lake, and the plant anthropomorphism of the grass and jungle plants was similar to that of the treatment of animals in the show; the performer was never hidden or denied, nor was the portrayal made cartoonish or comic. In the scene when Mufasa led his son Simba across the savanna to show him the kingdom that would be his one day, the grass was anthropomorphized by twenty-seven performers (Taymor 82). The costume design was nearly identical for the male and female performers, the only difference being the amount of chest area covered. From the waist down, all performers wore a see-through, bell-

63 Light boxes can be made in any shape, but in this case, they were tall cubes covered in fabric. Light units are usually placed at the bottom and the fabric defuses the light so that it becomes a pillar or column that can change colors based on the light units inside. 64 As a promotion for the stage production Disney created a 360-degree video which at the time of this writing could be found at https://www.lionking.com/. This shows Pride Rock rising from the stage floor.

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 shaped, floor-length beige skirt. On their heads, each wore large flat trays of tall green grasses. Their movements were reminiscent of a marching band, as they lined up, snaking in circles first for a puppet version then for a human version of the leading lion characters. These chanting, moving grasses are a physical reminder that they too are a part of the circle of life. The uniformity in look and movement of the grasslands was contradicted by the costumes for the chorus, in the jungle.

After Simba ran away from home, he spent his adolescence with two comedic characters, the meercat Timon and warthog Pumba in a green and lush jungle. While an ecocritical analysis of the comic depiction of these two characters is beyond the scope of this dissertation, an examination of the chorus members who became leafy green plants blending in with the scenery pieces is definitely relevant. For example, after Timon laid down on the costumed actor/dancers portraying grasses, he thanked them. Another moment of direct interaction came when Simba said that he wanted to go someplace greener, and the grasses turned to look at him. Later, during the song “Can You Feel the

Love Tonight,” nearly every performer had a different costume to suggest the wide variety of plants, flowers and trees in the jungle. Other performers were costumed as vines and performed over the rest of the cast on aerial silks. Unlike the performance of the grasslands, there was no uniformity in how the actors moved, but their anthropomorphism adds layers to the line in the song, “…the world for once in perfect harmony with all its living things.”

The anthropomorphism of inanimate life is not steeped in as many cultural traditions as that of animals, which in the western tradition dates back to Aesop’s fables.

Granted, many an elementary school creates theatrical productions where students

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 personify trees, clouds, etc., but it is rare to see adult level anthropomorphism of non- kinetic life, especially in the legitimate theatres of New York. While animal anthropomorphism is widely considered problematic by ecocritics unless handled in very specific ways,65 the rarity of anthropomorphizing inanimate life in the legitimate theatre provides few examples which compare to the use of it in The Lion King. However, one of the themes of the show is drawn from a song titled “Circle of Life” performed in both the original animated film and in the Broadway production. By bringing the grasses to life through dance, non-verbal communication, and acknowledgment by other characters, the circle is shown to include inanimate life. A New York Times editorial “Learning from

‘The Lion King’” published shortly after the show opened in 1997 makes nearly the same argument by saying:

Ms. Taymor’s re-conception of the meaning of anthropomorphism reconnects the audience to the meaning of one of the signature songs in “The Lion King”— “Circle of Life.” That song now not only links lions and antelopes, flesh and grass…She and her collaborators have Africanized “The Lion King” visually and musically, turning what was a piece of largely unlocalized fluff into a striking evocation of place. (4.16)

But it is not just performers who bring the landscape to life. Another moment when the environment is made to come to life, although not nearly as literally, occurs in the depiction of the watering hole drying up during a drought. This is made visual with a round piece of blue fabric which is slowly drawn through a hole in the center of the stage as if water were going down a drain. When I viewed this in the Broadway performance in 2015, I found myself wondering whether audience members sitting nearby might have

65 Una Chaudhuri most simply and succinctly summarized the two main principles of respectful interspecies performance as depictions in which “animals are not a metaphor” (4) and what is depicted should reference actual animals. While it is hard to escape the long history in the west of analyzing animals in theatre and literature as stand-ins for humans, we need to remind ourselves of their existence as actual members of a biological species. Ergo, the goal should be “literalization” (Animal Acts 4-5).

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 been more deeply impacted by this than those who witnessed the show in 1997. In the

2010s, droughts in places such as California and Texas have led to many news stories and images of boats abandoned on dry land as the lake on which they once floated receded far away and dwindled to nothing or next to nothing. It felt to me as if the environmental message of The Lion King became more obvious with time, while unfortunately, a design created fifteen years later by a designer who is committed to environmentalism did not create the same visual impact.

Peter and the Starcatcher is a prequel story to J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan based on a novel written by Dave Berry and Ridley Pearson. The play follows the novel somewhat faithfully, but liberties were taken in the interest of time and simplicity. The story of the play is that of an orphan boy without a name who is sold into slavery/servitude and put on a ship with other orphan boys who have suffered the same fate. Also on the ship are

Molly and her father, who are members of a group dedicated to harvesting a magical substance known as “starstuff.” In an unpublished paper presented at the 2015 Earth

Matters on Stage conference, I argue that starstuff, Barry and Pearson’s name for pixie dust, functions as an eco-toxin because only starcatchers are trained enough to safely handle this substance that can allow people or animals to fly, or, with a large enough dose, transmogrify living things. Molly and her father are transporting a chest with a vast quantity of starstuff and trying to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. Act 1 ends with the ship crashing off the shores of Mollusk Island which is later given the name

Neverland, and act 2 begins with mermaids. Thanks to some of the contents of the trunk spilling into the lagoon, all of the fish have been turned into mermaids. Act 2 takes place on different parts of the island where Black Stache (later to become Captain Hook) loses

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 his hand to a crocodile and the orphaned boys (later to become the lost boys) are captured by “natives,” who are actually Englishmen who were shipwrecked on the island long ago.

After many misadventures, a rescue ship comes, but the nameless boy, now taking the name Peter, decides to stay, since starstuff has transformed him as well and he will never grow up.

Rick Elice was tasked with converting the novel into a play based on bare bones workshopping conducted by director Roger Rees, known for his role acting in Nicholas

Nickelby, a show which inspired the performance style of Starcatcher. During the summer of 2007, fifteen actors were brought together in San Diego to create “poor theatre” with minimal props. Ropes, boards, wooden boxes and the actor’s bodies were used in many creative ways to form walls, doorways, trees, etc. The goal was to give the play a sense of youthful imagination, yet Rees and his co-director Alex Timbers felt that when moved to New York, the show would need more visual support. This is when scenic designer Donyale Werle joined the production. One of the things for which Werle is known is creating eco-friendly sets via up-cycling where she builds vast and beautiful sets out of things that other people consider garbage. She is so devoted to environmentalism and reducing waste that she was one of the founding members of the

Broadway Green Alliance. For act 1 of Starcatcher, all the wood used to create the impression of being onboard ships at sea was reused scaffolding boards and pallet wood.

During the first act, the backdrop and side curtains seen in act 2 were already in place but were mostly hidden behind slats of wood used to create the impression of the bowels of the ships, or kept dark as tight area-lighting drew the audience’s attention to the rough pallet wood floor, moveable ladder, or close clusters of characters using ropes

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 or other hand props to create scenery. Due to the use of ropes to create the impression of tiny doorways and the tight area-lighting, the overall image burned into the minds of the audience during this act was a world of late nineteenth century man-made, cramped spaces. While of the industrial age, the design elements communicate that this was still a time of wood rather than metal, and natural rather than synthetic fibers. This act depicted the civilization side of the nature/culture binary where the ship is dark, confining, and generally unwelcoming. It was designed to resemble the life that the boy who will become Peter previously experienced. Ropes were used to frame and create the illusion of spaces so small that even boys could not stand up and the lattice lighting from above completed the illusion that the orphan boys, and most others on the ship, lived in the cage of society. There was no sea to be seen in this act, for being on the ocean is not freedom, but a transport from one prison to another. However, there is another layer to these design choices when looking at them ecocritically. That which was man-made in the first act can still be connected to the natural elements that were used to make them because they mimicked the material world of the late nineteenth century. The upcycled wood looked like wood, the rope looked like natural fiber rope, the costumes were made of fabrics that look, from the audience perspective, to be natural fibers and in general, the observer was given the impression that everything onstage is grounded in the reality of

1885 when the story was set. This was not true in the second act.

While the actors taking an active part in the creation of the scenery continues as it had in act 1, the look in act 2 changes. In this act, the wooden slats which created walls below decks were removed to reveal a framing device surrounding the actors on three sides. The backdrop drapery was copied on each side to create a three-sided box around

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 the acting space. Rather than hanging taut like the cyclorama in The Lion King, the surround used for Starcatcher was made of rear projection screens overlaid with sown- together pieces of material from the sets and costumes for Disney’s The Little Mermaid66

(Elice 154). This created the look of billowing and bunching in rolling layers like balloon curtains. This resulted in a great deal of texture for the lighting, and since many of the bits of fabric contained plastics or other synthetic materials, the drops were also highly reflective. So while The Lion King generally lit the cyclorama evenly with the same color, or produced a slow decrease in the color value as the distance from the source increased, the layers in the Starcatcher drapery produced very different effects.

When lit from behind with a uniform color, the result onstage had wide value differences because of the differences in the fabrics used. More interesting, however, were the effects created when different color lighting came in from the side. The color variations created jungles in shades of green and yellow, and oceans in shades of blue and purple, that were reminiscent of an impressionist painting.

After the mermaid prologue, scene 1 of the second act started with the stage direction, “Mollusk Island – a sense of enormous space, clear skies, bright sun, clean air.

Peter is asleep on the Queen’s trunk” (91). Werle’s set provided what the stage directions called for, with a mostly bare stage boxed on three sides by the highly reflective backdrop that, when filled by Jeff Croiter’s lighting, created a huge contrast with the look of the previous act. As the stage directions requested, this space reflected the freedom and space that Peter never found in the civilized world, but it was a plastic world of

66 Peter and the Starcatcher was also funded by the Disney corporation. After The Little Mermaid closed in 2009, the decision was made to store all the scenic elements rather than dispose of them. Therefore, this became not just a cost saving measure in the creation of Starcatcher but a treasure trove of creative ideas to inspire Werle’s design for Starcatcher in 2010.

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 hyperreality. Unlike the novel where Mullusk Island was only magical in the places touched by starstuff, in the stage version, reality and the real world were left behind in a fantasy location constructed with a large amount of plastic and synthetic materials.

Although all the characters from act 1 brought with them the outward appearance of the late nineteenth century in their costumes, they entered a world of postmodern simulacra that spoke to the audience on a subliminal level.

As in the first act, props used by the actors helped to create the environment.

These included boogie boards covered in green fabric and bits of shiny plastic, standing in for giant leaves, and green umbrellas to create the top layer of the jungle canopy when

Molly looked around to try to get her bearings. Since these things functioned as props, the choices of objects most likely grew out of the workshopping process. Only the look of these things was in the hands of the designer, but without a doubt the set and lighting created a design aesthetic for the second act of this play that was both postmodern and takes nature out of Neverland. The giant leaves, for example, were constructed so that they could stand upright on the floor. In scene 2, set in the jungle, the leaves were set up in three staggered rows so that characters could hide behind them when crouched down, pop up behind one then the next, or lift them to stay hidden as they moved, like a shield.

The intention was to create the density of foliage in the jungle which allowed the people trying to steal the starstuff to follow Peter and Molly through the jungle without being seen. The freestanding and yet moveable giant leaves allowed the stage to be full yet allowed the actors to still be seen by the audience. Yet, while this abstraction added beauty and playfulness that was stylistically appropriate in relation to how the first act was staged, it is troubling when examined via ecocriticism. The only reason why the

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 boogie boards were read as leaves is because of the use of color, shape and lighting, since the covering over them did not contain the vein pattern that is universal to the structure of a leaf. Since the surround was all green and the stage filled with green and yellow patterned lighting, the stage could be read to be a jungle in the imagination of a child, much like the ship’s bowels in act 1. Multiple shades of green, with texture due to layering of upcycled trash, gave the boogie boards a look that could be understood as an abstract leaf while the audience could clearly still perceive that it was a boogie board, and thereby understand it to be synthetic to its core. However, if one transfers Chaudhuri’s argument that in order to prevent animals from being marginalized their depiction must reference actual animals to apply to other more-than-human life, then this abstraction of a jungle clearly coated in plastic becomes problematic. This bright and shiny design perpetuated the idea that a plastic world could or would be more beautiful than our own.

Shelly R. Scott argues that the plastic and fictional are similarly made more attractive in

Disney’s Animal Kingdom (DAK) than the actual flora and fauna which they claim as the mission of the park. As Scott explains when examining the packaging of the hyperreal in

DAK, “When the fake is preferred to the original, preserving nature becomes a long shot at best—and impossible at worst” (113). Part of the argument of Scott’s essay is that

Disney is participating in an already existing social problem, especially prevalent in

America, where the hyperreal is valued over the real. While the Starcatcher audience understood that what they clearly knew to be boogie boards were standing in for leaves, and umbrellas were used to represent a canopy of trees, a jungle was not evoked. When the lighting hit those objects covered in plastic, it becomes questionable whether there was any referent at all in this representation, since we do not live on a plastic planet. In

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 this production, Neverland is a hyperreality disconnected from the more-than-human world, and this cultural artifact perpetuating the idea of a plastic world as beautiful can also be dangerous. We cannot migrate to a new planet, we cannot bring back extinct species, and we cannot eat plastic food.

It is widely known that, similar to the fairytale setting for Into the Woods,

Neverland is a fantasy location which exists only in the human imagination. However,

Taymor made the decision to clarify what was a vague African location in the animated film The Lion King by grounding the Broadway production in South Africa, and Straiges chose to evoke an American east coast woodland. Werle, on the other hand, created a simulacrum which only barely references a jungle. While this may be appropriate for the play, given both the genre of the script and the style of presentation, in the midst of a climate change emergency, the design choices of an open space wilderness environment made of plastic denies agency and intrinsic value to non-human life. Unlike Into the

Woods and The Lion King, which each created a sense of place that grounded the abstract elements and forged a direct link to the environment outside the theatre, Starcatcher offers a non-Earthly jungle. The branch-based trees of Into the Woods originated in the woods of upstate New York, while both savanna and jungles in The Lion King were born from those in southern Africa. All three of these fantasy locations were written as Earth- based, not set on a distant planet with different forms of life. Although the jungle of

Neverland is a fantasy location, by depicting it as hyperreal through design, the intrinsic value of actual Earth-based flora is denied.

Chaudhuri states in “Animal Rites: Performing beyond the Human,” “…the roots of our ecological crisis lie in mimesis, particularly the literalistic mimesis upon which the

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021 modern theater’s most successful aesthetic – realism – rests. As technologies of artificial replication and reproduction generated ever more seductive and spectacular sound- and color-saturated versions of reality, nature itself recedes into a drab, inexpressive, and uninteresting silence” (510). While the spirit of Chaudhuri’s argument is one with which

I agree, I argue the issue is not the realism of the past, as this was spectacular to the viewers of the past, but rather the hyperreality of simulacra that audiences currently crave and which the Neverland set provides. While this is appropriate to the style of the play, when examined ecocritically, it becomes problematic in how it distances the audience from the environment. If nature is depicted as plastic and made hyper-real, then the

“impossible standard for what they perceive to be ‘authentic’ and unforgettable nature” are heightened and perpetuated.

Conclusion – A Question Left to Dramaturgs and Designers

The goal of this dissertation is to raise questions and make analytical observations. While my audience is the academic theatre community, this dissertation should not be read as an intrusion or a directive. Instead, by holding up a mirror to the past and examining choices in light of emerging philosophical arguments, this dissertation seeks to provide fodder for the continued questioning of stylistic choices, especially in light of a looming climate change emergency. This is not meant to be the end of the conversation about designing nature… Just the beginning.

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---, editor. The Best Plays of 1922-23: And the Yearbook of the Drama in America. New York: Arno, 1975.

---, editor. The Best Plays of 1923-24: And the Yearbook of the Drama in America. New York: Arno, 1969.

---, editor. The Best Plays of 1924-25: And the Yearbook of the Drama in America. New York: Arno, 1975.

---, editor. The Best Plays of 1925-26: And the Yearbook of the Drama in America. New York: Arno, 1969.

---, editor. The Best Plays of 1926-27: And the Yearbook of the Drama in America. New York: Arno, 1969.

---, editor. The Best Plays of 1927-28: And the Yearbook of the Drama in America. New York: Arno, 1975.

---, editor. The Best Plays of 1928-29: And the Yearbook of the Drama in America. New York: Arno, 1976.

---, editor. The Best Plays of 1929-30: And the Yearbook of the Drama in America. New York: Arno, 1930.

---, editor. The Best Plays of 1930-31: And the Yearbook of the Drama in America. New York: Arno, 1977.

---, editor. The Best Plays of 1931-32: And the Yearbook of the Drama in America. New York: Arno, 1975.

---, editor. The Best Plays of 1932-33: And the Yearbook of the Drama in America. New York: Arno, 1969.

---, editor. The Best Plays of 1933-34: And the Yearbook of the Drama in America. New York: Arno, 1976.

---, editor. The Best Plays of 1934-35: And the Yearbook of the Drama in America. New York: Arno, 1975.

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---, editor. The Best Plays of 1935-36: And the Yearbook of the Drama in America. New York: Arno, 1975.

---, editor. The Best Plays of 1936-37: And the Yearbook of the Drama in America. New York: Arno, 1975.

---, editor. The Best Plays of 1937-38: And the Yearbook of the Drama in America. New York: Arno, 1978.

---, editor. The Best Plays of 1938-39: And the Yearbook of the Drama in America. New York: Arno, 1977.

---, editor. The Best Plays of 1939-40: And the Yearbook of the Drama in America. New York: Arno, 1975.

---, editor. The Best Plays of 1940-41: And the Yearbook of the Drama in America. New York: Arno, 1941.

---, editor. The Best Plays of 1941-42: And the Yearbook of the Drama in America. New York: Arno, 1975.

---, editor. The Best Plays of 1942-43: And the Yearbook of the Drama in America. New York: Arno, 1943.

---, editor. The Best Plays of 1943-44: And the Yearbook of the Drama in America. New York: Arno, 1975.

---, editor. The Best Plays of 1944-45: And the Yearbook of the Drama in America. New York: Arno, 1975.

---, editor. The Best Plays of 1945-46: And the Yearbook of the Drama in America. New York: Arno, 1975.

---, editor. The Best Plays of 1946-47: And the Yearbook of the Drama in America. New York: Arno, 1975.

Mantle, Burns, and Garrison P. Sherwood, editors. The Best Plays of 1899-1909: New York: Dodd, Mead, 1944.

---, editors. The Best Plays of 1909-1919: New York: Dodd, Mead, 1945.

Marker, Lise-Lone. David Belasco: Naturalism in the American Theatre. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1975.

Marx, Leo. The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2000.

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May, Theresa J. “Beyond Bambi: Toward a Dangerous Ecocriticism in Theatre Studies.” Theatre Topics 17.2 (2007): 95-110.

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---. “Greening the Theater: Taking Ecocriticism from Page to Stage.” Interdisciplinary Literary Studies: A Journal of Criticism and Theory 7.1 (2005): 84-103.

McConachie, Bruce A. “Theatre and Performance in Modern Media Cultures, 1850- 1970.” Theatre Histories: an Introduction, 2nd ed., New York: Routledge, 2006. 299-452.

McLaughlin, Andrew. “The Heart of Deep Ecology.” Deep Ecology for the 21st Century: Readings on the Philosophy and Practice of the New Environmentalism. Ed. George Sessions. Boston: Shambhala, 1995. 85-94.

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Meyer, David R. “The New Industrial Order.” The Making of the American Landscape. Ed. Michael P. Conzen. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990. 249-292.

Meyers, Patrick. K2. New York: Dramatist’s Play Service, 1983.

Mielziner, Jo. Designing for the Theatre; A Memoir and a Portfolio. New York: Bramhall House, 1965.

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Miller, Char. “Forward.” Wilderness and the American Mind. By Roderick Frazier Nash. Fifth ed. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press 2014.

Moody, William Vaughn. “The Great Divide.” Best Plays of the Early American Theatre; 1787-1911. Ed. John and Mollie Gassner. New York: Dover, 1967. 361-397.

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Morris, Pam. Realism. New York: Routledge, 2011.

Moses, Montrose J. "Preface and Introductions." Representative American Dramas: National and Local. Ed. Montrose J. Moses. Boston: Little, Brown, 1926. Vii+.

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Murphy, Brenda. American Realism and American Drama, 1880-1940. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1987.

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Rich, Frank. “200 Years of a Nation’s Sorrows, in 9 Chapters.” The New York Times, 15 Nov. 1993, p. C.13.

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Smith, Henry Nash. Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1978.

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Zierold, Norman J., editor. Theatre Arts. New York: Theatre Arts, Inc. 1963-1963.

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APPENDIX A Table of Scenic Locations for The Best Plays of… Yearbook Series

Note: The Best Plays of… Yearbook series catalogs many plays that were successfully produced in America but were written by foreign authors. These plays have been eliminated from this table so that the list below contains only American plays. * = Between the years of 1947 and 1955 only the winners of the design Tony were announced. The nominee names were not made public.

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I created the following color-code to separate out relevant settings: Text in blue = settings that are outside, but contain human constructions or alterations to the landscape Text in green = outdoor, open space, wilderness settings. Note: Shows that have “wilderness settings” do not necessarily call for them to be fully realized or depicted through design, for this and other reasons not all settings with green text are explored in this dissertation.

Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Fitch, Clyde Act I – facades of three houses, 2 1899-1900 Mantle Barbara Frietchie: play in with porches, 1 set back with a yard & Sherwood (Best four acts Act II – minister’s living room Plays of 1899- Act III – Frietchie living room 1909) Act IV – Barbara’s bedroom Fitch, Clyde Act I – drawing room in NYC 1900-1901 Mantle Climbers, The: drama in four Act II – dining room same home & Sherwood (Best acts Act III – yard in winter, swing and Plays of 1899- shrubs covered in snow 1909) Act IV – library w/ Christmas decor Belasco, David & John (typical Belasco preshow drop 1902-1903 Mantle Luther Long image) & Sherwood (Best Darling of the Gods, The: Pic 1 – distant mountains & Buddha Plays of 1899- drama in five acts Pic 2 – prince’s garden 1909) Act I – great hall ready for a feast Act II – a crossroads by a hill Act III – Yo-San’s sanctuary Act IV – a sword room Act V – ruined shrine in a forest Ade, George Act I – street in front of general 1903-1904 Mantle Country Chairman, The: store & Sherwood (Best comedy in four acts Act II – decorated speaking Plays of 1899- platform for campaign meeting in 1909) town square

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Act III – shabby law office Act IV – town hall on election night McLellan, C. M. S. Act I – living room w/ view of Paris 1904-1905 Mantle Leah Kleschna: drama in five Act II – ornate study full of books & Sherwood (Best acts Act III – same Plays of 1899- Act IV – same as Act I 1909) Act V – expansive vegetable garden to horizon on painted backdrop Royal, Edwin Milton Act I – a thickly timbered park in 1905-1906 Mantle Squaw Man, The: a drama in England between a house and abbey & Sherwood (Best four acts Act II – saloon in a Western town Plays of 1899- Act III & IV – ranch yard between 1909) house and barn with Utah mountains in the background Moody, William Vaughn Act I – cabin in southern Arizona 1906-1907 Mantle Great Divide, The: a drama Act II – outside Ghent cabin at the & Sherwood (Best in three acts edge of a deep canyon. Plays of 1899- Act III – sitting room New England 1909) Thomas, Augustus Act I – library and cardroom in 1907-1908 Mantle Witching Hour, The: a drama home in Louisville & Sherwood (Best in four acts Act II – living room in home in DC Plays of 1899- Act III – Brookfield’s library 1909) Act IV – another living room Tarkington, Booth & Harry Act I – hotel terrace with view of 1908-1909 Mantle Leon Wilson the Bay of Naples on summer day & Sherwood (Best Man from Home, The: a Act II – entrance garden of the hotel Plays of 1899- comedy in four acts Act III – handsome private salon 1909) Act IV – back on the terrace Walter, Eugene Act I – terrace of a home in 1909-1910 Mantle Easiest Way, The: a drama in Colorado & Sherwood (Best four acts Act II – rented room in NY City Plays of 1909- Act III – hotel room in theatre 1919) district Act IV – same Smith, Harry James Act I – living room on Long Island 1910-1911 Mantle Mrs. Bumpstead-Leigh: a Act II & III – porch of the house & Sherwood (Best comedy in three acts Plays of 1909- 1919) Sheldon, Edward Pro – library of a home in NYC 1912-1913 Mantle Romance: a drama in Act I – drawing room, different & Sherwood (Best prologue, three acts and home in NYC Plays of 1909- epilogue Act II – study in a rectory in NYC 1919) Act III – richly furnished hotel suite Ep – same as Act II

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Cohan, George M. Unit set – roomy office of the 1913-1914 Mantle Seven Keys to Baldpate: a Baldpate Inn in the mountains & Sherwood (Best comedy in prologue, two acts (winter storm frosted up the Plays of 1909- & epilogue windows) 1919) Rice, Elmer Pro – the court room 1914-1915 Mantle On Trial: a drama in four Act I – Trask home library & Sherwood (Best acts S2 – the court room Plays of 1909- Act II – the court room 1919) S2 – Strickland sitting room S3 – the court room Act III – the court room S2 – Long Island hotel room S3 – the court room Ep – the jury and court rooms Anspacher, Louis Kaufman Act I – drawing room in NYC 1915-1916 Mantle Unchastened Woman. The: a Act II & III – small living room/ & Sherwood (Best comedy in three acts kitchen of a tenement apartment Plays of 1909- 1919) Kummer, Clare Act I – lobby of a hotel in NYC 1916-1917 Mantle Good Gracious Annabelle: a Act II – servant’s hall in the country & Sherwood (Best comedy in three acts Act III – a room for tea at the Lodge Plays of 1909- 1919) Williams, Jesse Lynch Unit set – summer sun is streaming 1917-1918 Mantle Why Marry?: a comedy in into a sun porch in a handsome & Sherwood (Best three acts country house Plays of 1909- 1919) O’Neill, Eugene Act I – the road at sunset 1919-1920 Mantle Beyond the Horizon: a S2 – the farm house tragedy in three acts Act II – the farm house S2 – top of the hill on the farm Act III – the farm house S2 – the road at sunrise Aikins, Zoe Act I – Halden’s drawing room 1919-1920 Mantle Declasse: a drama in three Act II – lounge in a NY hotel acts Act III – room with antique furniture Field, Salisbury Unit set – Carter’s NY apartment 1919-1920 Mantle Wedding Bells: a comedy in three acts Butler, Rachel Barton Act I – Massachusetts hotel room 1919-1920 Mantle Mamma’s Affair: a comedy Act II – sun parlor in the hotel in three acts Act III – doctor’s living room Bolton, Guy & George Act I – the King home, Long Island 1919-1920 Mantle Middleton Act II – same Act III – King farm in New Jersey

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Adam and Eva: a comedy in three acts Tarkington, Booth Act I – ante-room of Wheeler office 1919-1920 Mantle Clarence: a comedy in four Act II-IV – the Wheeler home acts Craven, Frank Act I – living room in Reading, Ill. 1920-1921 Mantle First Year, The: An Act II – small Joplin apartment American Comedy in Three Act III – same as Act I Acts Crothers, Rachel Act I – Park Avenue home, NYC 1920-1921 Mantle Nice People: An American Act II – summer cottage, Long Comedy Drama in Three Island Acts Act III – same Brown, Porter Emerson Unit set – inside the house on a 1920-1921 Mantle Bad Man, The: An American cattle ranch near the Mexico border Drama in Three Acts in Arizona O’Neill, Eugene S1 – palace of Emperor Jones 1920-1921 Mantle Emperor Jones, The: A Play S2 – edge of the Great Forest, dusk in Eight Scenes S3-S7 – in the forest S8 – same as scene two O’Neill, Eugene Act I – saloon near the waterfront 1921-1922 Mantle Anna Christie: A Drama in NY Three Acts Act II – barge in harbor with fog in Provincetown, Mass Act III & IV – cabin of the barge Kaugman, George S. & Marc Unit set – living room of a home in 1921-1922 Mantle Connelly Westchester County outside NYC Duley: An American decorated in an old Italian style Comedy in Three Acts McGuire, William Anthony Act I – adjoining back yards, 1921-1922 Mantle Six Cylinder Love: A separated by a high board fence Comedy in Three Acts Act II – attractive living room Act III – old apartment in NYC Emery, Gilbert Act I – dining room, house near NY 1921-1922 Mantle Hero, The: A Tragi-Comedy Act II – sitting room of same house in Three Acts Act III – same Richman, Arthur Unit set – living/dining room small 1921-1922 Mantle Ambush: A Drama in Three home near Jersey City Acts Colton, John & Clemence Unit set – semi-public living-room 1922-1923 Mantle Randolph back of the general store and hotel, Rain: A Drama in Three island in the South Seas Acts Barry, Philip Act I – library of a summer home in 1922-1923 Mantle Westchester county, New York

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor You and I: A Comedy in Act II – attic converted into a studio Three Acts Act III – same Davis, Owen Act I – drab parlor in Maine 1922-1923 Mantle Icebound: A Drama in Three Act II – sitting room of same house Acts Act III – return to the parlor Williams, Jesse Lynch Unit set – library of a country home 1922-1923 Mantle Why Not?: A Comedy in (not on Long Island) Three Acts Pollock, Channing Act I – inside a church in New York 1922-1923 Mantle Fool, The: A Drama in Four Act II – Goodkind’s dining room Acts Act III – clubroom of a mission Act IV – study above the clubroom Kaufman, George & Marc Act I – General store in Illinois 1922-1923 Mantle Connelly Act II – outside a movie studio lot Merton of the Movies: A Act III – on the movie set Comedy in Four Acts Act IV – Baird’s office S2 – Merton’s rooming house Marquis, Don Unit set – living-room of the 1922-1923 Mantle Old Soak, The: A Comedy in Hawley cottage in New York Three Acts Crothers, Rachel Unit set – living-room of the home 1922-1923 Mantle Mary the 3D: A Comedy in a of the three Marys Prologue and Three Acts Kelly, George Unit set – Fisher family living-room 1923-1924 Mantle Show-Off, The: A Comedy in North Philadelphia Drama in Three Acts Hughes, Hatcher Unit set – room in a rough board 1923-1924 Mantle Hell-Bent fer Heaven: A home in the Carolina mountains Play in Three Acts Beach, Lewis Unit set – living-room of a home in 1923-1924 Mantle Goose Hangs High, The: A a small city in the middle west Comedy in Three Acts Kaufman, George S. & Marc Act I – apartment of a composer in 1923-1924 Mantle Connelly Greenwich Village Beggar on Horseback: A Act II – a court room Fantastic Comedy in Two S2 – a bank of four cells Parts Dodd, Lee Wilson Act I – library/living-room of a 1923-1924 Mantle Changelings, The: A well-to-do book publisher Comedy in Three Acts Act II – bachelor apartment in Central Park South Act III – same as Act I Vollmer, Lula Unit set – living-room of a cabin, 1923-1924 Mantle Sun-Up: A Drama in Three 1917 (possible view of woods outside the window) Acts

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Bolton, Guy Act I – Danny’s living-room 1923-1924 Mantle Chicken Feed: A Comedy in Act II – Logan cottage living-room Three Acts S2 – same as Act I Act III – Danny’s place transformed into an office (Note: walls do not change because Danny is selling these cottages, so only contents change) Emery, Gilbert Act I – Living-room 189th St. NYC 1923-1924 Mantle Tarnish: A Drama in Three Act II – small apt in the 40s, NYC Acts Act III – same as Act I Stallings, Laurence & Act I – Marine company 1924-1925 Mantle Maxwell Anderson headquarters in a French village in What Price Glory?: A 1918 Drama in Three Acts Act II – cellar in a disputed town Act III – Cognac Pete’s tavern Howard, Sidney Unit set – living and dining room of 1924-1925 Mantle They Knew What They a farmhouse in the Napa Valley of Wanted: A Comedy Drama California in Three Acts O’Neill, Eugene Unit set – inside and immediately 1924-1925 Mantle Desire Under the Elms: A outside the Cabot farmhouse in New Play in Three Parts England, 1850 Mayer, Edwin Justus Act I – workshop in Florence 1924-1925 Mantle Firebrand, The: A Comedy Act II – garden of Duke’s palace in Three Acts S2 – balcony outside the bedroom window of the Duke & Duchess Act III – same as Act I Selwyn, Edgar & Edmund Act I – living-room in Long Island 1924-1925 Mantle Goulding Act II – Roof Club, New York Dancing Mothers: A Drama Act III – Naughton’s apartment in Four Acts Act IV – same as Act I Kennedy, Mary & Ruth Act I – living-room Partridge home 1924-1925 Mantle Hawthorne Act II – same (NYC) Mrs. Partridge Presents: A Act III – the Hat Shop Comedy in Three Acts Abbott, George & James Unit set – combination living/dining 1924-1925 Mantle Gleason room/kitchen of flat on Columbus Fall Guy, The: A Comedy in Ave, NYC Three Acts Barry, Philip Act I – living-room upstate NY 1924-1925 Mantle Youngest, The: A Comedy in Act II – the porch, 4th of July Three Acts Act III – same as Act I Ferber, Edna & George S. Unit set – living-room of an 1924-1925 Mantle Kaufman apartment on South Park Ave, Chicago

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Minick: A Comedy in Three Acts Totheroh, Dan Act I – yard of the Slag homestead 1924-1925 Mantle Wild Birds: A Tragedy in with prairie in the background Three Acts Act II – the same, a month later S2 – outside a meeting tent S3 & 4 – far out in the prairie Act III – same yard as Act I S2 – room in the attic S3 – back in the yard Kelly, George Unit set – grand living-room of the 1925-1926 Mantle Craig’s Wife: A Drama in Craig house Three Acts O’Neill, Eugene P – Pier of the Casino 1925-1926 Mantle Great God Brown, The: A Act I – Margaret’s sitting room Drama in Four Acts S2 – Brown’s private office S3 – Cybel’s parlor Act II – Cybel’s parlor, 7 years later S2 – different room in Brown’s office S3 – Brown’s library Act III – Brown’s office, months later S2 – Brown’s library S3 – Margaret’s sitting room Act IV – Brown’s office S2 – Brown’s library Ep – Pier of the Casino Pollock, Channing Unit set – living and dining room of 1925-1926 Mantle Enemy, The: A Drama in a flat in Vienna starting just before Four Acts WWI Hurlbut, William Unit set – living-room of a house in 1925-1926 Mantle Bride of the Lamb: A Drama a small town in the Middle West in Three Acts Kaufman, George Act I – Production office NYC 1925-1926 Mantle Butter and Egg Man, The: A Act II – hotel room in Syracuse Comedy in Three Acts Act III – same as Act I Connelly, Marc Act I – a wash room 1925-1926 Mantle Wisdom Tooth, The: A S2 – dentist’s reception room Comedy in Three Acts S3 – the fireplace at Mrs. Poole’s Act II – at Mrs. Poole’s S2 – a forgotten circus S3 – Mr. Porter’s office Act III – the fireplace at Mrs. Poole’s

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Dunning, Philip & George Unit set – private party room of the 1926-1927 Mantle Abbott Paradise Night Club, NYC Broadway: Drama in Three Acts Anderson, Maxwell Act I – Halevy dining room, NYC 1926-1927 Mantle Saturday’s Children: apt Comedy in Three Acts Act II – O’Neil’s kitchen-dining room Act III – room in a boarding house Watkins, Maurine Act I – Roxie’s bedroom, South 1926-1927 Mantle Chicago: Drama in Three Side Acts Act II – Women’s Ward county jail Act III – Prisoners’ room in the criminal court building S2 – Judge Canton’s court Sherwood, Robert Emmet Act I – courtyard in center of house 1926-1927 Mantle Road to Rome, The: Comedy Act II – temple covered with in Three Acts drapery Act III – Hannibal’s tent Howard, Sidney Act I – living-room in an Eastern 1926-1927 Mantle Silver Cord, The: Drama in city Three Acts Act II – same S2 – David’s bedroom Act III – same as Act I Kelly, George Unit set – parlor of a home 1926-1927 Mantle Daisy Mayme: Comedy in somewhere within 3 hours of Three Acts Atlantic City Green, Paul S1 - turpentine woods of NE 1926-1927 Mantle In Abraham’s Bosom: Drama Carolina in Seven Scenes S2 – two-room nearly bare cabin S3 – one room negro cabin S4 – room in poor area of Durham S5 – same as S2 S6 – country road in the woods S7 – same as S2 O’Neill, Eugene Act I – Library in Leeds home in 1927-1928 Mantle Strange Interlude: Drama in univ town in New England, summer Nine Acts 1919 S2 – same a year later S3 – Evans homestead, the next year S4 – Leeds living room AII – sitting room, NY suburb house S6 – same a year later AIII – terrace on long island estate

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor S8 & 9 – same, but later Kaufman, George & Edna Unit set – duplex apartment in the 1927-1928 Mantle Ferber East Fifties, New York City Royal Family, The: A Comedy in Three Acts Watters, George Manker & Act I – dressing room in a theatre 1927-1928 Mantle Arthur Hopkins AII – living room of hotel suite Burlesque: Drama AIII – stage of theatre in N.J. Abbott, George & Ann Unit set – living room of a home in 1927-1928 Mantle Bridgers a small town in the South Coquette: Drama Kelly, George Act I – lounge in a country estate 1927-1928 Mantle Behold the Bridegroom: AII – same, 4 weeks later Drama in Three Acts AIII – library of same house Heyward, Du Bose & Act I – Catfish row, summer 1927-1928 Mantle Dorothy S2 – Serena’s room, following night Porgy: Drama in Four Acts AII – Catfish row, a month later S2 – Kattiwah Island S3 – Catfish row, a week later S4 – Serena’s room AIII – Catfish row Barry, Philip Unit set – hotel apartment in Paris 1927-1928 Mantle Paris Bound: Comedy in Three Acts Cormack, Bartlett Unit set – outlying Chicago police 1927-1928 Mantle Racket, The: Drama in Three station Acts Rice, Elmer Unit set – a sidewalk in New York 1928-1929 Mantle Street Scene: Drama in Three City Acts Barry, Philip Act I – 3rd fl room, Seton house 1928-1929 Mantle Holiday: Comedy in Three NYC Acts Act II – Top floor of Seton house Act III – same, 12 days later MacArthur, Charles Unit set – press room of the 1928-1929 Mantle Front Page, The: Drama in Criminal Courts Building, Chicago Three Acts Crothers, Rachel P – Kitty’s bedroom, in California 1928-1929 Mantle Let Us Be Gay: Comedy in Act I-III – Mrs. Boucicault’s place Three Acts in Westchester Dell, Floyd Act I – dining room in a home in 1928-1929 Mantle Little Accident: Comedy in Vickley, Ill. Three Acts Act II – Reception room in a Hospital, Chicago Act III – boarding house, Chicago

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Treadwell, Sophie S1 – in an Office 1928-1929 Mantle Machinal: Drama in Ten S2 – in a flat Scenes S3 – in a hotel S4 – in a hospital S5 – in a speakeasy S6 – in a furnished room S7 – in a drawing room Anderson, Maxwell Act I – living room of an apartment 1928-1929 Mantle Gypsy: Drama in Three Acts in West 18th St., New York City Act II – same, 4 months later Act III – one-room apartment in East 41st St., New York City Connelly, Marc Act I – the Sunday School 1929-1930 Mantle The Green Pastures: A Fable S2 – a fish fry Play in Eighteen Scenes S3 – a garden S4 – outside the garden S5 – a roadside S6 – a private office S7 – another roadside S8 – a house S9 – a hillside S10 – a mountain top Act II – the private office S2 – the mouth of a cave S3 – a throne room S4 – the foot of a mountain S5 – a cabaret S6 – the private office S7 – outside a temple S8 – another fish fry Flavin, Martin P – office of State’s Attorney 1929-1930 Mantle The Criminal Code: A Act I – laboratory of a state prison Drama in Prologue and S2 – juke mill inside the prison Three Acts S3 – mess hall S4 – cell block S5 – warden’s office Act II – Warden’s living room S2 – Warden’s office Act III – Warden’s living room S2 – Warden’s office S3 – dungeon row S4 – Warden’s office Balderston, John L. Unit set – mourning room of a 1929-1930 Mantle Berkeley Square: A Play in house of the Queen Anne period in Three Acts London, 1784 to 1928

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Sturges, Preston Act I – speakeasy on W. 49th St, NY 1929-1930 Mantle Strictly Dishonorable: A Act II – rear apartment upstairs over Comedy in Three Acts the speakeasy Act III – same Wexley, John Unit set – a row of cells in a death- 1929-1930 Mantle The Last Mile: A Tragedy in house of a penitentiary in Keystone, Three Acts Oklahoma Lardner, Ring & George S. P – in a parlor car 1929-1930 Mantle Kaufman Act I – Paul Sears’ place June Moon: A Comedy in Act II – a room at Goebel’s Three Acts Act III – same Ferris, Walter Unit set – a great hall in the castle of 1929-1930 Mantle Death Takes a Holiday: A Duke Lambert Drama in Three Acts Stewart, Donald Ogden Act I – country home near NYC 1929-1930 Mantle Rebound: A Comedy in Act II – living room of a hotel suite Three Acts in Paris Act III – same as Act I Anderson, Maxwell P – entrance hall in the palace at 1930-1931 Mantle Elizabeth the Queen: A Whitehall with door to council room Drama in Three Acts Act I & II – the queen’s study Act III – the council chamber Barry, Philip Unit set – the living room of a house 1930-1931 Mantle Tomorrow and Tomorrow: A in Redmanton, Indiana Drama in Three Acts Hart, Moss & George S. Act I – room in the West 40s, NY 1930-1931 Mantle Kaufman S2 – a Pullman car Once in a Lifetime: A S3 – gold room, hotel in Los Comedy in Three Acts Angeles Act II – on the set of a studio S2 – the Pullman S3 – the reception room Riggs, Lynn Unit set – the front room of a house 1930-1931 Mantle Green Grow the Lilacs: A in Oklahoma, but also shows the Play in Six Scenes yard on both sides Crothers, Rachel P – a café in Paris 1930-1931 Mantle As Husbands Go: A Comedy Unit set – living-room in a house, in Three Acts ten miles from Dubuque, Iowa Glaspell, Susan Act I & II – library of home in Iowa 1930-1931 Mantle Alison’s House: A Drama in Act III – bedroom in same house Three Acts Weitzenkorn, Louis Act I – editor office Evening 1930-1931 Mantle Five Star Final: A Gazette Melodrama in Three Acts S2 – Gazette owner’s office S3 – Rev. Isopod’s office

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor S4 – speakeasy S5 – Brannegan’s office S6 – a rewrite office S7 – editor Randall’s office S8 – Townsend apartment Act II – Randell’s office S2 – French’s office S3 – Townsend apartment S4&5 – editor Randall’s office S6 – Townsend apartment Act III – hotel bedroom S2 – Minerva’s flat S3 – same speakeasy S4 – a drug store booth S5 – Townsend apartment S6 – Ziggie’s desk S7 – Randall’s office Kaufman, George S. & Act I – Main Street 1931-1932 Mantle Morrie Ryskind S2 – a hotel room Of Thee I Sing: A Musical S3 – Atlantic city Play in Two Acts S4 – Madison Square garden S5 – election night S6 – Washington Act II – The White House S2 – the Capitol S3 – the Senate S4 – again the White House S5 – the Yellow Room O’Neill, Eugene Act I – exterior of a house in New 1931-1932 Mantle Mourning Becomes Electra: England A Trilogy in Fourteen Scenes S2 – Mannon’s study in the house S3 – exterior of the house S4 – Mannon’s bedroom Act II – exterior of the house S2 – sitting room of the house S3 – Mannon’s study in the house S4 – stern of a clipper ship S5 – exterior of the house Act III – exterior of the house S2 – sitting room of the house S3 – the study S4 – the sitting room S5 – exterior of the house Sherwood, Robert Emmet Act I – drawing-room of a house in 1931-1932 Mantle Vienna

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Reunion in Vienna: A Act II – ante-room of a hotel suite Comedy in Three Acts Act III – same as Act I Green, Paul Act I – field of a southern plantation 1931-1932 Mantle The House of Connelly: A S2 – dining-room in Connelly hall Drama in Two Acts S3 – the ruined garden of plantation Act II – the dining-room Barry, Philip Act I – Collier’s in Connecticut 1931-1932 Mantle The Animal Kingdom: A S2 – Daisy Sage’s in 38th Street Comedy in Three Acts Act II – Collier’s in Connecticut S2 – Daisy Sage’s in 38th Street Act III – Collier’s in Connecticut Rice, Elmer Unit set – bedroom in a hotel in 1931-1932 Mantle The Left Bank: A Comedy in Paris Three Acts Behrman, S.N. Unit set – sitting-room in a roof 1931-1932 Mantle Brief Moment: A Comedy in apartment overlooking the East Three Acts River, New York City Franken, Rose Act I – home on the West Side 1931-1932 Mantle Another Language: A Play in Act II – apartment on the upper East Three Acts Side Act III – same as Act I Anderson, Maxwell Act I – Office of the chairman of the 1932-1933 Mantle Both Your Houses: A Drama appropriations committee in Three Acts S2 – committee meeting room Act II – the office S2 – committee meeting room Act III – committee meeting room Kaufman, George S. & Edna Act I – sitting room in Jordan’s NY 1932-1933 Mantle Ferber house Dinner at Eight: A Drama in S2 – Jordan’s office Three Acts S3 – home of the Packards S4 – Jordan sitting room Act II – Renault’s apartment S2 – Dr. Talbot’s office S3 – pantry in the Jordan home S4 – the sitting room Act III – Packard home S2 – Renault’s apartment S3 – Jordan drawing room Crothers, Rachel Act I – balcony of an apartment in 1932-1933 Mantle When Ladies Meet: A Wes 10th St., NYC Comedy in Three Acts Act II & III – Mrs. Drake’s place in Connecticut Behrman, S. N. Unit set – Marion Froude’s studio in 1932-1933 Mantle New York City

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Biography: A Comedy in Three Acts Howard, Sidney Unit set – living-room of a house on 1932-1933 Mantle Alien Corn: A Drama in the campus of Conway College for Three Acts Women outside Chicago Howard, Sidney Unit set – dining room of house not 1932-1933 Mantle The Late Christopher Bean: far from Boston A Comedy in Three Acts Rice, Elmer S1 – class-room in a grade school 1932-1933 Mantle We, the People: A Drama in S2 – the Davis home Twenty Scenes S3 – a public park S4 – Drew’s private office S5 – the Collins home S6 – Albert’s room S7 – the Davis home S8 – the Collins home S9 – the Davis home S10 – office of university newspaper S11 – the Davis home S12 – Drew’s library S13 – the Davis home S14 – entrance of a plant S15 – office of state university S16 – Senate office building S17 – Mary Klovutsko’s room S18 – a public square S19 – a court-room S20 – a public auditorium Cohan, George M. Unit set – living room of an 1932-1933 Mantle Pigeons and People: A apartment in NYC Comedy in One Act Hagan, James P – Grimes’ office, Hillsdale 1932-1933 Mantle One Sunday Afternoon: A Act I – Avery’s Park, Oakley Comedy in Two Acts S2 – Schneider’s Gardens S3 – Avery’s Park Act II – Grimes’ home, Oakley S2 – the same S3 – Avery’s Park Ep – Grimes’ Office, Hillsdale Anderson, Maxwell Act I – the Pier at Leith 1933-1934 Mantle Mary of Scotland: A Drama S2 – queen’s study at Whitehall in Three Acts S3 – Mary Stuart’s apartment Act II – Mary Stuart’s apartment S2 – queen’s study at Whitehall

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor S3 – Dunbar castle Kingsley, Sidney Act I – library, St. George’s hospital 1933-1934 Mantle Man in White: A Drama in S2 – large private room in hospital Three Acts S3 – children’s ward S4 – Dr. Ferguson’s cubicle Act II – board room of the hospital S2 – back in the library S3 – corridor with a night desk S4 – operating room Act III – Dr. Ferguson’s room Howard, Sidney Various locations – Office in the 1933-1934 Mantle Dodsworth: A Comedy in Midwest, transatlantic steamship, Three Acts hotels in various countries. (Note: Designed by Mielziner, but he was blamed for being too realistic with the settings for this show) O’Neill, Eugene Act I – sitting-room of a home in a 1933-1934 Mantle Ah, Wilderness!: A Comedy medium sized town in Connecticut in Three Acts S2 – dining-room of the home Act II – back room of a bar in a small hotel S2 – sitting-room from Act I Wexley, John Act I – southern jail with 2 cells, 1933-1934 Mantle They Shall Not Die: A one for whites, one for black Drama in Three Acts prisoners Act II – living room of poor house S2 – “negro” death-cells in prison S3 – back to the house Act III – attorney’s office NYC S2 – a courtroom Kummer, Clare Act I – living room in Homewood 1933-1934 Mantle Her Master’s Voice: A NJ Comedy in Three Acts Act II & III– screened in sleeping porch of home in Connecticut with pretty country view Thomas, A.E. Act I – New York apartment 1933-1934 Mantle No More Ladies: A Comedy Act II – living-room in in Three Acts Southampton Act III – same as Act II Atlas, Leopold Act I – Phillips dining room 1933-1934 Mantle Wednesday’s Child: A S2 – back lot at the edge of town Drama in Two Acts S3 – Phillips sun parlor S4 – boardwalk along the sea S5 – a courtroom Act II – Benton living-room S2 – Phillips dining room

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor S3 – Phillips sun parlor S4 – Bobby’s room Hellman, Lillian Act I – living-room of a school 1934-1935 Mantle The Children’s Hour: A Act II – Mrs. Tilford’s living room Drama in Three Acts Act III – same as Act I Anderson, Maxwell Act I – bunk house in Valley Forge 1934-1935 Mantle Valley Forge: A Drama in S2 – ballroom in General Howe’s Three Acts headquarters in Philadelphia S3 – Washington’s headquarters Act II – the bunk house S2 – Washington’s headquarters Act III – barn on island in the Delaware River Sherwood, Robert Unit set – Black Mesa Bar-B-Q, a 1934-1935 Mantle The Petrified Forest: A gas station and lunch room in the Drama in Two Acts eastern Arizona desert Akins, Zoe Act I – Lovell’s room in NY, 1830 1934-1935 Mantle The Old Maid: A Drama in S2 – day nursery above the stables Five Scenes Act II – Ralston drawing room Act III – same room Raphaelson, Samson Unit set – study of Steven Gaye’s 1934-1935 Mantle Accent on Youth: a comedy penthouse apartment in NYC in three acts Kaufman, George and Moss Act I – home of Niles, Long Island 1934-1935 Mantle Hart S2 – restaurant Merrily we Roll Along: a S3 – same as Act I drama in three acts Act II – Crale’s studio S2 – court house corridor S3 – Royce’s apartment Act III – living room of the Murneys S2 – Madison Square Park S3 – a college chapel Odets, Clifford Unit set – an apartment in the Bronx 1934-1935 Mantle Awake and Sing: a drama in three acts Elser, Frank B. Act I – hotel in Rome, NY 1934-1935 Mantle Farmer Takes a Wife, The: a Act II – near Utica comedy in three acts S2 – cabin in Whitesboro Act III – same as Act I Hayden, John Act I – bungalow in Los Angeles 1934-1935 Mantle Lost Horizons: a dramatic S2 – reading room, Hall of Records fantasy in three acts S3 – small room in Montreal S4 – bright drawing room in NY S5 – library in uptown NY

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor S6 – office of stage director, Kansas S7 – back to Hall of Records Act II – green room of the theatre S2 – back to director’s office S3 – pleasant apartment in Kansas S4 – penthouse apartment in NY S5 – boardwalk in Atlantic City S6 – back to room in Montreal S7 – back to drawing room in NY S8 – green room of the theatre Act III – lobby of Atlantic City hotel S2 – house in Montreal S3 – hotel’s best suite S4 – back to the Hall of Records Anderson, Maxwell Act I – under a bridge 1935-1936 Mantle Winterset: a drama in three S2 – in a tenement acts S3 – under the bridge Act II – in the tenement Act III – under the bridge Sherwood, Robert E. Unit set – the cocktail lounge in the 1935-1936 Mantle Idiot’s Delight: a drama in Hotel Monte Gabriel in the Italian three acts Alps Behrman, S.N. Unit set – the living-room of Bay 1935-1936 Mantle End of Summer: a drama in Cottage, a summer place in northern three acts Maine Dayton, Katharine and Act I – living room of the home of 1935-1936 Mantle George S. Kaufman the Secretary of State, in D.C. First Lady: a comedy in Act II – Carter Hibbard’s study three acts S2 & Act III – same as Act I Kingsley, Sidney Unit set – audience faces the piling 1935-1936 Mantle Dead End: a drama in three of a wharf, stage right is the garden acts of an expensive building, next to it, a three-story tenement & water D.S. Davis, Owen & Donald Pro – exterior of farmhouse, winter 1935-1936 Mantle Davis Act I – kitchen of the house Ethan Frome: a drama in S2 – outside church, snow on trees three acts S3 – crest of a hill between town and the farm S4 – same as prologue Act II – bedroom of the farmhouse S2 – in the kitchen Act III – same bedroom as Act II S2 – kitchen again S3 – crest of the hill again

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor S4 – kitchen again Anderson, Maxwell Unit set – summit of High Tor 1936-1937 Mantle High Tor: a comedy in three mountain with building developers acts Hart, Moss & George S. Unit set – the home of Martin 1936-1937 Mantle Kaufman Vanderhof, New York You Can’t Take it with You: a comedy in three acts Green, Paul Act I – hilltop in a small town 1936-1937 Mantle Johnny Johnson: a fantastic S2 – Tompkins home drama in three acts S3 – recruiting office S4 – a camp drill ground S5 – New York Harbor Act II – a front-line trench S2 – a churchyard S3 – the hospital S4 – a chateau behind the lines S5 – edge of a great battlefield S6 – no man’s land Act III – office in state hospital S2 – forensic arena in a house S3 – a street Turney, Robert Unit set – Clytemnestra’s palace 1936-1937 Mantle Daughters of Atreus: a tragedy in three acts Ferber, Edna & George S. Act I – Foot-Lights Club, N.Y. 1936-1937 Mantle Kaufman S2 – one of the bedrooms Stage Door: a comedy in Act II – again, main room Foot- three acts Lights Club Act III – same Boothe, Clare Act I – Mary Haines living room 1936-1937 Mantle The Women: a comedy in S2 – women’s beauty shop three acts S3 – Haines bedroom S4 – dressmaker’s shop Act II – exercise room in beauty shop S2 – Haines living room S3 – room in a hospital S4 – living room in Reno hospital Act III – Haines bathroom S2 – Haines dining room S3 – powder room Reed, Mark Act I – Murray summer home, 1936-1937 Mantle Yes, My Darling Daughter: a Conn. comedy in three acts

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Act II – Ann’s office in an upstairs room Act III – terrace outside the living room, full of sunshine Wolfson, Victor Act I – cabin of a ship 1936-1937 Mantle Excursion: a comedy in three S2 – lower passenger deck acts Act II – Captain’s cabin S2 – back on the lower deck Act III – rear deck of the ship S2 – back in the Captain’s cabin S3 – back on the lower deck Steinbeck, John Act I – grove of trees, riverbank 1937-1938 Mantle Of Mice and Men: a drama in S2 – bunk house on a ranch three acts Act II – still the bunk house S2 – a lean-to off the barn Act III – the barn S2 – the riverbank Wilder, Thornton Unit set – empty stage where 1937-1938 Mantle Our Town: a drama in three locations are created via props acts Osborn, Paul Act I – the living room 1937-1938 Mantle On Borrowed Time: a S2 – same comedy in two acts S3 – Granny’s bedroom S4&5 – the apple tree in the yard Act II – the tree S2 – living room S3-S6 – the tree Anderson, Maxwell Act I – dining room of a cottage 1937-1938 Mantle Star-Wagon, The: a comedy S2 – room in a lab wing of factory in three acts S3 – same Act II – inside a bicycle shop S2 – choir loft in a small church S3 – a picnic ground Act III – Minch’s drawing-room S2 – dining room of the cottage Crothers, Rachel Act I – the terrace room of a house 1937-1938 Mantle Susan and God: a drama in in the country three acts Act II – a guest room in the house S2 – the terrace room Act III – Susan’s sitting room Conkle, E. P. Act I – blackberry thicket near Tom 1937-1938 Mantle Prologue to Glory: a drama Lincoln’s farm in two acts S2 – intersection in New Salem S3 – interior of a store S4 – cabin for club gatherings

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Act II – lawn behind an inn S2 – outside a blacksmith shop S3 – a room in the inn S4 – porch of a log cabin Odets, Clifford Act I – office of Tom Moody 1937-1938 Mantle Golden Boy: a drama in three S2 – Bonaparte home acts S3 – the office S4 – a park bench S5 – the Bonaparte home Act II – a gymnasium S2 – the park bench S3 – the office S4 – a dressing room in the arena Act III – the office S2 – the dressing room S3 – Bonaparte home Goldsmith, Clifford Unit set – the Principal’s office in 1937-1938 Mantle What a Life: a comedy in Central High School three acts Sherwood, Robert E. Act I – cabin in New Salem, Illinois 1938-1939 Mantle Abe Lincoln in Illinois: a S2 – taproom in a tavern drama in three acts S3 – Bowling Green’s house Act II – law office, Stuart & Lincoln S2 – the Edwards’ house S3 – the law office S4 – on the prairie at New Salem S5 – parlor of the Edwards’ house Act III – a speaker’s platform S2 – the Lincoln home S3 – Lincoln campaign headquarters S4 – the railroad station Hellman, Lillian Unit set – the living room of the 1938-1939 Mantle Little Foxes, The: a drama in Giddens House, a small town in the three acts South Odets, Clifford Unit set – Dentist Ben Stark’s 1938-1939 Mantle Rocket to the Moon: a drama waiting room in New York in three acts Kaufman, George S. & Moss Act I – Ellis Island, misty day 1938-1939 Mantle Hart S2 – public square, Mapleton Ohio American Way, The: a drama S3 – workshop of a cabinet maker in two acts S4 – furniture factory steps S5 – picnic grove outside town S6 – Mapleton tennis club S7 – piazza of Gunther home S8 – Gunther living room

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor S9 – back in the square Act II – Mapleton Country Club S2 – a street corner S3 – back in the square S4 – Gunther living room S5 – back at the picnic grove Behrman, S. N. Act I – living room in a tower 1938-1939 Mantle No Time for Comedy: a apartment in a New York hotel comedy in three acts Act II – upstairs living room in a house in New York Act III – same as Act I Barry, Philip Unit set – Seth Lord’s house in the 1938-1939 Mantle Philadelphia Story, The: a country, near Philadelphia comedy in three acts Barry, Philip Act I – James Concannon’s Globe 1938-1939 Mantle Here Comes the Clowns: a Theatre drama in three acts S2 – back room of a café next door Act II & III – the cafe Coffee, Lenore & William Act I – a house in Nazareth 1938-1939 Mantle Joyce Cowen S2 – wine shop Family Portrait: a drama in Act II – the house in Nazareth three acts Act III – a street in Jerusalem S2 – a house in Jerusalem S3 – the house in Nazareth Boothe, Clare Act I – drawing room of a train car 1938-1939 Mantle Kiss the Boys Good-Bye: a S2 – Rands’ living room, Westport comedy in three acts Act II – same Act III – a small bath house Sherwood, Robert E. Act I-II – living room in Helsinki 1939-1940 Mantle There Shall Be No Night: A AIII, S1 – rooms in hotel in Drama in Three Acts Helsinki S2 – classroom in a schoolhouse S3 – living room from Act I Anderson, Maxwell P – a hilltop in Spain 1939-1940 Mantle Key Largo: A Drama in Act I – wharf in Key Largo, FL Three Acts (Design = Act II – interior house Meilziner) Kingsley, Sidney P – Greendale Sanitarium 1939-1940 Mantle World We Make, The: A Act I – World Wide Laundry Drama in Three Acts S2&3 – John Kohler’s flat Act II & III – same Lindsay, Howard Unit set – mourning room in a 1939-1940 Mantle Life with Father: A Comedy house on Madison Ave in the late in Three Acts 1880s

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Kaufman, George S. & Moss Unit set – home in a small town in 1939-1940 Mantle Hart Ohio in 1938 Man Who Came to Dinner: A Comedy in Three Acts Thurber, James Unit set – living-room in a house in 1939-1940 Mantle Male Animal, The: A a mid-western university town Comedy in Three Acts Saroyan, William Unit set – Pacific Street Saloon & 1939-1940 Mantle Time of Your Life, The: A Restaurant om San Francisco Comedy in Three Acts Boothe, Clare Unit set – library of the home of the 1939-1940 Mantle Margin for Error: A German Consul General in a large Comedy Melodrama in American city (anti-Nazi play) Three Acts Osborn, Paul Unit set – back porch and yard 1939-1940 Mantle Morning’s at Seven: A between two mid-western homes Comedy in Three Acts Green, Paul & Richard P – courtroom (all action in 1940-1941 Mantle Wright Chicago) Native Son: A Drama in Ten Act I – the Thomas room Scenes S2 – a street S3 – the Dalton breakfast room S4 – Dalton’s bedroom S5 – Dalton study S6 – Clara Mears’ room S7 – basement of the Dalton house S8 – room in a deserted house S9 – a courtroom S10 – a prison cell Hellman, Lillian Unit set – living-room of the 1940-1941 Mantle Watch on the Rhine: A Farrelly country house about twenty Drama in Three Acts miles from Washington, spring 1940 Hart, Moss Act I – Dr. Brooks’ office 1940-1941 Mantle Lady in the Dark: A Musical S2 – Liza Elliott’s office play in Two Acts S3 – Dr. Brooks’ office S4 – Liza Elliott’s office Act II – Liza Elliott’s office S2 – Dr. Brooks’ office S3 – Liza Elliott’s office Kesselring, Joseph Unit set – living-room of the 1940-1941 Mantle Arsenic and Old Lace: A Brewster home in Brooklyn Comedy in Three Acts Fields, Joseph & Jerome Unit set – a basement apartment in 1940-1941 Mantle Chodorov Greenwich Village

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor My Sister Eileen: A Comedy in Three Acts Rice, Elmer Unit set – aboard a Pan-American 1940-1941 Mantle Flight to the West: A Drama Airways transatlantic clipper in Three Acts Franken, Rose Unit set – living-room of the 1940-1941 Mantle Claudia: A Comedy in Three Naughtons’ house 70 miles out of Acts NY Davis, Owen Unit set – North’s apartment in 1940-1941 Mantle Mr. and Mrs. North: A Greenwich Place, New York City Comedy in Three Acts Kaufman, George S. & Moss Unit set – living-room of a farm 1940-1941 Mantle Hart house in Pennsylvania George Washington Slept Here: A Comedy in Three Acts Koch, Howard & John P – Congress in joint session 1917 1941-1942 Mantle Huston S1 – President Wilson’s study 1918 In Time to Come: A Drama S2 – enclosed deck of ship in harbor in Prologue and Seven S3 – living-room of the President Scenes ‘19 S4 – a conference room S5 – living-room of the President S6 – President Wilson’s study 1919 S7 – President Wilson’s study 1921 Steinbeck, John Act I – drawing-room of the Mayer 1941-1942 Mantle The Moon is Down: A of a small mining town Drama in Three Acts Act II – same S2 – living-room of Molly’s house S3&4 – drawing room again Anderson, Maxwell Act I – garden of Versailles 1940 1941-1942 Mantle Candle in the Wind: A S2 – concentration camp office, Drama in Three Acts Paris AII – Madeline’s apartment S2 – concentration camp office S3&4 – Madeline’s apartment Act III – garden of Versailles Raphaelson, Samson Unit set – living-room of the New 1941-1942 Mantle Jason: A Comedy in Three York home of Jason Otis Acts Rotter, Fritz Unit set – main hall and dormitory 1941-1942 Mantle Letters to Lucerne: A Drama in a girls’ school near Lucerne, in Three Acts Switzerland in late summer Treadwell, Sophie Act I – kitchen of Martin’s house 1941-1942 Mantle

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Hope for a Harvest: A Act II – living-room of the old Drama in Three Acts Thatcher ranch-house Kingsley, Sidney P – 1790, deck of a schooner 1942-1943 Mantle Patriots, The: A Drama in a Act I – Presidential mansion Prologue and Three Acts S2 – smithy of an inn outside NYC Act II – Hamilton’s house Philly S2&3 – Jefferson’s rooms Act III – Jefferson’s rooms S2 – interior of the capital Anderson, Maxwell Act I – Nell West’s kitchen 1942-1943 Mantle Eve of St. Mark, The: A S2 – barracks of Fort Grace Drama in Two Acts S3 – Janet’s room S4 – Moonbow Restaurant S5 – Nell’s kitchen Act II – a gangplank S2 – a field S3 – a cave on the island S4-6 – a corner of the cave S7 – Nell’s kitchen Wilder, Thornton Act I – Home, Excelsior, New 1942-1943 Mantle Skin of Our Teeth, The: Jersey Drama in Three Acts AII – Atlantic City Boardwalk AIII – Home, Excelsior, New Jersey Gow, James & Arnaud Unit set – living-room of Professor 1942-1943 Mantle d’Usseau Michael Frame’s house in large Tomorrow the World: A university town in the middle west Drama in Three Acts Ryerson, Florence & Colin Act I – Stowe cottage 1830s & 40s 1942-1943 Mantle Clements AII – Stowe house, Maine, 1850s Harriet: A Drama in Three AIII – Stowe mansion, Mass. 1860s Acts Fields, Joseph Unit set – Washington hotel suite 1942-1943 Mantle Doughgirls, The: A Comedy in Three Acts Herbert, F. Hugh Unit set – back porch of the 1942-1943 Mantle Kiss and Tell: A Comedy in Archer’s home Three Acts Hammerstein, Oscar Act I – front of Laurey’s farm house 1942-1943 Mantle Oklahoma: A Musical S2 – the smoke house Comedy in Two Acts S3 – a grove on Laurey’s farm AII – Skidmore ranch S2 – Skidmore kitchen porch S3 – back of Laurey’s house Hart, Moss Act I – back porch home in Ohio 1943-1944 Mantle S2 – a Barrack street

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Winged Victory: A Drama in S3 – an examination room Two Acts S4 – a washroom S5 – academic board meeting room S6 – a classification room S7 – entrance gates of the center S8 – a hanger S9 – a clearing in the desert S10 – a parade ground Act II – farmhouse in Oregon S2 – a flying field S3 – a bedroom in a barrack S4 – hotel room in Oakland, CA S5 – an island in the South Pacific S6 – a nearby landing field S7 – winged victory Hellman, Lillian Act I – drawing-room in D.C. 1944 1943-1944 Mantle Searching Wind, The: A S2 – room in hotel, Rome, 1922 Drama in Three Acts S3 – drawing-room in D.C. 1944 Act II – restaurant in Berlin, 1923 S2 – room in hotel, Paris, 1938 S3 – drawing-room in D.C. 1944 Gordon, Ruth Unit set – living-room of home in 1943-1944 Mantle Over 21: A Comedy in Three Miami Florida, summer 1943 Acts Franken, Rose Unit set – living-room of a shore 1943-1944 Mantle Outrageous Fortune: A home near New York Comedy in Three Acts Anderson, Maxwell Unit set – an invasion barge 1943-1944 Mantle Storm Operation: A Drama somewhere in the Mediterranean in Prologue, Two Acts and Epilogue Shelley, Elsa Unit set – a juvenile court, late 1943-1944 Mantle Pick-up Girl: A Drama in afternoon in June Three Acts Osborn, Paul Unit set – decks of various ships at 1943-1944 Mantle Innocent Voyage, The: sea in 1860 Comedy Design Awards 43-44 season Donaldson Award in sets play – Stewart Chaney for The Voice of the Turtle (Unit set – apartment in NYC)

Donaldson Award in sets musical – Howard Bay for Carmen Jones (outside a factory, a roadside, a café,

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor terrace in Chicago, outside sports stadium) Osborn, Paul Unit set – former office of the 1944-1945 Mantle Bell for Adano, A: Comedy Mayor in the city hall of Adano, in Three Acts Sicily Van Druten, John Unit set – “action passes in and 1944-1945 Mantle I Remember Mama: A around San Francisco some years Comedy in Two Acts ago” Patrick, John Unit set – convalescent ward of a 1944-1945 Mantle Hasty Heart, The: Comedy British hospital near the Assam- in Three Acts Burma front Williams, Tennessee Unit set – the Wingfield’s apartment 1944-1945 Mantle Glass Menagerie, The: A in St. Louis, 1937 “memory play” in Seven Scenes Chase, Mary Coyle Act I – the library 1944-1945 Mantle Harvey: A Comedy in Three S2 – Chumley’s rest sanitarium Acts Act II – the library S2 – Chumley’s rest sanitarium Act III – Chumley’s rest sanitarium Marquand, John & George S. Unit set – George Apley’s house in 1944-1945 Mantle Kaufman Beacon street, Boston, 1912 Late George Apley, The: A Comedy in Three Acts Meloney, Rose Franken Unit set – apartment in the upper 1944-1945 Mantle Soldier’s Wife: A Comedy in Riverside Drive district of Three Acts Manhattan overlooking Palisades Yordan, Philip Act I – living-room in PA, 1941 1944-1945 Mantle Anna Lucasta: A Drama in S2 – bar in Brooklyn, same night Three Acts Act II – same living-room Act III – same S2 – same bar in Brooklyn Barry, Philip Unit set – living-room of the second 1944-1945 Mantle Foolish Notion: A Comedy floor of a house in New York, 1944 in Three Acts Krasna, Norman Unit set – living-room of home in 1944-1945 Mantle Dear Ruth: A Comedy in Kew Gardens, Long Island, 1944 Three Acts Design Awards 44-45 season Donaldson Award in sets play – George Jenkins for I Remember Mama (setting – see above)

Donaldson Award in sets musical – Howard Bay for Up in Central Park (central park, office, hotel lounge, bird house of zoo, park gardens,

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Tammany Hall, office, Central Park West, hotel, mall at central park, bandstand at the mall) Lindsay, Howard Act I – study of home in D.C. 1945-1946 Mantle State of the Union: A S2 – bedroom of same home Comedy in Three Acts Act II – living-room of hotel suite Act III – living-room of apt in NY Laurents, Arthur Act I – hospital room, Pacific base 1945-1946 Mantle Home of the Brave: A Drama S2 – office, the base in Three Acts S3 – a clearing, a Pacific Island Act II – hospital room S2 – another clearing, the islands S3 – hospital room Act III – hospital room S2 – the office d’Usseau, Arnaud & James Unit set – living-room of house on 1945-1946 Mantle Gow the outskirts of a small town in the Deep Are the Roots: Drama deep south, 1945 in Three Acts Lavery, Emmet Unit set – library of a supreme court 1945-1946 Mantle Magnificent Yankee, The: A justice Comedy in Three Acts Kanin, Garson Unit set – “the scene is Washington, 1945-1946 Mantle Born Yesterday: A Comedy D.C.” in Three Acts Rice, Elmer Unit set – “a spring day between 1945-1946 Mantle Dream Girl: A Comedy in 8am and 4am the next day” Two Acts Sherwood, Robert E. Act I – room in the White House 1945-1946 Mantle Rugged Path, The: A Drama S2 – Vinions’ home in Three Acts S3 – downtown bar & grill S4 – Bowsmith’s office S5 – downtown bar & grill S6 – Vinions’ home Act II – aboard a destroyer S2 – Bowsmith’s office S3 – headquarters in Philippines S4 – same, later S5 – a jungle outpost S6 – room in the White House Irwin, Will & Sidney Act I – house of Tsai in the village 1945-1946 Mantle Howard S2 – north road to the capital Lute Song: An Oriental S3 – gardens of the palace Drama S4 – house of Tsai in the village S5 – gate to the palace

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Act II – gardens of the palace S2 – public granary in the village S3 – hall of the palace S4 – house of Tsai in the village S5 – market place – street S6 – burial place in the village Act III – gardens of the palace S2 – north road to the capital S3 – room in the palace S4 – temple of Amidha Buddha S5 – street in the capital S6 – pavilion in the palace Design Awards 45-46 season Donaldson Award in sets play – Jo Mielziner for Dream Girl (above)

Donaldson Award in sets musical – Robert Edmond Jones for Luke Song (above) Miller, Arthur Unit set – a suburban back yard that 1946-1947 Mantle All My Sons: A Drama in is homey and secluded with tall Three Acts poplar trees and a back porch O’Neill, Eugene G. Unit set – Harry Hope’s saloon on a 1946-1947 Mantle Iceman Cometh, The: A summer day in Hell’s Kitchen NYC Drama in Two Acts Anderson, Maxwell Unit set – a nearly empty stage set 1946-1947 Mantle Joan of Lorraine: A Drama up for a rehearsal in Two Acts Hellman, Lillian Unit set – side portico of a house in 1946-1947 Mantle Another Part of the Forest: Alabama, doors lead into the living A Drama in Three Acts room Gordon, Ruth Unit set – living room/dining room 1946-1947 Mantle Years Ago: A Comedy in of the Jones house in 1913 Three Acts Krasna, Norman Unit set – a well furnished 1946-1947 Mantle John Loves Mary: A Farce apartment in the St Regis Hotel, Comedy in Three Acts New York Kelly, George Unit set – a smartly appointed living 1946-1947 Mantle Fatal Weakness, The: A room Comedy in Three Acts Patrick, John Act I - Mary Surratt’s boarding 1946-1947 Mantle Story of Mary Surratt, The: house in Washington DC in 1865 Drama in Three Acts Act II – a makeshift courtroom Act III – same Hart, Moss Act I – the decorated lawn/yard and 1946-1947 Mantle Christopher Blake: A Drama back portico of the White House in Two Acts S2 – Judge Adamson’s chambers

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor S3 – stage of a theatre S4 – the chambers S5 – the poorhouse S6 – the chambers Act II – Christopher’s courtroom S2 – the courtroom Lerner, Alan Jay Act I – a forest in the Scottish 1946-1947 Mantle Brigadoon: A Musical Highland Fantasy in Two Acts S2 – road and village square S3 – an open shed S4 – the MacLaren house S5 – outside Lundie’s house S6 – the churchyard Act II – forest inside Brigadoon S2 – road in Brigadoon S3 – the glen S4 – a bar in New York City S5 – the forest Design Awards 46-47 season Donaldson Award in sets play – Cecil Beaton for Lady Windermere’s Fan Donaldson Award in sets musical – Oliver Smith for Brigadoon (above)

Tony awards in scenic design – David Folkes for Henry VIII* Williams, Tennessee Unit set – an apartment in New 1947-1948 Streetcar Named Desire, A: Orleans with bits of the street Chapman Drama in Three Acts visible Heggen, Thomas & Joshua Act I – amidships of a Navy cargo 1947-1948 Logan vessel Chapman Mister Roberts: Play in Two S2 – ensign’s stateroom Acts S3 – hatch loading cargo S4 – (unclear) on the deck? S5 – compartment aboard the ship S6 – captain’s cabin Act II – captain’s cabin S2 – (unclear) on the deck? S3 – ensign’s stateroom S4 – on the deck Haines, William Wister Unit set – a Nissen hut (like a 1947-1948 Command Decision: A Quonset hut) in England furnished Chapman Drama in Three Acts as an office Goetz, Ruth & Augustus Unit set – front parlor of Dr. 1947-1948 Heiress, The: A Play in Sloper’s house in NYC in 1850 Chapman Three Acts

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Rodgers, Richard & Oscar Unit set – simple with few props 1947-1948 Hammerstein and scene changes created with Chapman Allegro: A Musical Play projections on a backdrop Gardner, Dorothy Act I – Edward Dickinson’s parlor 1947-1948 Eastward in Eden: A Play in S2 – pastor’s church study Chapman Three Acts Act II – Dickinson’s parlor Act III – Dickinson’s parlor Berg, Gertrude Unit set – Goldberg’s apartment the 1947-1948 Me and Molly: A Comedy in Bronx. Visible are bedroom, kitchen Chapman Three Acts and dining/living rooms Design Awards 47-48 season Donaldson Award in sets play – Jo Mielziner for A Streetcar Named Desire Donaldson Award in sets musical – Oliver Smith for High Button Shoe

Tony awards in scenic design – Horace Armistead for The Medium* Miller, Arthur Unit set – The Loman house 1948-1949 Death of a Salesman: A Play surrounded by towering apartment Chapman in Two Acts buildings. Theatre apron can serve as the back yard of the house. Anderson, Maxwell Act I – Anne in prison 1948-1949 Anne of the Thousand Days: S2 – Boleyn home Chapman A Drama in Two Acts S3 – a tryst in the woods S4 – a courtyard S5 & S6– court at the palace S7 – a room in York Palace Act II – characters in pools of light S2 – a nursery S3 – West Chapel S4 – nursery again S5 – the king’s room S6 – the nursery S7 – courtroom S8 – king at his desk Kingsley, Sidney Unit set – squad room and 1948-1949 Detective Story: A lieutenant’s office of a police Chapman Melodrama in Three Acts precinct in New York Lindsay, Howard & Russel Unit set – corner room in a house in 1948-1949 Crouse Harrison NY in 1888. A veranda Chapman Life with Mother: A Comedy can be seen outside. in Three Acts Hart, Moss Unit set – a suite at the Ritz-Carlton 1948-1949 Light Up the Sky: A Comedy Hotel in Boston Chapman in Three Acts

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor McEnroe, Robert E. Unit set – run-down garden of a 1948-1949 Silver Whistle, The: A church next to a home for the aged Chapman Comedy in Three Acts Spewack, Samuel Unit set – government office in a 1948-1949 Two Blind Mice: A Comedy room that once was the drawing Chapman in Three Acts room of a mansion in Georgetown Kanin, Fay Unit set – ground-floor sitting room 1948-1949 Goodbye, My Fancy: A of a college dormitory Chapman Comedy in Three Acts Design Awards 48-49 season Donaldson Award in sets play – Jo Mielziner for Death of a Salesman Donaldson Award in sets musical – Lemuel Ayers for Kiss Me, Kate

Tony awards in scenic design – Jo Mielziner for Sleepy Hollow; Summer and Smoke; Anne of the Thousand Days; Death of a Salesman; South Pacific* McCullers, Carson Unit set – Southern back yard and 1949-1950 Member of the Wedding, kitchen in 1945 Chapman The: A Play in Three Acts Archibald, William Unit set – drawing-room of a 1949-1950 Innocents, The: A Play in country house in England in 1880 Chapman Two Acts Anderson, Maxwell Act I – Kumalo’s home in a small 1949-1950 Lost in the Stars: A Musical village in South Africa Chapman Play in Two Acts S2 – a railroad station S3 – a tobacco shop S4 – various during a search S5 – a shantytown lodging S6 – a dive in shantytown S7 – Irina’s hut in shantytown S8 – kitchen in Jarvis’ home S9 – Jarvis’ library S10 – street S11 – prison S12 – a shantytown lodging Act II – a tobacco shop S2 – (unclear) Stephens prayer S3 – Jarvis’ doorway S4 – Irina’s hut in shantytown S5 – the courtroom S6 – prison cell S7 – Stephen’s chapel S8 – Kumalo’s home

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Inge, William Unit set – living room and kitchen 1949-1950 Come Back, Little Sheba: A of an old house in a mid-Western Chapman Play in Two Acts city Taylor, Samuel Act I – Bonnard living room 1949-1950 Happy Time, The: A Act II – same Chapman Comedy in Three Acts Act III – the principal’s office S2 – back in the living room Logan, Joshua Unit set – the children’s parlor and 1949-1950 Wisteria Trees, The (based part of outside of the Wisteria Chapman on Anton Checkhov’s The Plantation in Louisiana Cherry Orchard): A Play in Three Acts Behrman, S. N. Unit set – a living room of an old 1949-1950 I Know My Love: A Comedy family mansion in Boston Chapman in Tree Acts Design Awards 49-50 season Donaldson Award in sets play – Jo Mielziner for The Innocents Donaldson Award in sets musical – Oliver Smith for Gentlemen Prefer Blonds

Tony awards in scenic design – Jo Mielziner for The Innocents* Swerling, Jo, Abe Burrows Act II – New York street 1950-1951 & Frank Loesser S2 – inside the Mission building Chapman Guys and Dolls: A Musical S3 & 4 – Hot Box nightclub Fable in Two Acts S5 – New York street S6 – inside the Mission building S7 – New York street S8 – Café Cubana in Havana S9 – somewhere else in Havana S10 – inside the Mission building Act II – Hot Box nightclub S2 – inside the Mission building S3 – sewer under New York S4 – New York street S5 – inside the Mission building S6 & 7 – New York street Kingsley, Sidney Unit set – the main location is a 1950-1951 Darkness at Noon: A Play in dark prison cell, but it morphs into Chapman Three Acts other places. Coxe, Louis O. & Robert Act I – crew quarters of ship in 1950-1951 Chapman 1798 Chapman Billy Budd: A Play in Three S2 – the main deck at sunset Acts S3 – same several nights later Act II – 3 scenes on main deck

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Act III – Captain’s cabin S2 – same at 4 am S3 – main deck at sunrise Hellman, Lillian Unit set – living room of a 1950-1951 Autumn Garden, The: A Play handsome but shabby summer resort Chapman in Three Acts on the Gulf of Mexico Odets, Clifford Act I – stage of a NY theatre 1950-1951 Country Girl, The: A Play in S2 – a furnished room Chapman Two Acts S3 – the stage again S4 – the furnished room again S5 – dressing room in Boston theatre Act II – Boston dressing room S2 – same Boston dressing room S3 – dressing room in NY theatre Williams, Tennessee Unit set – living room of a 1950-1951 Rose Tattoo, The: A Play in dilapidated cottage with a porch and Chapman Three Acts a palm tree outside also visible Gibbs, Wolcott Unit set – the front porch of a 1950-1951 Season in the Sun: A summer bungalow on Fire Island Chapman Comedy in Three Acts NY Barry, Philip Unit set – library in a house on 10th 1950-1951 Second Threshold street in NYC in July Chapman Design Awards 50-51 season Donaldson Award in sets play – Frederick Fox for Darkness at Noon Donaldson Award in sets musical – Jo Mielziner for The King and I

Tony awards in scenic design – Boris Aronson for The Rose Tattoo; The Country Girl; Season in the Sun* Chase, Mary Coyle Act I – morning room of a country 1951-1952 Mrs. McThing: A Play in estate with exit to a terrace Chapman Two Acts S2 – inside & outside a lunchroom S3 – same a few minute later Act II – same a few days later S2 – back in the morning room Kramm, Joseph Act I – ward in a city hospital 1951-1952 Shrike, The: A Play in Three S2 & 3 – also in the ward Chapman Acts S4 – Dr. Schlesinger’s office S5 – back in the ward Act II – a different ward but similar S2-5 – same ward room Act III – ward dining room S2 – doctor’s office

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor S3 – visiting room S4 – doctor’s office Van Druten, John Unit set – a room in a flat in Berlin 1951-1952 I am a Camera: A Play in in 1930. Middle class studio Chapman Three Acts apartment with bed hidden behind curtains Osborn, Paul Act I – suburban living room 1951-1952 Point of No Return: A Play S2 – main floor of a bank Chapman in Three Acts S3 – Gray’s living room from S1 Act II – on a train S2 – “wallpaper room” S3 – Gray’s living room S4 – “wallpaper room” S5 – Gray’s living room S6 – “wallpaper room” S7 – on a train Act III – Gray’s living room Anderson, Maxwell Act I - home of Socrates late 400s 1951-1952 Barefoot in Athens: A Play BC Chapman in Two Acts S2 – outside taking down a wall S3 – home of Socrates Act II – home of Socrates S2 – a court room S3 – jail cell Behrman, S. N. Unit set – a living room in the home 1951-1952 Jane: A Comedy in Three of a well to do family in London Chapman Acts Loos, Anita Unit set – a modest living room in 1951-1952 Gigi: A Comedy in Three Paris in about 1900 & Alicia’s Chapman Acts boudoir Lindsay, Howard & Russel Unit set – a living room in a Park 1951-1952 Crouse Ave. apartment with a masculine Chapman Remains to be Seen: A look to it. Comedy in Three Acts Design Awards 51-52 season Donaldson Award in sets play – Lemuel Ayers for Camino Real Donaldson Award in sets musical – Raoul Pene du Bois for Wonderful Town

Tony awards in scenic design – Jo Mielziner for The King and I* Laurents, Arthur Unit set – a garden in Venice with 1952-1953 Time of the Cuckoo, The: A trees coming out of a flagstone floor Kronenberger Comedy in Two Acts & walls covered by vines

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Chase, Mary Coyle Act I – a street 1952-1953 Bernardine: A Comedy in S2 – back room of a beer parlor Kronenberger Two Acts S3 – Mrs. Weldy’s home S4 – back room of a beer parlor S5 – Mrs. Weldy’s home S6 – lobby of a hotel Act II – Enid Lacey’s apartment S2 – a street S3 – Mrs. Weldy’s home S4 – back room of a beer parlor Hart, Moss Unit set – home & church of a 1952-1953 Climate of Eden, The: A Play minister serving in British Guiana, Kronenberger in Two Acts located in a clearing in the jungle Miller, Arthur Prologue – bedroom in Parris’s 1952-1953 Crucible, The: A Play in house Kronenberger Four Acts Act I – Proctor house Act II – Salem meeting house S2 – jail cell in Salem Inge, William Unit set – porches & yards of two 1952-1953 Picnic: A Play in Three Acts houses close together in Kansas Kronenberger (not the original production - 1934) Fields, Joseph & Jerome Act I/S1 – impression of Greenwich 1952-1953 Chodorov Village created by actions of actors Kronenberger Wonderful Town: A Musical in front of the main curtain Comedy in Two Acts S2 – basement room with 2 beds S3 – on a street S4 – newspaper editor’s office S5 - a street S6 – a yard between tenements S7 – Brooklyn Navy yard S8 – the yard from scene 6 Act II – Christopher Street jail S2 – on a street S3 – back in the basement bedroom S4 – on a street S5 – a village night club Spewack, Sam Unit set – a living room behind a 1952-1953 My 3 Angels: A Comedy in general store in French Guiana Kronenberger Three Acts Design Awards 52-53 season Donaldson Award in sets play – Lemuel Ayers for Camino Real Donaldson Award in sets musical – Raoul Pene du Bois for Wonderful Town

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Tony awards in scenic design – Raoul Pene du Bois for Wonderful Town* Wouk, Herman Unit set – Court-Martial room in 1953-1954 Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, San Francisco, empty stage except Kronenberger The: A Play in Two Acts for chairs, tables, witness box and a big, raised judges’ bench Bowles, Jane Act I/S1 – overgrown messy garden 1953-1954 In the Summer House: A of a home in SoCal, balcony on Kronenberger Play in Two Acts house S2 – beach with the sea behind. S3 – back in the garden Act II – room at a resort & beach S2 – same as above Peterson, Louis S1 – New England home, seen are 1953-1954 Take a Giant Step: A Play in back yard, kitchen & living room Kronenberger Six Scenes S2 – small, tawdry bar-restaurant S3 – Violet’s sleazy room S4 – back in S1 home S5 – same, Spence’s bedroom S6 – same, kitchen & living room Patrick, John Unit set – a village on the island of 1953-1954 Teahouse of the August Okinawa, 4 panels are hidden Kronenberger Moon: A Comedy in Three behind bamboo curtains are Acts different locations, some inside, some outside (backdrop of destruction done to the island, laundry out on the line & offices) Gertz, Ruth & Augustus Act I – austerely furnished study of 1953-1954 Immoralist, The: A Play in a country house in France Kronenberger Three Acts S2 – small bedroom in Africa Act II – same house in Africa, on a terrace Act III – African house, then French Anderson, Robert Unit set – colonial house in New 1953-1954 Tea and Sympathy: A Play in England serving as a boys Kronenberger Three Acts dormitory, large study & small student bedroom Hayes, Alfred Unit set – an apartment in Rome, 1953-1954 Girl on the Via Flaminia, seen are a dining room and an Kronenberger The: A Play in Three Acts adjoining bedroom Latouche, John Act I – orchard outside Angel’s 1953-1954 Golden Apple, The: A Roost in the state of Washington Kronenberger Musical in Two Acts 1900 S2 – at the village green

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor S3 – a church social S4 – Helen’s veranda Act II – seaport in Rhododendron S2 – main street S3 – Penelope’s home in Angel’s R S4 – main street again S5 – various S6 – Angel’s Roost back yard Funt, Julian Unit set – living room and hall of an 1953-1954 Magic and the Loss, The: A attractively furnished apartment in Kronenberger Play in Three Acts the village in NYC Design Awards 53-54 season Donaldson Award in sets play – Peter Larkin for Teahouse of the August Moon Donaldson Award in sets musical – William & Jean Eckart for The Golden Apple

Tony awards in scenic design – Peter Larkin for Ondine; The Teahouse of the August Moon* Anderson, Maxwell Unit set – living room and dining 1954-1955 Bad Seed: A Play in Two room of a Southern apartment Kronenberger Acts Odets, Clifford S1 & 2 – Noah’s living room 1954-1955 Flowering Peach, The: A S3 – barren hillside by the ark Kronenberger Drama in Eight Scenes and S4 – same with ramp into the ark an Epilogue S5 – storm is coming S6 – on board the deck of the ark S7 – same S8 – deck after release of doves E – ark at rest by a peach tree Hayes, Joseph Unit set – alternating action between 1954-1955 Desperate Hours, The: A the Sheriff’s office and the Hilliard Kronenberger Melodrama in Three Acts home with 2 floors in view Inge, William Unit set – street corner restaurant 1954-1955 Bus Stop: A Play in Three used as a bus rest stop Kronenberger Acts Williams, Tennessee Unit set – several rooms of Big 1954-1955 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: A Daddy Pollitt’s plantation home Kronenberger Drama in Three Acts Lawrence, Jerome & Robert Unit set – courtroom in the 1954-1955 E. Lee foreground with the town visible in Kronenberger Inherit the Wind: A Play in the background Three Acts

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Design Awards 54-55 season Donaldson Award in sets play – Peter Larkin for Inherit the Wind Donaldson Award in sets musical – Oliver Messel for House of Flowers

Tony awards in scenic design – Oliver Messel for House of Flowers* Miller, Arthur Unit set – a tenement apartment 1955-1956 View from the Bridge, A facing the Brooklyn Bridge Kronenberger Goodrich, Frances & Albert Unit set – the secret annex on top of 1955-1956 Hackett an Amsterdam warehouse during Kronenberger Diary of Anne Frank, The the German occupation Levin, Ira Unit set – presentation is done 1955-1956 No Time for Sergeants simplistically with props and Kronenberger furniture that change with ease. Only rarely is the full stage used. Wilder, Thornton Act I – simple slovenly apartment 1955-1956 Matchmaker, The S2 – Irene’s millinery shop Kronenberger Act II – veranda of garden restaurant S2 – flowery home of Van Huysen Fields, Joseph & Jerome Act I – outside old hotel with porch 1955-1956 Chodorov Act II – Ponder home with all Kronenberger Ponder Heart, The electric appliances of the period Act III – pre-Civil War courthouse Lerner, Alan Jay Act I – a street where people leaving 1955-1956 My Fair Lady the opera meet the homeless Kronenberger S2 – street outside a corner pub S3 – balconied study of Higgins S4 – street outside a corner pub S5 – Higgins study S6 & 7 – at Ascot racetrack S8 – street outside Higgins place S9 – Higgins study S10 – outside Embassy ballroom S11 – ballroom Act II – Higgins study S2 – street outside S3 – Covent Garden flower market S4 – in Higgins’s house S5 – garden of Higgins home S6 – in Higgins’s house S7 – Higgins study Design Awards 55-56 season Tony awards in scenic design –

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Peter Larkin (winner) for Inherit the Wind; No Time for Sergeants, Boris Aronson for The Diary of Anne Frank; Bus Stop; Once Upon A Tailor; A View from the Bridge, Ben Edwards for The Ponder Heart; Someone Waiting; The Honeys, Jo Mielziner for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; The Lark; Middle of the Night; Pipe Dream, Raymond Sovey for The Great Sebastians O’Neill, Eugene Unit set – living room of James 1956-1957 Long Day’s Journey into Tyrone’s summer home Kronenberger Night Aurthur, Robert Alan Unit set – a cross-section of a Long 1956-1957 A Very Special Baby Island home. Seen are part of the Kronenberger backyard, a kitchen and living room Hellman, Lillian Act I – outside a castle in 1956-1957 Candide: A Musical in Two Westphalia (song mentions Kronenberger Acts mountains, green meadows, and flowers in view) S2 – a crowded marketplace in Lisbon & road to Paris S3 – Cunegonde’s bedroom S4 – outside Govenor’s palace Act II - outside Govenor’s palace & a raft in the middle of the ocean S2 – elegant gambling house S3 – in the wilds of Westphalia Laurents, Arthur Unit set – steps to a cottage, a deck 1956-1957 A Clearing in the Woods: A and a clearing in the woods Kronenberger Play in Two Acts Vidal, Gore Unit set – living room and terrace of 1956-1957 Visit to a Small Planet: A a wealthy television commentator Kronenberger Comedy in Three Acts Williams, Tennessee Unit set – a Southern dry goods 1956-1957 Orpheus Descending: A Play store Kronenberger in Three Acts O’Neill, Eugene Unit set – outside a clapboard 1956-1957 Moon for the Misbegotten, farmhouse in Connecticut Kronenberger A: A Play in Four Acts surrounded by dirt and a boulder Design Awards 56-57 season Tony awards in scenic design – Oliver Smith (winner) for My Fair Lady Boris Aronson for A Hole in the Head; Small War On Murray

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Hill, Ben Edwards for The Waltz of the Toreadors, George Jenkins for The Happiest Millionaire; Too Late The Phalarope, Donald Oenslager for Major Barbara, Oliver Smith for A Clearing in the Woods; Candide; Auntie Mame; Eugenia; A Visit to a Small Planet Wishengrad, Morton Unit set – New York tenement at the 1957-1958 Rope Dancers, The: A Play turn of the century Kronenberger in Three Acts Frings, Ketti Unit set – rooms inside and the 1957-1958 Look Homeward, Angel: A veranda of a North Carolina Kronenberger Play in Three Acts boarding house Inge, William Unit set – living room of a 1957-1958 Dark at the Top of the Stairs: sprawling frame house in Oklahoma Kronenberger A Play in Three Acts Schary, Dore Act I – living room of F.D. 1957-1958 Sunrise at Campobello: A Roosevelt home in New Brunswick Kronenberger Play in Three Acts S2 & 3 – Same Act II – living room of Roosevelt home in NY Act III – same S2 – Madison Square Garden S3 – a platform Design Awards 57-58 season Tony awards in scenic design – Oliver Smith (winner) for West Side Story, Boris Aronson for Orpheus Descending; A Hole in the Head; The Rope Dancers, Ben Edwards for The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, Peter Larkin for Look Homeward, Angel; Miss Lonelyhearts; The Square Root of Wonderful; Oh, Captain!; The Day the Money Stopped, Oliver Smith for Brigadoon; Carousel; Jamaica; Nude with Violin; Time Remembered. O’Neill, Eugene Unit set – Melody’s tavern outside 1958-1959 Touch of the Poet, A: A Play Boston in 1828 Kronenberger in Four Acts Taylor, Samuel & Cornelia Unit set – living room of a house in 1958-1959 Otis Skinner old San Francisco that overlooks the Kronenberger

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Pleasure of His Company, Golden Gate with an entrance to a The: A Play in Two Acts sun porch Schulberg, Budd & Harvey Act I – inside a beach shack in 1939 1958-1959 Breit Act II – a suite at the Waldorf Kronenberger Disenchanted, The: A Play Act III – attic room at an inn in Three Acts Behrman, S. N. unclear – various both inside and 1958-1959 Cold Wind and the Warm, outside? (picture online looked like Kronenberger The: A Play in Three Acts a living room) MacLeish, Archibald Unit set – inside tent of a traveling 1958-1959 J. B.: A Play in Two Acts circus Kronenberger Ford, Ruth & William Act I – in a court room 1958-1959 Faulkner S2 & 3 – living room of a house Kronenberger Requiem for a Nun: A Play Act II – governor’s office in Three Acts S2 – back in the living room S3 – governor’s office Act III – a jail Williams, Tennessee Act I – bedroom of Golf Coast 1958-1959 Sweet Bird of Youth: A Play Hotel Kronenberger in Three Acts Act II – terrace of Finley’s house S2 – cocktail lounge Act III – bedroom again Hansberry, Lorraine Unit set – a living room and kitchen 1958-1959 Raisin in the Sun, A: A Play of an apartment in Chicago Kronenberger in Three Acts Wincelberg, Shimon Unit set – beach of a central Pacific 1958-1959 Kataki: A Play in Two Acts island rimmed by jungle Kronenberger Design Awards 58-59 season Tony awards in scenic design – Donald Oenslager (winner) for A Majority of One, Boris Aronson for J.B., Ballou for The Legend of Lizzie, Ben Edwards for Jane Eyre, Oliver Messel for Rashomon, Teo Otto for The Visit Chayefsky, Paddy Unit set – inside a store converted 1959-1960 Tenth Man, The: A Play in into a synagogue with a Rabbi’s Kronenberger Three Acts study on one side of the room Lewitt, Saul Unit set – Military court room in 1959-1960 Andersonville Trail, The: A DC in 1865 Kronenberger Play in Two Acts Hellman, Lillian Unit set – living room and porch of 1959-1960 Toys in the Attic: A Play in a shabby house in New Orleans Kronenberger Three Acts Vidal, Gore Act I – a hotel suite with living 1959-1960 room and bedroom with twin beds Kronenberger

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Best Man, The: A Play in S2 – similar suite on another floor Three Acts Act II – back to first suite S2 – back to second suite Act III – (unclear, same?) Thurber, James Unit set – vague undefined space 1959-1960 Thurber Carnival, A: A that changes for each scene via Kronenberger Revue in Two Acts furniture Weidman, Jerome & George Act I – 1914, LaGuardia’s law 1959-1960 Abbott office Kronenberger Fiorello!: A Musical in Two S2 – Ben Marino’s main room Acts S3 – street outside strike head office S4 – back at LaGuardia’s office S5 – crowds on street-corner S6 – Marino’s clubhouse S7 – roof of a NY tenement S8 – hallway outside Congress S9 – on the way to a party S10 – Marino’s clubhouse/dance S11 – newsreel Act II – (unclear) LaGuardia’s home S2 – Floyd penthouse S3 – LaGuardia’s office S4 – Madison & 105th street S5 & 6 - LaGuardia’s office S7 - Marino’s clubhouse S8 - LaGuardia’s office Design Awards 59-60 season Tony awards in sets musical – Oliver Smith (winner) for The Sound of Music, Cecil Beaton for Saratoga, William and Jean Eckart for Fiorello!, Peter Larkin for Greenwillow, Jo Mielziner for Gypsy

Tony awards for sets dramatic – Howard Bay (winner) for Toys in the Attic, Will Steven Armstrong for Caligula, David Hays for The Tenth Man, George Jenkins for The Miracle Worker, Jo Mielziner for The Best Man Williams, Tennessee Unit set – Spanish-type bungalow 1960-1961 Period of Adjustment: A Play living room Kronenberger in Three Acts

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Mosel, Tad Unit set – flexible and simple to 1960-1961 All the Way Home: A Play in represent various indoor and Kronenberger Three Acts outdoor locations around Knoxville Kerr, Jean Unit set – book-lined apartment 1960-1961 Mary, Mary: A Play in Three living room Kronenberger Acts Schary, Dore Act I – study/room of a catholic 1960-1961 Devil’s Advocate, The: A Cardinal Kronenberger Play in Three Acts S2 – office-home of a doctor S3 – villa of a Bishop in disrepair S4 – villa patio S5 – back inside the Bishop’s villa Act II – lunch at Contessa’s villa S2 – Paolo’s office S3 – inside the villa S4 – Nina’s house Act III – Meyer’s office S2 – Contessa’s villa S3 – villa patio S4 – Meyer’s office Denker, Henry Unit set – apartment living room/ 1960-1961 Far Country, A: A Play in office of Sigmund Freud, starts in Kronenberger Three Acts 1938, then back to 1893 Design Awards 60-61 season Tony awards in sets musicals – Oliver Smith (winner) for Camelot, George Jenkins for 13 Daughters, Robert Randolph for Bye, Bye Birdie

Tony awards for sets dramatic – Oliver Smith (winner) for Becket, Roger Fuse for Duel of the Angels, David Hays for All the Way Home, Jo Mielziner for The Devil’s Advocate, Rouben Ter-Arutunian for Advise and Consent. Mead, Shepherd, Abe Act I – window washer on side of 1961-1962 Hewes Burrows, Jack Weinstock & office building Willie Gilbert S2 – corridor inside the building How to Succeed in Business S3 – large office space Without Really Trying: A S4 – mail room Musical in Two Acts S5 – corridor inside the office S6 – elevator landing S7 – large office space S8 – main character’s new office S9 – office party location

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Act II – large office space S2 – main character’s office S3 – Another office S4 – executive washroom S5 – boardroom S6 – a TV studio S7 – large office space S8 – individual office space S9 – office corridor S10 – large office space Chayefsky, Paddy Act I – impoverished Palestine in 1961-1962 Hewes Gideon: A Play in Two Acts 1100BC outside a tent near an altar S2 – on a hill S3 – same after a battle Act II – hill in different city S2 – inside Gideon’s tent Bolt, Robert Unit set – serves as many locations 1961-1962 Hewes Man for All Seasons, A: A from More’s house to the House of Play in Two Acts Commons Ardrey, Robert Unit set – wooden packing boxes 1961-1962 Hewes Stone and Star: A Play in are used to represent locations in Five Acts Budapest over 12-year period Williams, Tennessee Unit set – outside a run-down 1961-1962 Hewes Night of the Iguana, The: A Mexican hotel surrounded by rain Play in Two Acts forests & the sea Kopit, Arthur L. Unit set – living room of a hotel 1961-1962 Hewes Oh Dad, Poor Dad, suite in the Caribbean Mamma’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feelin’ so Sad: Three Scenes Gardner, Herb Act I – messy apartment in NY 1961-1962 Hewes Thousand Clowns, A: A Play lower West side in Three Acts Act II – same apartment S2 – office in a skyscraper S3 – back in the apartment Act III – same apartment Design Awards 61-62 season Drama Critics poll for Scenic Design – David Hays (winner) for No Strings, Motley for A Man for All Seasons, Ben Edwards for Purlie Victorious, Franco Zeffrelli for Romeo and Juliet, Oliver Smith for The Night of the Iguana and The Gay Life Tony awards in scenic design –

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Will Stevens Armstrong (winner) for Carnival, David Hays for No Strings, Oliver Smith for The Gay Life, Rouben Ter-Arutunian for A Passage to India Albee, Edward Unit set – living room of a college 1962-1963 Hewes Who’s Afraid of Virginia faculty member in New England Woolf?: A Play in Three Acts Michaels, Sidney & Francois Act I – restaurant at Rockefeller Ctr 1962-1963 Hewes Billetdoux S2 – outside a Village night club Tchin-Tchin: A Play in Two S3 – living room of doctor’s apt Acts S4 – phone conversation S5 – waiting room of doctor’s office S6 – cheap hotel room on 45th street Act II – inside a construction shack S2 – Idlewild airport S3 – living room of Pickett apartment S4 – outside West Side brownstone S5 – outside swanky apt house Rayfiel, David Unit set - a philosophy classroom at 1962-1963 Hewes P.S. 193: A Play a university Williams, Tennessee Act I - Italian villa office/living 1962-1963 Hewes room S2 – pink bedroom at the villa S3 – (unclear) a bedroom? S4 – blue bedroom at the villa Act II – on a terrace in the morning S6 – (unclear) a bedroom? Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Unit set – Goforth’s villa in Italy 1962-1963 Hewes Here Anymore, The: A Play in Two Acts Masteroff, Joe Act I – perfume shop in Europe 1962-1963 Hewes She Loves Me: A Musical in 1933 Two Acts S2 – a work room in the shop S3 – back in the shop S4 – a café/restaurant Act II – hospital room S1 – one-room apartment S2 – outside walking back to shop S3 – back in the shop S4 – outside the shop S5 – back in the shop

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Design Awards 62-63 season Drama Critics poll for Scenic Design – Sean Kenny (winner) for Oliver!, Ming Cho Lee for Mother Courage, William & Jean Eckart for She Loves Me, William Ritman for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Franco Zeffirelli for Lady of the Camellias Tony awards in scenic design – Sean Kenny (winner) for Oliver!, Will Steven Armstrong for Tchin- Tchin, Anthony Powell for The School for Scandal, Franco Zeffirelli for Lady of the Camellias Simon, Neil Unit set – bare one-room apartment 1963-1964 Hewes Barefoot in the Park: A in New York’s east forties with a Comedy in Three Acts large skylight Stewart, Michael Act I – New York street in the 1963-1964 Hewes Hello, Dolly!: A Musical in 1890s Two Acts S2 – store in Yonkers S3 – Yonkers depot S4 – hat shop in NYC S5 – fourteenth street NYC Act II – outside hotel on 5th ave S2 – inside Gardens Restaurant S3 – courtroom on Center St. S4 – store in Yonkers Michaels, Sidney Act I – beach cottage in Wales 1963-1964 Hewes Dylan: A Play in Two Acts S2 – room in an airport for interviews S3 – Manhattan hotel room S4 – tavern near the hotel S5 – auditorium where Dylan Thomas was schedule to speak S6 – party on Park Avenue S7 – child’s bedroom S8 – burlesque theatre in Boston S9 – cabin of an ocean liner S10 – cabin in Wales Act II – light pools & phone calls S2 – Meg’s bedroom S3 – Metropolitan museum S4 – Texas motel bedroom S5 – party in a home in D.C. S6 – doctor’s office

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor S7 – basement of YMHA S8 – cabin in Wales S9 – tavern from Act I/S4 S10 – on a ship Miller, Arthur Unit set – platforms and stairs create 1963-1964 Hewes After the Fall: A Play in Two an ‘anywhere’ space Acts Chayefsky, Paddy Act I/Scene 1 – Petrograd outside 1963-1964 Hewes Passion of Josef D., The: A S2 – one-room shack in Siberia Play in Three Acts S3 – interior of a cattle car S4 – one-room flat in Petrograd S5 – Petrograd train station Act II/S1 – apt. of a revolutionary S2 – outside (mob celebration) S3 – outside Smolny Institute Act III/S1 – courtyard of the Kremlin S2 – Lenin’s body in gov. building Design Awards 63-64 season Drama Critics poll for Scenic Design – Oliver Smith (winner) Hello, Dolly!, David Hays for Marco Millions, Giullio Coltellacci for Rugantino, William and Jean Eckart for Fade Out-Fade In, Oliver Smith for Barefoot in the Park and The Girl Who Came to Supper. Tony awards in scenic design – Oliver Smith (winner) Hello, Dolly!, Raoul Pene Du Bois for The Student Gypsy, Ben Edwards for The Ballad of the Sad Café, David Hays for Marco Millions. Gilroy, Frank D. Unit set – kitchen and living room 1964-1965 Subject Was Roses, The: A of a middle-class apartment in the Guernsey Play in Two Acts West Bronx Stein, Joseph Act I/Prologue – exterior of house 1964-1965 Fiddler on the Roof: A S1 – kitchen of Tevye’s house Guernsey Musical in Two Acts S2 – exterior of Tevye’s house S3 – interior of Tevye’s house S4 – inside an Inn S5 – street outside the Inn S6 – exterior of Tevye’s house S7 – Tevye’s bedroom S8 – street & interior tailor shop S9 – part of Tevye’s yard

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor S10 – entire yard of Tevye’s yard Act II/Prologue – exterior of house S1 - exterior of Tevye’s house S2 – the village street S3 – ext. of railroad station S4 – village street S5 – Motel’s tailor shop S6 – a road S7 – Tevye’s barn S8 – outside Tevye’s house Schisgal, Murray Unit set – outside on a bridge with 1964-1965 Luv: A Play in Two Acts benches and lamp post Guernsey Simon, Neil Unit set – apartment on Riverside 1964-1965 Odd Couple, The: A Comedy Drive in NYC Guernsey in Three Acts Hanley, William Unit set – a small store in a 1964-1965 Slow Dance on the Killing warehouse and factory district of Guernsey Ground: A Play in Three Brooklyn Acts Miller, Arthur Unit set – Vichy, France; a place of 1964-1965 Incident at Vichy: A Play in detention Guernsey One Act Jones, Leroi Unit set – a lavatory 1964-1965 Toilet, The: A Play in One Guernsey Act Albee, Edward Act I/Scene 1 – a garden 1964-1965 Tiny Alice: A Play in Three S2 – library of castle Guernsey Acts S3 – sitting room in castle Act II/Scene1 – library of castle S2 – library of castle S3 – sitting room in castle Act III – library of castle Design Awards 64-65 season Maharam Award – (tie) Boris Aronson for Fiddler on the Roof, and Ming Cho Lee for Electra Drama Critics poll for Scene Design – Boris Aronson (winner) for Fiddler on the Roof, Oliver Smith (winner) for Baker Street and Luv, Beni Montresor for Do I Hear a Waltz?, William Ritman for Tiny Alice Tony Awards in Scene Design – Oliver Smith (winner) for Baker Street, Luv and The Odd Couple,

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Boris Aronson for Fiddler on the Roof and Incident at Vichy, Sean Kenny for The Roar of the Grease- paint-The Smell of the Crowd, Beni Montresor for Do I Hear a Waltz? Goodhart, William Unit set – Studio/apartment/living 1965-1966 Generation: A Play in Three room NY/Lower Manhattan loft Guernsey Acts Alfred, William Act I/Scene 1 – April 1890 parlor in 1965-1966 Hogan’s Goat: A Play in an apartment in Brooklyn Guernsey Two Acts S2 – back room of Stanton’s saloon S3 – all night church S4 – back room of different saloon S5 – kitchen to flat below S1 parlor Act II/S1 – Stanton’s back room S2 – Stanton’s parlor S3 – stern of a boat/steamer S4 – Stanton’s parlor Wasserman, Dale Unit set – prison common room 1965-1966 Man of La Mancha: A with a stairway. Adventures are Guernsey Musical in One Act imagined. Newman, David & Robert Act I/Scene 1 – street in Metropolis 1965-1966 Benton S2 – office at the Daily Planet Guernsey It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s S3 – nuclear reactor room at MIT Superman: A Musical S4 – office at the Daily Planet Comedy in Two Acts S5 – professor’s office S6 – room at the Daily Planet S7 – Dr. Sedgwick’s office S8 – room at the Daily Planet S9 – atop City Hall S10 – outside on MIT campus Act II/S1 – drop of newspaper DS S2 – Clark Kent’s apartment S3 – office at the Daily Planet S4 – Dr. Sedgwick’s lab/office S5 – comic book panels S6 – abandoned power station S7 – same Burrows, Abe Act I/Scene 1 – one room apartment 1965-1966 Cactus Flower: A Comedy S2 – Dr. Winston’s office Guernsey in Two Acts S3 – Toni’s apt (same as S1) S4 – Dr. Winston’s office S5 – record store in the Village S6 – Toni’s apt S7 – Dr. Winston’s office

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor S8 – a small night club Act II/S1 – Dr. Winston’s office S2 – record store in the Village S3 – Dr. Winston’s office S4 – a small night club S5 – Dr. Winston’s office S6 – Toni’s apt S7 – Dr. Winston’s office Goldman, James Act I/S1 – Christmas 1183, chamber 1965-1966 Lion In Winter, The: A Play in Henry’s castle in France Guernsey in Two Acts S2 – reception hall S3 – Eleanor’s chamber S4 – reception hall S5 – Eleanor’s chamber S6 – Philip’s chamber Act II – Henry’s chamber S2 – Alais’ chamber S3 – wine celler Design Awards 65-66 season Joseph Maharam Foundation Award – Howard Bay for Man of La Mancha Drama Critics poll for Scene Design – Howard Bay (winner) for Man of La Mancha, William and Jean Eckart for Mame, David Hays for Drat! The Cat!, Robert Randolph for Anya and Skyscraper, William Ritman for Malcolm. Tony Award in Scenic Design – Howard Bay (winner) for Man of La Mancha, William and Jean Eckart for Mame, David Hays for Drat! The Cat!, Robert Randolph for Anya, Skyscraper and Sweet Charity. Albee, Edward Unit set – living room of a large and 1966-1967 A Delicate Balance: A Play well-appointed suburban house Guernsey in Three Acts Masteroff, Joe Act I – nightclub in Berlin 1929-30 1966-1967 Cabaret: A Musical Comedy S2 – on a train to Berlin Guernsey in Two Acts S3 – living room at a boarding house S4 – Kit Kat Klub from Scene 1 S5 – phone call S6 – Cliff’s room in boarding house

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor S7 – Kit Kat Klub again S8 – same as S3 (living room) S9 – interlude S10 – Cliff’s room (same as S6) S11 & 12 – Kit Kat Klub S13 – a fruit shop Act II – interlude S2 – at the shop S3 – interlude S4 – Cliff & Sally’s room S5 – Kit Kat Klub S6 – Cliff’s room S7 – on a train Harnick, Sheldon & Jerry Act I – Garden of Eden 1966-1967 Bock Act II – castle hall with 2 doors Guernsey The Apple Tree: A Musical (lady or the tiger) in Three Acts Act III – on a rooftop with NYC in the background Van Itallie, Jean-Claude “Interview” set created with blocks 1966-1967 America Hurrah: A Program to be various city locations Guernsey of Three One-Act Plays “TV” viewing room of a rating company “Motel” modern room to the 60s in oranges, pinks and reds Gesner, Clark Unit set – white backdrop that 1966-1967 You’re a Good Man Charlie changes with lighting & geometric Guernsey Brown: A Musical Comedy shapes that become any furniture or in Two Acts props that are needed Anderson, Robert “The Shock of Recognition” a 1966-1967 You know I Can’t Hear You producer’s office Guernsey When the Water’s Running: “The Footsteps of Doves” a A Program of Four One-Act basement showroom of a bedding Plays store “I’ll be Home for Christmas” apartment living room and kitchen “I’m Herbert” a side porch Design Awards 66-67 season Joseph Maharam Foundation Award – Boris Aronson for Cabaret Drama Critics poll for Scenic Design – Boris Aronson (winner) for Cabaret, Robert Randolph for Sherry! and Walking Happy, John Bury for The Homecoming, William & Jean Eckart for Hallelujah, Baby! Jo Mielziner for That Summer-That Fall, Oliver Smith for Illya Darling

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Tony Award in Scenic Design – Boris Aronson (winner) for Cabaret, John Bury for The Homecoming, Oliver Smith for I Do! I Do!, Alan Tagg for Black Comedy. Friedman, Bruce Jay Unit set – Main/living room of a 1967-1968 Scuba Duba: A Comedy in rented chateau in the south of Guernsey Two Acts France Driver, Donald Unit set – ramps and doors stay the 1967-1968 Your Own Thing: A Musical same throughout, but there is a cyc Guernsey in One Act for projection of “slides and movies which will depict settings, enlarge moods or make comments” Miller, Arthur Unit set – attic room in a Manhattan 1967-1968 The Price: A Play in One brownstone overstuffed with Guernsey Act furniture Simon, Neil Unit set – all three are set in the 1967-1968 Plaza Suite: A Program of living room and bedroom of a suite Guernsey Three One-Act Plays at the Plaza hotel. Anderson, Robert Unit set – fix triple arches with a 1967-1968 I Never Sang for my Father: cyc, the two side use projections to Guernsey A Play in Two Acts establish locations around NYC Crowley, Mart Unit set – both floors of a duplex 1967-1968 The Boys in the Band: A apartment in NYC, seen are the Guernsey Play in Two Acts living room, study & upstairs dressing room Design Awards 67-68 season Joseph Maharam Foundation Award – Ming Cho Lee for Ergo and Nancy Potts for Pantagleize & Hair Drama Critics poll for Scene Design – Desmond Heeley (winner) for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Peter Wexler for The Happy Time, Boris Aronson for The Price, Ming Cho Lee for Here’s Where I Belong, Julia Trevelyn Oman for Brief Lives, Edward Burbridge for Mike Downstairs, William Ritman for The Birthday Party, Jo Mielziner for The Seven Descents

Tony Award in Scenic Design – Desmond Heeley (winner) for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Boris Aronson for The Price,

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Robert Randolph for Golden Rainbow, Peter Wexler for The Happy Time Sackler, Howard Act I/S1 – suggestion of a farm with 1968-1969 Great White Hope, The: A a porch railing and a wooden bench Guernsey Play in Three Acts S2 – gym in San Francisco S3 – outside the tent before the fight S4 – street before a Chicago café S5 – District Attorney’s office S6 – cabin in Wisconsin S7 – Jack’s mother’s living room Act II – London legal office S2 – airport customs shed S3 – dressing room in Paris S4 – sports promoter’s office S5 – Berlin outdoor café S6 – cabaret in Budapest S7 – railway station in Belgrade Act III – street in Chicago S2 – sports promoter’s office S3 – a barn in Juarez S4 – a street in Chicago S5 – racetrack in Havana Allen, Jay Act I/S1 – terrace of a café in 1968-1969 Forty Carats: A Comedy in Greece Guernsey Two Acts S2 – real estate office in NYC S3 – Ann’s apartment S4 – Ann’s office S5, S6 & S7 – Ann’s apartment Act II/S1 – Ann’s apartment S2 – Ann’s office S3-6 – Ann’s apartment Jones, Tom Unit set – a platform that becomes 1968-1969 Celebration: A Musical in various spaces as needed, the Guernsey Two Acts Garden of Eden is created in Act II by bringing artificial flowers onstage Stone, Peter S1 – Philly May 1776 Chamber of 1968-1969 1776: A Musical in One Act the Second Continental Congress Guernsey S2 – outside on a grassy mall S3 – in the chamber S4 – in Jefferson’s room S5 – in the chamber S6 – anteroom to the chamber S7 – in the chamber

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Gordone, Charles Act I – bar in the West Village over 1968-1969 No Place to be Somebody: A the course of 15 years Guernsey Play in Three Acts May, Elaine Unit set – game board with cubes 1968-1969 Adaptation (with Next): A for sitting and a scoreboard upstage, Guernsey Program of Two One-Act feels like a TV studio Plays McNally, Terrence Unit set – doctor’s examination 1968-1969 Next (with Adaptation): A room with an exam table, scale, Guernsey Program of Two One-Act desk, chairs and a flag Plays Design Awards 68-69 season Joseph Maharam Foundation Award – Julian Beck for Frankenstein and Jo Mielziner for 1776 Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design – Ming Cho Lee for Invitation to a Beheading and Billy, Boris Aronson for Zorba

Tony Award in Scenic Design – Boris Aronson (winner) for Zorba, Derek Cousins for Canterbury Tales, Jo Mielziner for 1776, Oliver Smith for Dear World Kopit, Arthur Unit set – an open stage giving no 1969-1970 Indians: A Play in One Act sense of time or place Guernsey Gershe, Leonard Unit set – one-room apartment in 1969-1970 Butterflies Are Free: A Play NYC Guernsey in Two Acts Simon, Neil Unit set – a one-and-a-half-room 1969-1970 Last of the Red Hot Lovers: apartment in the East Thirties of Guernsey A Comedy in Three Acts NYC Marasco, Robert Unit set – faculty room & corridor 1969-1970 Child’s Play: A Play in One of a Catholic boarding school Guernsey Act Comden, Betty & Adolph Act I – at the Tony awards 1969-1970 Green ceremony Guernsey Applause: A Musical in Two S2 – Margo’s dressing room Acts S3 – a bar in the Village S4 – Margo’s home S5 – Margo’s dressing room S6 – Joe Allen’s restaurant S7 – Margo’s bedroom S8 – party in Margo’s living room S9 – backstage at the theatre

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Act II – Karen’s house in the country S2 – star’s dressing room S3 – Allen’s restaurant S4 – Margo’s living room S5 – backstage S6 – dressing room Furth, George Act I – Robert’s apartment 1969-1970 Company: A Musical S2 – living room of garden Guernsey Comedy in Two Acts apartment S3 – Peter & Susan’s terrace S4 – David & Jenny’s apartment S5 – a bench in a park S6 – kitchen in Amy’s apartment Act II/S1 & 2 – Robert’s apartment S3 – Peter & Susan’s terrace S4 – A private club S5 – Robert’s apartment Feiffer, Jules Act I – a battlefield in the future 1969-1970 White House Murder Case, S2 – President Hale’s office Guernsey The: A Play in Two Acts S3 – a battlefield in green lighting S4 – President Hale’s office S5 – a battlefield in blue lighting S6 – President Hale’s office S7 – a battlefield in purple lighting Act II – President Hale’s office S2 – a battlefield in orange lighting S3 – President Hale’s office S4 – a battlefield in yellow lighting S5 – President Hale’s office S6 – a battlefield in red lighting S7 – President Hale’s office Van Itallie, Jean-Claude Unit set – the actors created the set 1969-1970 The Serpent: A Ceremony: or furniture as needed with their Guernsey Created by The Open bodies and they also perform in the Theatre under the direction audience. They also form the tree in of Joseph Chaikin the Garden of Eden. Design Awards 69-70 season Joseph Maharam Foundation Award – Boris Aronson for Company and Jo Mielziner for Child’s Play Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design – Boris Aronson for Company, Jo Mielziner for Child’s Play, Fred Voelpel for The Memory Bank

Tony Award in Scenic Design –

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Texas Tech University, Leslie S. Gulden, May 2021

Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Jo Mielziner (winner) for Child’s Play, Howard Bay for Cry for Us All, Ming Cho Lee for Billy, Robert Randolph for Applause Friedman, Bruce Jay Unit set – a steam room with 1970-1971 Steambath: A Play in Two shower, benches and washbasin. Guernsey Acts Berringan, Daniel Unit set – US District Court in 1970-1971 Trial of the Catonsville Nine, Baltimore Guernsey The: A Play in One Act Simon, Neil Unit set – living room of a 1970-1971 Gingerbread Lady, The: A brownstone in the West Seventies of Guernsey Play in Three Acts NYC Guare, John Unit set – living room of a shabby 1970-1971 House of Blue Leaves, The: Queens apartment, but sometimes Guernsey A Play in Two Acts there are short scenes in other places Goldman, James Unit set – a party at a partially 1970-1971 Follies: A Musical in One demolished theatre, roof partly open Guernsey Act Design Awards 70-71 season Joseph Maharam Foundation Award – Boris Aronson for Follies and Peter Larkin for Les Blancs Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design – Boris Aronson for Follies, Sally Jacobs for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Robin Wagner for Lenny

Tony Award in Scenic Design – Boris Aronson (winner) for Company, John Bury for The Rothschilds, Sally Jacobs for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Jo Mielziner for Father’s Day McNally, Terrence New York City: here, there and 1971-1972 Where has Tommy Flowers everywhere Guernsey Gone?: A Play in Two Acts Miller, Jason Unit set: The coach’s house, in the 1971-1972 That Championship Season: Lackawanna Valley Guernsey A Play in Three Acts Van Peebles, Marvin Unit set: various objects on the 1971-1972 Ain’t Supposed to Die a stage used to represent different Guernsey Natural Death: A Musical in locations, no set place, just “here, Two Acts now” Rabe, David Unit set: modern American Home 1971-1972 Guernsey

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Sticks and Bones: A Play in Two Acts Simon, Neil Unit set: an apartment in New 1971-1972 The Prisoner of Second York’s East 80s Guernsey Avenue: A Comedy in Two Acts Weller, Michael Unit set: a student apartment in an 1971-1972 Moonchildren: A Comic American university town Guernsey Play in Two Acts Williams, Tennessee Unit set: A bar along the Southern 1971-1972 Small Craft Warning: A Play California coast Guernsey in Two Acts Design Awards 71-72 season Joseph Maharam Foundation Award – Kurt Lundell for Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death and Robert U. Taylor for Begger’s Opera Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design – Santo Loquasto for Sticks and Bones and That Championship Season, Kert Lundell for Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death, Robert U. Taylor for The Beggar’s Opera

Tony Award in Scenic Design – Boris Aronson (winner) for Follies, John Bury for Old Times, Kert Lundell for Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death, Robin Wagner for Jesus Christ Superstar Randal, Bob Unit set: An empty Riverside Dive 1972-1973 6 RMS RIV VU: A Play in apartment Guernsey Two Acts Miller, Arthur Unit set: mostly bare set 1972-1973 The Creation of the World representing the Garden of Eden Guernsey and Other Business: A Play mostly with color and the branch of in Three Acts a golden tree with an apple Walker, Joseph A. Unit set: a brownstone in Harlem, 1972-1973 The River Niger: A Play in New York City Guernsey Three Acts Simon, Neil Act I – Clark home 1972-1973 The Sunshine Boys: A AII – a television studio Guernsey Comedy in Two Acts S2 – a hotel room Kerr, Jean Unit set: the Cooper home in an 1972-1973 Finishing Touches: A eastern university town Guernsey Comedy in Three Acts

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Wilson, Lanford Unit set: the Lobby of the Hotel 1972-1973 The Hot L Baltimore: A Play Baltimore Guernsey in Three Acts Design Awards 72-73 season Joseph Maharam Foundation Award – Douglas Schmidt for Enemies and Robert Wagner for Seesaw Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design – Victor Garcia and Fabian Puigserver for Yerma, David Jenkins for The Changing Room, Tony Walton for Pippin and Shelter

Tony Award in Scenic Design – Tony Walton (winner) for Pippin, Boris Aronson for A Little Night Music, David Jenkins for The Changing Room, Santo Loquasto for That Championship Season. McNally, Terrence Ravenswood: outdoor patio of a 1973-1974 Bad Habits: A Program of sanitarium. Rear wall of lush Guernsey Two One-Act Plays: foliage Ravenswood and Dunelawn Dunelawn: also outside but background is a chain link fence Piñero, Miguel Setting: The dayroom on one of the 1973-1974 Short Eyes: A Play in Two floors in the House of Detention. Guernsey Acts Simon, Neil A series of short plays presented in 1973-1974 The Good Doctor: A front of a black background with Guernsey Comedy with Music in Two some furniture Acts Medoff, Mark Unit set: a rundown diner inside a 1973-1974 When You Comin’ Back, Red spa in Southern New Mexico Guernsey Ryder?: A Play in Two Acts Moore, Edward J. Unit set: a bar on the West Coast 1973-1974 The Sea Horse: A Play in waterfront Guernsey Two Acts Design Awards 73-74 season Joseph Maharam Foundation Award – Franne and Eugene Lee for Candide and Ed Wittstein for Ulysses in Nighttown Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design – Franne Lee and Eugene Lee for Candide, David Mitchell for Short Eyes, Douglas W. Schmidt for Over Here! And Veronica’s Room

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Tony Award in Scenic Design – Franne and Eugene Lee (winner) for Candide, John Conklin for The Au Pair Man, Santo Loquasto for What the Wine Sellers Buy, Oliver Smith for Gigi, Ed Wittstein for Ulysses for Nighttown. Schisgal, Murray Unit set: a family duplex apartment 1974-1975 All Over Town: A Play in on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Guernsey Two Acts McNally, Terrence Unit set: a men’s bathhouse in New 1974-1975 The Ritz: A Comedy in Two York City Guernsey Acts Albee, Edward Unit set: a sand dune on an ocean 1974-1975 Seascape: A Play in Two beach like those on Long Island Guernsey Acts Bennett, Michael, James A stage in New York City 1974-1975 Kirkwood and Nicholas Guernsey Dante A Chorus Line: A Musical in One Act Bullins, Ed The stage represents “an abstract 1974-1975 The Taking of Miss Janie: A depiction of cheap living spaces” in Guernsey Play in One Act various cities all over the U.S. Madoff, Mark Unit set: the apartment of two 1974-1975 The Wager: A Play in Three graduate students from a university Guernsey Acts in northern California Design Awards 74-75 season Joseph Maharam Foundation Award – Robin Wagner for A Chorus Line and Robert Wilson for Letter for Queen Victoria Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design – Carl Toms (winner) for Sherlock Holmes, John Conklin for Can on a Hot Tin Roof, Tom H. John for The Wiz, Scott Johnson for Dance with Me, John Napier for Equus, Julia Trevelyn Oman for Brief Lives, William Ritman for God’s Favorite, Franco Zeffirelli for Saturday Sunday Monday

Tony Award in Scenic Design – Carl Toms (winner) for Sherlock Holmes, Scott Johnson for Dance with Me, Tanya Moiseiwitsch for

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor The Misanthrope, William Ritman for God’s Favorite, Rouben Ter- Arutunian for Goodtime Charley, Robert Wagner for Mack and Mabel Freeman, David The stage is divided into various 1975-1976 Jesse and the Bandit Queen: areas with platforms and furniture. Guernsey A Play in Two Acts Behind is a high sky over the prairie Weidman, John Stage is used to represent numerous 1975-1976 Pacific Overtures: A places in Japan over a long period of Guernsey Musical in Two Acts time after 1853 Ebb, Fred and Bob Fosse Various locations in the city and in 1975-1976 Chicago: A Musical in Two the prison Guernsey Acts Feiffer, Jules Unit set: inside the main room in a 1975-1976 Knock Knock: A Comedy in log house in the woods Guernsey Three Acts Rabe, David Inside an army barracks in Virginia 1975-1976 Steamers: A Play in Two Guernsey Acts Wilson, Lanford Unit set: a spacious living room in a 1975-1976 Serenading Louie: A Play in home in Chicago Guernsey Two Acts Babe, Thomas Unit set: a large but mostly barren 1975-1976 Rebel Women: A Play in living room in Georgia Guernsey Three Acts Stitt, Milan Set: first a cell, then a courtroom in 1975-1976 The Runner Stumbles: A Solon, Michigan Guernsey Play in Two Acts Design Awards 75-76 season American Theatre Wing Hewes Design Award – Boris Aronson for Pacific Overtures and John Lee Beatty for Knock Knock

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design – Boris Aronson (winner) for Pacific Overtures, John Lee Beatty for Knock Knock, Santo Loquasto for Kennedy’s Children and Legend, Robert U. Taylor for Lamppost Reunion, James Tilton for A Memory of Two Mondays/ 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and They Knew What They Wanted

Tony Award in Scenic Design –

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Boris Aronson (winner) for Pacific Overtures, Ben Edwards for A Matter of Gravity, David Mitchell for Trelawny of the “Wells”, Tony Walton for Chicago Gelbart, Larry Act I – Sly’s bedroom 1976-1977 Sly Fox: A Play in Two Acts S2 – Truckle’s Living Room Guernsey S3 – Crouch’s Office S4 – Sly’s bedroom AII – A Jail Cell S2 – The Courtroom S3 – Sly’s bedroom Meehan, Thomas Various places around NYC 1976-1977 Annie: A Musical in Two Guernsey Acts Simon, Neil A suite of two rooms in a Beverly 1976-1977 California Suite: A Comedy Hills Hotel Guernsey in Two Acts and Four Playlets Jones, Preston The den of a ranch-style home 1976-1977 The Oldest Living Graduate: outside Bradleyville Texas Guernsey A Play in Two Acts Jones, Preston Meeting room of the Knights of the 1976-1977 The Last Meeting of the White Magnolia on the third floor of Guernsey Knights of the White the Cattleman’s Hotel in Texas Magnolia Mamet, David Unit set: A junkshop owned by the 1976-1977 American Buffalo: A Play in lead character, Donny Bubrow Guernsey Two Acts Cristofer, Michael Three cottages on the grounds of a 1976-1977 The Shadow Box: A Play in large hospital Guernsey Two Acts Design Awards 76-77 season American Theatre Wing Hewes Design Award – Santo Loquasto for American Buffalo and Douglas W. Schmidt for Agamemnon

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design – Santo Loquasto (winner) for American Buffalo and The Cherry Orchard, John Lee Beatty for The Innocents, Clarke Dunham for Hagar’s Children, George C. Jenkins for Sly Fox, Robert Randolph for Porgy and Bess, Douglas W. Schmidt for The Crazy

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Locomotive and The Robber Bridegoom

Tony Award in Scenic Design – David Mitchell (winner) for Annie, Santo Loquasto for The Cherry Orchard and American Buffalo, Robert Randolph for Porgy and Bess. Coburn, D.L. Unit set – sun porch of the Bentley 1977-1978 The Gin Game: A Play in Nursing and Convalescent Home Guernsey Two Acts Mamet, David Various spots around a theatre 1977-1978 A Life in the Theatre: Play in Guernsey One Act and 26 scenes Simon, Neil Unit set – 2 separate apartments, 1977-1978 Chapter Two: A Comedy in one on the upper East Side, one Guernsey Two Acts Central Park West Babe, Thomas Unit set – the squadroom of a 1977-1978 A Prayer for my Daughter: downtown precinct Guernsey A Play in Two Acts Levin, Ira Unit set – study in a house in 1977-1978 Deathtrap: A Play in Two Westport, Conn. Guernsey Acts Goldberg, Dick Unit set – main room in a home in 1977-1978 Family Business: A Play in Beverly, Mass. Guernsey Three Acts Wilson, Lanford Act I – living room of Talley farm 1977-1978 The 5th of July: A Play in Act II – front porch with part of Guernsey Two Acts living King, Larry L. and Peter Act I – The Chicken Ranch 1977-1978 Masterson TV station, Texas Twinkle Café, Guernsey The Best Little Whorehouse Aggie football game, in town near in Texas: A Musical in Two the Chicken Ranch, etc. Acts Design Awards 77-78 season American Theatre Wing Hewes Design Award – John Lee Beatty for A Life in the Theatre Edward Gorey and Lynn Pecktal for Dracula

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design – Robin Wagner (winner) for On the Twentieth Century, Edward Gorey for Dracula, Judie Juracek for P.S. Your Cat is Dead,

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Santo Loquasto for The Play’s the Thing, David Mitchell for The Gin Game, William Ritman for Deathtrap

Tony Award in Scenic Design – Robin Wagner (winner) for On the Twentieth Century, Zack Brown for The Importance of Being Earnest, Edward Gorey for Dracula, David Mitchell for Working. Lawrence, Jerome and Unit set – Backstage at the U.S. 1978-1979 Robert E. Lee Supreme Court Guernsey First Monday in October: A Play in Two Acts Kopit, Arthur “The stage is set with a system of 1978-1979 Wings: A Play in One Act movable panels ‘creating the Guernsey impression of featureless, labyrinthine corridors,’ some panels black and some mirrored ‘so they can facture light, create the impression of endlessness, even airiness, multiply and confuse images.” (170) Thompson, Ernest Unit set – The living room of a 1978-1979 On Golden Pond: A Play in summer home on Golden Pond, in Guernsey Two Acts Maine Pomerance, Bernard Act I – London Hospital 1978-1979 The Elephant Man: A Play in S2 – Whitechapel storefront Guernsey Twenty-One Scenes S3 – London Hospital S4 – Brussels street & train station S5 – London train station S6-10 – London Hospital A II – London Hospital S12-17 – London Hospital S18 – Lecture hall in a dream S19-21 – London Hospital Wheeler, Hugh & Stephen Act I – London quay (docks), Fleet 1978-1979 Sondheim Street barber shop, Judge Turpin’s Guernsey Sweeney Todd, The Demon house, St. Dunstan’s marketplace Barber of Fleet Street: A Act II – Garden outside the pie Musical in Two Acts shop, barber shop, byways of London, Fogg’s Asylum Norman, Marsha Unit set – Arlene’s room and a 1978-1979 Getting Out: A Play in Two prison cell Guernsey Acts

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Carter, Steve Unit set – two levels of a house in 1978-1979 Nevis Mountain Dew: A Play Queens Village, NY. Kitchen, Guernsey in Three Acts living & dining rooms, bedrooms upstairs. Design Awards 78-79 season American Theatre Wing Hewes Design Award – Michael Yeargar for The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Karl Eigsti for Knockout, and David Jenkins for The Elephant Man

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design – John Wulp (winner) for The Crucifer of Blood, Wilford Leach for All’s Well That Ends Well, Eugene Lee for Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Santo Loquasto for King of Hearts, Steven Rubin for On Golden Pond

Tony Award in Scenic Design – Eugene Lee (winner) for Sweeney Todd, Karl Eigsti for Knockout, David Jenkins for The Elephant Man, John Wulp for The Crucifier of Blood Weller, Michael S1 – A beach in Bali 1979-1980 Loose Ends: A Play in Eight S2 – Doug and Maraya’s yard in Guernsey Scenes New Hampshire S3 – Backyard of Paul and Susan’s apartment house in Boston S4 – Paul and Susan’s living room S5 – Central Park, N.Y. S6 – Paul and Susan’s living room S7 – Terrace of Paul and Susan’s apt S8 – A cabin in New Hampshire Sherman, Martin Act I – Living room of apt in Berlin 1979-1980 Bent: A Play in Two Acts S2 – Greta’s night club Guernsey S3 – A park in Cologne S4 – The forest S5 – A prisoner transport train S6 – Dachau concentration camp Act II – The camp (month later) S2-5 – Same

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Albee, Edward Unit set – The living room of Sam 1979-1980 The Lady from Dubuque: A and Jo’s house Guernsey Play in Two Acts Medoff, Mark Place: In the mind of James Leeds 1979-1980 Children of a Lesser God: A Guernsey Play in Two Acts Williams, Samm-Art Place: Cross Roads, North Carolina. 1979-1980 Home: A Play in One Act A prison in Raleigh. And a very, Guernsey very large American City Setting: a number of platforms which change locations with shifting lights Wilson, Lanford Unit set – An old boathouse on the 1979-1980 Talley’s Folly: A Play in One Tally farm near Lebanon, MO. Guernsey Act Lapine, James Place: Around or near a table which 1979-1980 Table Settings: A Play in is center stage Guernsey One Act Simon, Neil Unit set – living area of a small 1979-1980 I Ought to Be in Pictures: A bungalow in West Hollywood. Also Guernsey Play in Two Acts seen is a bedroom and kitchenette. Topor, Tom Unit set – the courtroom in the 1979-1980 Nuts: A Play in Three Acts psychiatric wing of Bellevue Guernsey Hospital Design Awards 79-80 season American Theatre Wing Hewes Design Award – Julie Taymor for The Haggadah, Stuart Wurtzel for The Sorrows of Stephen, David Mitchell for Barnum

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design – John Lee Beatty (winner) for Tally’s Folly, David Jenkins for The Art of Dining and I Ought to Be in Pictures, David Mitchell for Barnum, William Ritman for Morning at Seven, Douglas W. Schmidt for Sidewalkin’

Tony Award in Scenic Design – John Lee Beatty (tie) for Tally’s Folly and David Mitchell (tie) for Barnum, Timothy O’Brian and Tazeena Firth for Evita, Tony Walton for A Day in Hollywood/A Night in Ukraine

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Stewart, Michael and Mark Act I – 42nd Street Theatre, NYC 1980-1981 Bramble S2 – Restaurant Guernsey 42nd Street: A Musical in S3 – Stage of the theatre Two Acts S4 – Dorothy’s dressing room S5 – Stage of the theatre S6 – Stage of Arch St. theatre, Philly S7 – hotel room S8 – Arch St. theatre, opening night Act II – Outside dressing room S2 – inside dressing room S3 – Stage of Arch St. theatre S4 – Broad St. Station, Philadelphia S5 – 42nd St. Theatre, NYC S6 – Peggy’s dressing room S7 – 42nd St. Theatre S8 – Backstage Kerr, Jean Unit set – living room of a second- 1980-1981 Lunch Hour: A Comedy in floor apartment of a beach house in Guernsey Two Acts the Hamptons, Long Island Fuller, Charles Unit set – living room of a home in 1980-1981 Zooman and the Sign: A Play Philadelphia with a front stoop and Guernsey in Two Acts sidewalk downstage Henley, Beth Unit set – the kitchen of the 1980-1981 Crimes of the Heart: A Play MaGrath sisters’ house in Guernsey in Three Acts Hazlehurst, Miss. Allen, Woody Unit set – Pollacks’ apartment. 1980-1981 The Floating Light Bulb: A Seen is the living room with Guernsey Play in Two Acts kitchenette, kids bedroom and a bit of hallway Design Awards 80-81 season American Theatre Wing Hewes Design Award – John Lee Beatty for Fifth of July, Manuel Lutgenhorst and Douglas E. Ball for Request Concert

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design – John Lee Beatty (winner) for Fifth of July, John Bury for Amadeus, Wilford Leach and Bob Shaw for The Pirates of Penzance, Douglas W. Schmidt for Frankenstein

Tony Award in Scenic Design –

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor John Bury (winner) for Amadeus, John Lee Beatty for Fifth of July, Santo Loquasto for The Suicide, David Mitchell for Can-Can Davis, Bill C. Unit set – Father Farley’s office and 1981-1982 Mass Appeal: A Play in Two the church pulpit to address Guernsey Acts audience Fuller, Charles Unit set – horseshoe arrangement of 1981-1982 A Soldier’s Play: A Play in platforms that serve as an office, Guernsey Two Acts barracks and a bare platform that serves for several locations. Fierstein, Harvey Part 1 – backstage at nightclub 1981-1982 Torch Song Trilogy: A S2 – a bar Guernsey Program of Three One-Act S3 – two apartments Plays – The International S4 – the bar Stud, Fugue in a Nursery & S5 – backstage Widows and Children First! Part II – farm represented by a large raked bed Part III – Arnold’s apartment S2 – same S3 – A bench in the park below S4 – the apartment Gurney, A.R. Jr. Unit set – a dining room that serves 1981-1982 The Dining Room: A Play in as several dining rooms Guernsey Two Acts Pielmeier, John Unit set – raked stage serves as a 1981-1982 Agnes of God: A Play in Two psychiatrist’s office and a convent Guernsey Acts Kopit, Arthur Unit set – a white-tiled spa with a 1981-1982 Nine: A Musical in Two Acts variety of white tile blocks and an Guernsey impression of Venice as a backdrop Design Awards 81-82 season American Theatre Wing Hewes Design Award – David Chapman for The First, Edward T. Gianfrancesco for Big Apple Messenger and Little Shop of Horrors Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design – Robin Wagner (winner) for Dreamgirls, David Chapman for The First, Laurie Dennett for The Dresser, Eugene Lee for The Hothouse, Santo Loquasto for Crossing Niagara and Gardenia, Stuart Wurtzel for Henry IV

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Tony Award in Scenic Design – John Napier and Dermot Hayes (winner) for The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, Ben Edwards for Medea, Lawrence Miller for Nine, Robin Wagner for Dreamgirls. Wilson, Lanford Unit set – Interior of an adobe 1982-1983 Angels Fall: A Play in Two mission church in northwest New Guernsey Acts Mexico Cooper, Susan and Hume Unit set – the stage is the large front 1982-1983 Cronyn yard (dooryard with wood planks) Guernsey Foxfire: A Play with Songs of a farm in the Blue Ridge in Two Acts Mountains. Upstage where the porch/yard ends there is the impression of a drop-off because the tops of a few trees can be seen. Beyond that is a painted or printed backdrop of smoky mountains. The cabin’s porch is stage left and a shed stage right. Mastrosimone, William Unit set – the living room of a 1982-1983 Extremities: A Play in Two dilapidated farmhouse in New Guernsey Acts Jersey Meyers, Patrick Unit set – a ledge at 27,000 feet, 1982-1983 K2: A Play in One Act 1,250 feet below the summit of K2, Guernsey the world’s second highest mountain. The set has “ice walls” that the actors scale like mountain climbers. Norman, Marsha Unit set – the cluttered living room 1982-1983 ‘NIGHT MOTHER: A Play of a relatively new house way out Guernsey in One Act on a country road Stone, Peter and Timothy S. Act I – Limbo and PA Station 1927 1982-1983 Mayer S2 – Billy’s Hanger (monoplane) Guernsey My One and Only: A S3 – Mr. Magix’s Emporial Musical Comedy in Two S4 – Club Havana Acts S5 – Cinema S6 – roadster parked in Central Park S7 – Billy’s Hanger S8 – A Deserted Beach (plane crash) Act II – Aquacade S2 – Mr. Magix’s Emporial S3 – Pennsylvania Station

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor S4 – Billy’s Hanger S5 – Club Oasis S6 – The Uptown Chapel Design Awards 82-83 season American Theatre Wing Hewes Design Award – Julie Archer et al for Mabou Mines, Ming Cho Lee for K2

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design – Ming Cho Lee (winner) for K-2, John Gunter for All’s Well That Ends Well, Andrew Jackness for Geniuses and Whodunnit, Marjorie Bradley Kellogg for Extremities, Present Laughter and Steaming, Kert Lundell for Johnny Got His Gun, Douglas W. Schmidt for Death of Van Richthofen Witnessed from Earth

Tony Award in Scenic Design – Ming Cho Lee (winner) for K-2, John Gunter for All’s Well That Ends Well, David Mitchell for Foxfire, John Napier for Cats. Shepard, Sam Unit set – a motel room on the edge 1983-1984 Fool for Love: A Full-Length of the Mojave Desert Guernsey Play in One Act Fierstein, Harvey Place: St. Tropez, France 1983-1984 La Cage Aux Folles: A The nightclub, an apartment, a café Guernsey Musical in Two Acts Howe, Tina Unit set – living room of a house in 1983-1984 Painting Churches: A Play in Beacon Hill, Boston Guernsey Two Acts Mamet, David Act I – a Chinese restaurant 1983-1984 Glengarry Glen Ross: A Play Act II – a real estate office in Guernsey in Two Acts Chicago Lapine, James Act I – alternating between a park 1983-1984 Sunday in the Park with on an island outside Paris & Guernsey George: A Musical in Two George’s studio Acts Act II – an American art museum and on the island Henley, Beth Act I – living room in Mississippi 1983-1984 The Miss Firecracker Act II – a bench in front of a tent Guernsey Contest: A Play in Two Acts S2 – same S3 – Carnelle’s dressing room

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Design Awards 83-84 season American Theatre Wing Hewes Design Award – Tony Straiges for Sunday in the Park with George, Bill Stabile for Spookhouse

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design – Tony Straiges (winner) for Sunday in the Park with George, Michael Annals for Noises Off, Peter Larkin for The Rink, David Potts for Full Hookup, Bill Stabile for Spookhouse, Tony Walton for The Real Thing

Tony Award in Scenic Design – Tony Straiges (winner) for Sunday in the Park with George, Clarke Dunham for End of the World, Peter Larkin for The Rink, Tony Walton for The Real Thing. McIntyre, Dennis Unit set – a series of platforms 1984-1985 Split Second: A Play in Two suggestion locals around Manhattan Guernsey Acts Rabe, David Unit set – cross-section of a house 1984-1985 Hurleyburly: A Play in Three in the Hollywood Hills. Seen are Guernsey Acts the living room, a kitchen nook, balcony leading to 2 bedrooms & a bathroom. Outside the “greenhouse- like” windows is the jungle-like vegetation that surrounds the house Wilson, August Unit set – divided into the band 1984-1985 Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom: room and a recording studio Guernsey A Play in Two Acts Shue, Larry Unit set – high-ceilinged living 1984-1985 The Foreigner: A Comedy in room of a log farmhouse that is now Guernsey Two Acts a fishing lodge/resort in Georga DiFusco, John et. al. Unit set – platforms and camouflage 1984-1985 Tracers: A Play in Two Acts backdrop serve as various locations Guernsey in Vietnam. Hoffman, William M. Unit set – flexible set which 1984-1985 As Is: A Full-length Play in represents many different locales in Guernsey One Act New York City Simon, Neil Act I – coach of an old train, 1943 1984-1985 Biloxi Blues: A Comedy in S2 – section of a barracks Guernsey Two Acts S3 – section of a mess hall S4 – the barracks

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor S5 – latrine and barracks Act II – a hotel room S2 – same, minutes later S3 – the barracks S4 – steps outside the barracks S5 – the barracks S6 – a church basement S7 – Sgt. Toomey’s room S8 – outside a girl’s school, Gulfport S9 – coach of a train Wiltse, David Unit Set – tennis club locker room 1984-1985 Doubles: A Comedy in Two with benches, exercise machine and Guernsey Acts two rows of lockers Durang, Christopher Settings change using symbolic 1984-1985 The Marriage of Bette and objects to suggest locations (all Guernsey Boo: A Play in Two Acts and indoors) 33 Scenes Design Awards 84-85 season American Theatre Wing Hewes Design Award – Angus Moss for Nosferatu, Charles Ludlam for The Mystery of Irma Vep, Heidi Landesman-Ettinger for Big River

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design – Heidi Landesman (winner) for Big River, John Lee Beatty for The Octette Bridge Club, Clarke Dunham for Grind, James Leonard Joy for Digby, Marjorie Bradley Kellogg for Requiem for a Heavyweight, Ralph Koltai for Much Ado About Nothing, Kevin Rigdon for Balm in Gilead

Tony Award in Scenic Design – Heidi Landesman (winner) for Big River, Clarke Dunham for Grind, Ralph Koltai for Much Ado About Nothing, Voytek and Michael Levine for Strange Interlude. Gardner, Herb Unit set: A bench near a path at the 1985-1986 I’m not Rappaport: A Play in edge of the lake in Central Park in Guernsey & Sweet Two Acts front of an arched tunnel & bridge Holmes, Rupert P – Music Hall Royale 1985-1986 Act I – home of John Jasper Guernsey & Sweet

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Mystery of Edwin Drood, S2 – conservatory of a seminary The: A Musical in Two Acts S3 – street outside the mayor’s home S4 – opium den in London S5 – street again S6 – crypts of Cloisterham cathedral S7 – ruins of Cloisterham S8 – home of John Jasper S9 – minor Canon Corner Act II – Cloisterham station & street Shawn, Wallace Unit set – a room in London (first 1985-1986 Aunt Dan and Lemon: A produced in London, but the author Guernsey & Sweet Full-Length Play in One Act is American) McNally, Terrence Unit set – Julia Budder’s townhouse 1985-1986 It’s Only a Play: A Play in Guernsey & Sweet Two Acts Bogosian, Eric Unit set – mostly empty stage with 1985-1986 Drinking in America: A Play props different characters that create Guernsey & Sweet in 14 Scenes each scene in the one-man show Mann, Emily Unit set – most of the play is a trial, 1985-1986 Execution of Justice: A Play but the stage is mostly bare, with a Guernsey & Sweet in Two Acts white screen overhead Gurney Jr., A.R. Unit set – a middle-class 1985-1986 Perfect Party, The: A Play in conventional study with a desk, Guernsey & Sweet Two Acts bookshelves, television and couch Design Awards 85-86 season American Theatre Wing Hewes Design Award – Tony Walton for The House of Blue Leaves, Eva Buchmuller for Dreamland Burns, Robert Israel for Vienna Lusthus

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design – Tony Walton (winner) for Social Security and The House of Blue Leaves, William Barclay for Goblin Market, Ming Cho Lee for Execution of Justice, Thomas Lynch for Little Footsteps, Bob Shaw for Hamlet and The Mystery of Edwin Drood

Tony Award in Scenic Design – Tony Walton (winner) for The House of Blue Leaves, Ben Edwards for The Iceman Cometh, David Mitchell for The Boys of Winter,

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Beni Montresor for The Marriage of Figaro Simon, Neil Unit set – house with two stories, 1986-1987 Broadway Bound: A Play in first is living & dining room with Guernsey & Sweet Two Acts doors to other rooms, second is two bedrooms Foote, Horton Unit set – Horace’s room in a 1986-1987 Widow Claire, The: A Full- boarding house and Claire’s house Guernsey & Sweet Length Play in One Act with a yard between Wilson, August Unit set – small dirt backyard and 1986-1987 Fences: A Play in Two Acts the porch of the Maxsons’ house Guernsey & Sweet Uhry, Alfred Unit set – only furniture is used to 1986-1987 Driving Miss Daisy: A Full- create the setting of Daisy’s house, Guernsey & Sweet Length Play in One Act Boolie’s office and the car Lucas, Craig Unit set – a trendy restaurant 1986-1987 Three Postcards: A Full- Guernsey & Sweet Length Musical in One Act Design Awards 86-87 season American Theatre Wing Hewes Design Award – Robert Israel for The Hunger Artist, James D. Sandefur for Fences

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design – John Napier (winner) for Les Misérables and Starlight Express, Bob Crowley for Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Edward Gianfrancesco for North Shore Fish, John Gunter for Wild Honey, Martin Johns for Me and My Girl, Tony Walton for The Front Page

Tony Award in Scenic Design – John Napier (winner) for Les Miserables, Bob Crowley for Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Martin Johns for Me and My Girl, Tony Walton for The Front Page Harling, Robert Unit set – a multiple-chair beauty 1987-1988 Steel Magnolias: A Play in salon attached to Truvy’s house by a Guernsey & Sweet Two Acts door up right Lapine, James Unit set – three downstage 1987-1988 Into the Woods: A Musical structures are isolated by a forest Guernsey & Sweet in Two Acts behind them upstage Blessing, Lee Unit set – a path winds downstage 1987-1988 through a sunlit mountain grove of Guernsey & Sweet

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor A Walk in the Woods: A Play trees to a wooden bench upstage, in Two Acts seasons change with each scene, but all are simplistically rendered Shue, Larry Unit set – The play is designed to be 1987-1988 Wenceslas Square: A Play in performed with two card tables, four Guernsey & Sweet Two Acts chairs and hand props Hwang, David Henry Unit set – various locations in 1987-1988 M. Butterfly: A Play in Three Beijing and Paris are created with Guernsey & Sweet Acts furniture and lighting Wilson, August Unit set – boarding house kitchen 1987-1988 Joe Turner’s Come and and parlor with one door leading to Guernsey & Sweet Gone: A Play in Two Acts a small outside playing area. Mamet, David Act I – Gould’s office 1987-1988 Speed-the-Plow: A Play in Act II – Gould’s home Guernsey & Sweet Three Acts Act III – Gould’s office Design Awards 87-88 season The American Theatre Wing Award – John Lee Beatty for Burn This, Eva Buchmuller for L Train to Eldorado

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design – Maria Björnson for The Phantom of the Opera, Scott Bradley for Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Eiko Ishioka for M. Butterfly, Tony Staiges for Into the Woods, Tony Walton for Anything Goes.

Tony Award in Scenic Design – Maria Björnson (winner) for The Phantom of the Opera, Eiko Ishioka for M. Butterfly, Tony Straiges for Into the Woods, Tony Walton for Anything Goes. Gurney, A.R. Unit set – comfortable living room 1988-1989 The Cocktail Hour: A in a city in upstate New York Guernsey & Sweet Comedy in Two Acts Greenberg, Richard Act I – corner of a restaurant in 1988-1989 Eastern Standard: A Play in midtown Manhattan Guernsey & Sweet Two Acts Act II – a broad porch of Stephen’s summer house overlooking a beach Wasserstein, Wendy Prologue – a lecture hall, 1988 1988-1989 The Heidi Chronicles: A S1 – Chicago, 1965 Guernsey & Sweet Play in Two Acts S2 – New Hampshire, 1967 S3 – Ann Arbor, 1970 S4 – Chicago, 1974

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor S5 – New York, 1977 Act II – lecture hall again S1 – an apartment, 1980 S2 – a TV studio, 1982 S3 – a restaurant, 1984 S4 – The Plaza Hotel, 1986 S5 – a pediatric ward, 1987 S6 – an apartment, 1988 Sterner, Jerry Unit set – most of the set is the 1988-1989 Other People’s Money: A Rhode Island offices of New Guernsey & Sweet Play in Two Acts England Wire and Cable, but via a light change the setting converts to an office in New York Innaurato, Albert Act I – Manhattan apartment, 1989 1988-1989 Gus and Al: A Play in Two S2 – house/villa in Vienna, 1901 Guernsey & Sweet Acts Act II – villa’s garden Ludwig, Ken Unit set – two rooms in an elegant 1988-1989 Lend Me a Tenor: A Comedy hotel suite, Cleveland, Ohio, 1934 Guernsey & Sweet in Two Acts Design Awards 88-89 season The American Theatre Wing Award – Jerome Sirlin for 1,000 Airplanes on the Roof

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design – Santo Loquasto (winner) for Italian American Reconciliation and Cafe Crown, Loy Arcenas for Reckless, John Lee Beatty for Aristocrats, Thomas Lynch for The Heidi Chronicles, James Morgan for Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Tony Walton for Lend Me a Tenor

Tony Award in Scenic Design – Santo Loquasto (winner) for Cafe Crown, Thomas Lynch for The Heidi Chronicles, Claudio Segovia and Hector Orezzoli for Black and Blue, Tony Walton for Lend Me a Tenor. Margulies, Donald Unit set – Mainly a living room in 1989-1990 The Loman Family Picnic: A Coney Island, NY. Boy’s bedroom Guernsey & Sweet Play in Two Acts hidden behind a scrim until lit. Gurney, A.R. No set – this play is set up as a 1989-1990 staged reading Guernsey & Sweet

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Love Letters: A Play in Two Acts Davis, Luther Unit set – musicians seen onstage 1989-1990 Grand Hotel, the Musical: A and a doorman by a revolving door Guernsey & Sweet Full-Length Musical in One- with a big sign overhead Act Gelbart, Larry Scenes shift to various locales as 1989-1990 City of Angles: A Musical in well as shifting between the life of Guernsey & Sweet Two Acts the 1940s writer and black & white scenes from the story he is writing. All scene are set inside. Bogosian, Eric No set – changes in character also 1989-1990 Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll: A use different props, but no real set Guernsey & Sweet Monologue of 12 Characters Lucas, Craig Unit set – the upstage part of the set 1989-1990 Prelude to a Kiss: A Play in stays the same with a large window Guernsey & Sweet Two Acts surrounded by the trunks and branches of trees and behind it, the sky. Furniture/props are moved on as needed to create different places—a party, Rita’s apartment, Boyle home, pool side, a beach, a bar, etc. Galati, Frank Unit set – the stage is sparse, and 1989-1990 The Grapes of Wrath: A Play settings are clarified by objects— Guernsey & Sweet in Two Acts fence, water tank, etc. Mostly the play is a journey with the family inside a truck heading to California. Wilson, August Unit set – The kitchen and parlor of 1989-1990 The Piano Lesson: A Play in a house in Pittsburgh in 1936. Guernsey & Sweet Two Acts Stairs to the second floor visible. Ahrens, Lynn Unit set – An island in the French 1989-1990 Once on This Island Antilles. The island is depicted Guernsey & Sweet simply since the stage is mostly bare for dance numbers Design Awards 89-90 season The American Theatre Wing Award – Kevin Rigdon for The Grapes of Wrath

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design – Robin Wagner (winner) for City of Angels, Edward Gianfrancesco for The Widow’s Blind Date, Kevin Rigdon for The Grapes of Wrath, Tony Walton for Grand Hotel

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor

Tony Award in Scenic Design – Robin Wagner (winner) for City of Angels, Alexandra Byrne for Some Americans Abroad, Kevin Rigdon for The Grapes of Wrath, Tony Walton for The Grand Hotel, The Musical. Guare, John Unit set – An apartment in New 1990-1991 Six Degrees of Separation: A York, but the set is mostly Guernsey & Sweet Full-Length Play in One Act suggestive with a painting and a few bits of furniture Finn, William and James No set – The setting changes often 1990-1991 LaPine and is usually created via furniture Guernsey & Sweet Falsettoland: A Full-Length or other props Musical in One Act Greenberg, Richard Act I – outside in the Catskills, 1990-1991 The American Plan: A Play summer of 1960 Guernsey & Sweet in Two Acts (Note: This was Act II – Adlers’ Central Park West produced off-Broadway in this apartment ten years later season and on Broadway in 2009) Simon, Neil Unit set – a two-bedroom apartment 1990-1991 Lost in Yonkers: A Play in over Kurnitz’s Kandy Store, Guernsey & Sweet Two Acts Yonkers, New York. Baitz, Jon Robin Act I – a book-lined conference 1990-1991 The Substance of Fire: A room at Kreeger/Geldhart Guernsey & Sweet Play in Two Acts Publishers 1987 Act II – an apartment on Gramercy Park, 3.5 years later Barry, Lynda Unit set – the front porch and inside 1990-1991 The Good Times are Killing a house in a working class Guernsey & Sweet Me: A Play in Two Acts neighborhood in the mid-1960s Design Awards 90-91 season The American Theatre Wing Award – Richard Hudson for La Bete Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design – Heidi Landesman (winner) for The Secret Garden, David Gallo for Machinal, Richard Hudson for La Bête, Andrew Jackness for Road to Nirvana

Tony Award in Scenic Design – Heidi Landesman (winner) for The Secret Garden, Richard Hudson for La Bête, John Napier for Miss Saigon, Tony Walton for The Will Rogers Follies

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor McNally, Terrence Unit set – the wooden deck of a 1991-1992 Lips Together, Teeth Apart: Long Island beach house with a Guernsey & Sweet A Play in Three Acts living room and kitchen visible via sliding glass doors. The beach is just off the sides of the deck & a pool downstage McPherson, Scott Unit set – Upstage area is lighted 1991-1992 Marvin’s Room: A Play in glass bricks with a door and the Guernsey & Sweet Two Acts locations change to various places in Florida & Ohio via furniture & props Margulies, Donald Act I – farmhouse in the English 1991-1992 Sight Unseen: A Play in Two countryside Guernsey & Sweet Acts S2 – an art gallery in London S3 – the farmhouse S4 – bedroom in Brooklyn Act II – the farmhouse again S6 – the art gallery S7 – the farmhouse S8 – painting studio in NY art school Gardner, Herb Unit set – a bar on Canal Street in 1991-1992 Conversations with my New York City that changes looks Guernsey & Sweet Father: A Play in Two Acts between 1936 to 1976 Ludwig, Ken Act I – Backstage of theatre, NYC 1991-1992 Crazy for You: A Musical in S2 – 42nd Street, outside theatre Guernsey & Sweet Two Acts S3 – Main St., Deadrock, Nevada S4 – Lank’s Saloon S5 – In the desert S6 – the Gaiety Theatre S7 – Main St., Deadrock S8 – lobby of the Gaiety Theatre S9 – Stage of the Gaiety Theatre S10 – Gaiety dressing rooms S11 – Main St., Deadrock Act II – Lank’s Saloon S2 – Lank’s Saloon, next morning S3 – Gaiety Theatre, backstage S4 – Auditorium of the Gaiety S5 – New York, 6 weeks later S6 – Main St., Deadrock Wilson, August Unit set – Memphis Lee’s restaurant 1991-1992 Two Trains Running: A Play in the Hill District of Pittsburgh in Guernsey & Sweet in Two Acts 1969

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Smith, Anna Deavere No set – the play is a series of 1991-1992 Fires in the Mirror: A Full- monologues taken from interviews Guernsey & Sweet Length Program in One Act and based on real events Greenberg, Richard Various locations in New York City 1991-1992 The Extra Man: A Play in – apartment, a bench, restaurant, etc. Guernsey & Sweet Two Acts Design Awards 91-92 season The American Theatre Wing Award – John Arnone for Pericles

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design – Tony Walton (winner) for Guys and Dolls, John Conklin for ‘Tis a Pity She’s a Whore, Joe Vanek for Dancing at Lughnasa, Robin Wagner for Crazy for You, James Youmans for Bella, Belle of Byelorussia

Tony Award in Scenic Design – Tony Walton (winner) for Guys and Dolls, John Lee Beatty for A Small Family Business, Robin Wagner for Jelly’s Last Jam, Joe Vaněk for Dancing at Lughnasa. Kornbluth, Josh No set – These are Two One- 1992-1993 Red Diaper Baby Performer Monologue Shows Guernsey & Sweet Leguizamo, John Spic-O-Rama Kramer, Larry Unit set – a white-walled hospital 1992-1993 The Destiny of Me: A Play in room that becomes other places in Guernsey & Sweet Three Acts memory via props & furniture Wasserstein, Wendy Unit set – a sitting room in Queen 1992-1993 The Sisters Rosensweig: A Anne’s Gate, London in 1991 Guernsey & Sweet Play in Two Acts Mamet, David Unit set – John’s office 1992-1993 Oleanna: A Play in Two Guernsey & Sweet Acts Butterfield, Catherine Flexible set – Furniture and props 1992-1993 Joined at the Head: A Play create the set in and around Boston Guernsey & Sweet in Two Acts Rudnick, Paul Flexible set – Furniture and props 1992-1993 Jeffrey: A Play in Two Acts create the set in New York Guernsey & Sweet Perlman, Arthur Flexible set – Emily is recovering 1992-1993 Wings: A Full-Length from a heart attack. Play covers 2 Guernsey & Sweet Musical in One Act years and her memories

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor McNally, Terrence Various spaces within a prison in 1992-1993 Kiss of the Spider Woman: A Latin America Guernsey & Sweet Musical in Two Acts Kushner, Tony Flexible set – various locations in 1992-1993 Angels in America: New York City, Salt Lake City and Guernsey & Sweet Millennium Approaches: A Elsewhere Play in Three Acts Gurney, A.R. Unit set – terrace of a high-rise 1992-1993 Later Life: A Full-Length apartment building, over-looking Guernsey & Sweet Play in One Act Boston Harbor Design Awards 92-93 season The American Theatre Wing Award – John Arnone for Tommy

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design – John Arnone & Wendall K. Harrington (winner) for The Who’s Tommy, Mark Beard for Brother Truckers, Heidi Ettinger for One Shoe Off, Guy-Claude Francois for Les Atrides, Jerome Sirlin for Kiss of the Spider Woman

Tony Award in Scenic Design – John Arnone (winner) for The Who’s Tommy, John Lee Beatty for Redwood Curtain, Jerome Sirlin for Kiss of the Spider Woman, Robin Wagner for Angels in America: Millennium Approaches. McNally, Terrence Flexible set – India, the United 1993-1994 A Perfect Ganesh: A Play in States, points in between and in the Guernsey & Sweet Two Acts character’s minds Schenkkan, Robert E1 – Clearing in a thick forest 1993-1994 The Kentucky Cycle: A Play E2 – Cabin in eastern Kentucky Guernsey & Sweet in Nine Episodes E3 – Ridge overlooking the mountains and valleys & front yard of the Rowen house E4 – The front yard of the house E5 – cabin and various places during the Civil War E6 – By a creek in the hills & the Rowen house E7 – Blue Star Coal Camp E8 – Union Meeting Hall E9 – Rowen homestead near the stump of the Treaty Oak

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Simon, Neil Unit set – an office on the 23rd floor 1993-1994 Laughter on the 23rd Floor: of a building on 57th Street, New Guernsey & Sweet A Play in Two Acts York City Kushner, Tony Flexible set – New York City and 1993-1994 Angels in America, Part II: Elsewhere Guernsey & Sweet Perestroika Ives, David Flexible set becomes different 1993-1994 All in the Timing: A Program locations for each one-act play Guernsey & Sweet of Six One-Act Plays Albee, Edward Unit set – a “wealthy” bedroom, 1993-1994 Three Tall Women: A Play in French in feeling Guernsey & Sweet Two Acts Smith, Anna Deavere No set – the play is a series of 1993-1994 Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992: monologues based on the rioting Guernsey & Sweet A Series of Monologues in after the “not guilty” verdict against Two Parts officers who beat Rodney King Lapine, James Flexible set – Milan and a remote 1993-1994 Passion: a Musical in 15 military outpost Guernsey & Sweet scenes Bogosian, Eric Unit set – Sidewalk area of a 7- 1993-1994 Suburbia: A Play in Two Eleven convenience store Guernsey & Sweet Acts Design Awards 93-94 season The American Theatre Wing Award – Tony Walton for She Loves Me

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design – Ian MacNeil (winner) for An Inspector Calls, Bob Crowley for Carousel, Peter J. Davison for Medea, Marina Draghici for The Lights, Adrianne Lobel for Passion, George Tsypin for In the Summer House

Tony Award in Scenic Design – Bob Crowley (winner) for Carousel, Peter J. Davison for Medea, Ian MacNeil for An Inspector Calls, Tony Walton for She Loves Me. McNally, Terrence Unit set – The place is a remote 1994-1995 Love! Valour! Compassion!: house and wooded grounds 2-hours Guernsey & Sweet A Play in Three Acts north of New York City, but the set is more suggestive with grass, pillars and furniture used to clarify location for each scene.

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Williams, Jaston, Joe Sears Flexible set – the play is 7 scenes 1994-1995 and Ed Howard where the 2 actors create 22 Guernsey & Sweet A Tuna Christmas: A Play in characters, so the locations change Two Acts mostly via furniture and props. Foote, Horton Act 1 – Will Kidder’s office 1994-1995 The Young Man from S2 – Kidder residence Guernsey & Sweet Atlanta: A Full-Length Play S3 – same, one week later in One Act Act II – Kidder residence Design Awards 94-95 season The American Theatre Wing Award – John Lee Beatty for The Heiress

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design – Eugene Lee (winner) for Show Boat, Bob Crowley for Hapgood, Stephen Brimson Lewis for Indiscretions, Santo Loquasto for A Month in the Country, Mark Thompson for Arcadia, James Youmans for The Petrified Prince

Tony Award in Scenic Design – John Napier (winner) for Sunset Boulevard, John Lee Beatty for The Heiress, Stephen Brimson Lewis for Indiscretions, Mark Thompson for Arcadia. McNally, Terrence Unit set – classroom with a piano 1995-1996 Master Class: A Play in Two and chairs for students and the Guernsey & Sweet Acts teacher Nelson, Richard Unit set – inside a farmhouse in 1995-1996 New England: A Full-Length western Connecticut near New York Guernsey & Sweet Play in One Act State Larson, Jonathan Flexible set – While used as several 1995-1996 Rent: A Musical in Two Acts locations the unit set is mostly the Guernsey & Sweet loft apartment of Mark & Roger Baitz, Jon Robin Act I – an archeological excavation 1995-1996 A Fair Country: A Play in in southern Mexico in 1987 Guernsey & Sweet Two Acts S2 – verandah of a home in Durban, South Africa in 1978 S3 – Togo Airport, West Africa S4 – same as Scene 2 Act II – Living room in Holland S2 – same S3 – back to the excavation

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Wilson, August Unit set – the bleak back yard of a 1995-1996 Seven Guitars: A Play in rundown boarding house with stairs Guernsey & Sweet Two Acts to different floors upstage Design Awards 95-96 season The American Theatre Wing Award – Christopher H. Barreca for Chronicle of a Death Foretold

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design for Plays – Scott Bradley (winner) Seven Guitars, Derek McLane and Mark McKenna for The Monogamist, Neil Patel for Quills, Narelle Sissons for Entertaining Mr. Sloane, Julie Taymor and Christine Jones for The Green Bird, Tony Walton for A Fair Country

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design for Musicals – Brian Thomson (winner) for The King and I, G.W. Mercier for Bed and Sofa, Cristina Poddubiuk, James Noone and Robin Wagner for Big: the Musical, Robin Wagner for Victor/Victoria

Tony Award in Scenic Design – Brian Thomson (winner) for The King and I, John Lee Beatty for A Delicate Balance, Scott Bradley for Seven Guitars, Anthony Ward for A Midsummer Night’s Dream Marans, Jon Unit set – Professor Mashkan’s 1996-1997 Old Wicked Songs: A Play in music rehearsal studio in Vienna, Guernsey Two Acts Austria Uhry, Alfred Unit set – the living room and 1996-1997 The Last Night of Ballyhoo: dining room of the Freitag house in Guernsey A Play in Two Acts Atlanta, Georgia Crawley, Brian Flexible set – story involves a cross 1996-1997 Violet: A Musical in Two country bus journey and the set Guernsey Acts changes to reflect the bus, a restaurant, a hotel, flashbacks, etc. Stone, Peter Prologue – ship designer’s office 1996-1997 Titanic: A Musical in Two Act I – The ocean dock of the ship Guernsey Acts S2 – poop deck on the stern S3 – the dock

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor S4 – the bridge and boiler rooms S5 – 2nd class saloon “D” deck S6 – 1st class dining room S7 – the bridge S8 – 3rd class “F” deck commissary S9 – the bridge S10 – the radio room S11 – 1st class promenade boat deck S12 – 2nd class deck S13 – various build to collision Act II – various in the aftermath S2 – 1st class grand salon S3 – “E” deck stairwell S4 – the boat deck S5 – the radio room S6 – at the lifeboats S7 – portholes S8 – upper promenade “A” deck S9 – 1st class smoke room & deck S10 – the aftermath Vogel, Paula Flexible set – play covers various 1996-1997 How I Learned to Drive: A time periods and various places Guernsey Full Length Play in One Act switching fluidly Design Awards 96-97 season The American Theatre Wing Award – Christina Poddubiuk for Jekyll & Hyde

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design for a Play – David Gallo and Jan Hartley (winner) for Bunny Bunny, Robert Brill for The Rehearsal, Marina Draghici for The Skriker, Derek McLane for Present Laughter, James Noone for The Gin Game

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design for a Musical – Robin Phillips (winner) for Jekyll & Hyde, Clarke Dunham for Candide, G.W. Mercier and Julie Taymor for Juan Darien, James Morgan for No Way to Treat a Lady, Tony Walton and Wendall K Harrington for Steel Pier

Tony Award in Scenic Design –

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Steward Laing (winner) for Titanic, John Lee Beatty for The Little Foxes, G.W. Mercier and Julie Taymor for Juan Darién, Tony Walton for Steel Pier. Allers, Roger and Irene Flexible set – set becomes various 1997-1998 Mecchi locations in the African plains and Guernsey The Lion King: A Musical in jungle Two Acts Howe, Tina Flexible set – minimal setting for 1997-1998 Pride’s Crossing: A Play in this memory play where lighting Guernsey Two Acts and sound clarify location changes McNally, Terrence Act I – Dock in New York Harbor 1997-1998 Ragtime: A Musical in Two S2 – a vaudeville theatre, NYC Guernsey Acts S3 – Mother’s garden S4 – Ellis Island/Lower East Side S5 – the Tempo Club, Harlem S6 – railroad station, New Rochelle S7 – Emerald Isle Firehouse S8 – Mother’s house, New Rochelle S9 – a hillside above New Rochelle Act II – streets of New Rochelle S2 – the Polo grounds S3 – Mother’s house S4 – Atlantic City/Boardwalk S5 – Harlem/Coalhouse’s hideout S6 – the beach, Atlantic City S7 – Morgan Library, NYC Design Awards 97-98 season The American Theatre Wing Award – Eugene Lee for Ragtime

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design for a Play – The Quay Brothers (winner) The Chairs, Loy Arcenas for Ballad of Yachiyo, Chris Barreca for Three Days of Rain, John Lee Beatty for Ivanov, Santo Loquasto for Malansky/Zilisnky or ‘Schmucks’, Derek McLane for Misalliance

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design for a Musical – Richard Hudson (winner) for The Lion King, Robert Brill for Cabaret, Eugene

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Lee and Wendall K. Harrington for Ragtime

Tony Award in Scenic Design – Richard Hudson (winner) for The Lion King, Quay Brothers for The Chairs, Bob Crowley for The Capeman, Eugene Lee for Ragtime Leight, Warren Flexible set – the play moves to 1998-1999 Side Man: A Play in Two various locations from 1985 to 1953 Guernsey Acts Edson, Margaret Flexible set – most of the play takes 1998-1999 Wit: A Full Length Play in place in a hospital room, but the Guernsey One Act stage is mostly empty so the location changes as furniture rolls on and off. Uhry, Alfred Act I – a field & hills outside 1998-1999 Parade: A Musical in Two Atlanta Guernsey Acts S2 – a stodgy bedroom S3 – townspeople watching a parade S4 – National Pencil Factory S5 – Frank home S6 – police interrogation room S7 – walking down a street S8 – jail cell S9 – governor’s office S10 – funeral home S11 – police station S12 – reporter interviews S13 – jail cell S14 – laundry room S15 – prison visiting room S16 – outside & inside courthouse Act II – courtroom S2 – prison visiting room S3 – party at Governor’s mansion S4 – Judge Roan’s office S5 – in the prison S6 – courtroom S7 – chain gang breaking rocks S8 – Slaton at the gallows S9 – prison cell S10 – cell and by an oak tree S11 – Lucille’s house

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Williams, Tennessee Unit set – the space is divided to 1998-1999 Not About Nightingales: represent several spaces within a Guernsey large American prison Design Awards 98-99 season The Henry Hewes Award – Scott Pask for The Mineola Twins

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design for a Play – Richard Hoover (winner) for Not About Nightingales, John Lee Beatty for The Mystery of Ima Vep, Maria Björnson for Britannicus and Phédre, Bob Crowley for Twelfth Night, Allen Moyer for That Championship Season, James Noone for Night Must Fall

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design for a Musical – Lex Brotherston (winner) for Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake, David Gallo for You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, Riccardo Hernandez for Parade, G.W. Mercier and Jan Hartley for Dream True

Tony Award in Scenic Design – Richard Hoover (winner) for Not About Nightingales, Bob Crowley for The Iceman Cometh and Twelfth Night, Riccardo Hernandez for Parade. Nelson, Richard Unit set – Misses Morkans’s house 1999-2000 James Joyce’s The Dead: A for the annual Christmas party, Guernsey Full-Length Musical in One Dublin Act Margulies, Donald Act I – kitchen in Connecticut 1999-2000 Dinner with Friends: A Play S2 – Tom and Beth’s bedroom Guernsey in Two Acts S3 – Karen & Gabe’s living room Act II – house in Martha’s Vineyard S2 – Karen and Gabe’s patio S3 – a bar in Manhattan S4 – Karen and Gabe’s bedroom Wilson, August Unit set – a gypsy cab station in 1999-2000 Jitney: A Play in Two Acts Pittsburgh’s Hill district, 1977 Guernsey

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Design Awards 99-00 season The Henry Hewes Award – David Gallo for Jitney and The Wild Party

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design for a Play – David Gallo (winner) for Jitney, Derek McLane for East is East, James Noone for The Time of the Cuckoo, Rob Odorisio for An Empty Plate in the Café de Grand Boeuf, Neil Patel for Dinner with Friends, Tony Walton for Uncle Vanya

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design for a Musical – Robin Wagner (winner) for Kiss Me, Kate, Julian Crouch and Graeme Gilmour for Shockheaded Peter, David Gallo for The Wild Party, Thomas Lynch for Contact and The Music Man

Tony Award in Scenic Design – Bob Crowley (winner) for Aida, Thomas Lynch for The Music Man, Robin Wagner for Kiss Me, Kate, Tony Walton for Uncle Vanya. Wilson, August Unit set: The backyards of a row of 2000-2001 King Hedley II (Note: with the three houses in the Hill District of Jenkins new editor the essays on plays got Pittsburgh, 1985. a new format without clarification on type on length) Lonergan, Kenneth Unit set: The spacious lobby of a 2000-2001 Lobby Hero middle-income high-rise apartment Jenkins building in Manhattan and the street outside Brooks, Mel and Thomas Act I – Shubert Alley 2000-2001 Meehan S2 – Max’s office Jenkins The Producers S3 – office of Whitehall and Marks S4 – Max’s office S5 – Max’s office, next morning S6 – Greenwich Village rooftop S7 – East Side townhouse livingroom S8 – Max’s office S9 – Little Old Lady land Act II – Max’s office S2 – bare stage of a theatre

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor S3 – Shubert Alley S4 – stage of the Shubert Theatre S5 – Max’s office S6 – Holding cell in NY courthouse S7 – a New York courtroom S8 – Sing Sing prison S9 – Stage of the Shubert Theatre S10 – Shubert Alley Auburn, David Unit set – back yard of a house in 2000-2001 Proof Chicago. Jenkins Kotis, Greg and Mark Act I – Amenity #9, a filthy urinal 2000-2001 Hollmann S2 – offices of Urine Good Jenkins Urinetown company S3 – a street corner S4 – Amenity #9 S5 – offices of Urine Good company S6 – Amenity #9 Act II – a secret hideout S2 – a secret hideout later S3 – offices of Urine Good company S4 – a secret hideout S5 – various Design Awards 00-01 season The Henry Hewes Award – John Moran for Book of the Dead (Second Avenue)

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design for a Play – Bob Crowley (winner) for The Invention of Love, John Lee Beatty for Comic Potential, Jeff Cowie for The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, David Gallo for King Hedley II, Thomas Lynch for Old Money, Dean Taucher for Tabletop

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design for a Musical – Robin Wagner (winner) for The Producers, Heidi Ettinger for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Richard Hoover and Bryan Johnson for Bat Boy: The Musical, David Rockwell for The

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Rocky Horror Show, Douglas W. Schmidt for 42nd Street

Tony Award in Scenic Design – Robin Wagner (winner) for The Producers, Bob Crowley for The Invention of Love, Heidi Ettinger for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Douglas W. Schmidt for 42nd Street. Mee, Charles L. Unit set: A terrace or garden of a 2001-2002 Big Love villa on the coast in Italy, but not Jenkins naturalistic Albee, Edward Unit set: A living room 2001-2002 The Goat, or Who is Sylvia Jenkins Kushner, Tony Flexible set: the play takes place in 2001-2002 Homebody/Kabul London and Kabul in 1998 Jenkins Zimmerman, Mary Unit set: The playing area is a large 2001-2002 Metamorphoses pool and the audience needs to be Jenkins looking down on it. Double doors upstage and a total of 6 ways to enter Parks, Suzan-Lori Unit set: a seedily furnished 2001-2002 Topdog/Underdog rooming house rom with only one Jenkins bed Design Awards 01-02 season The Henry Hewes Award – Louisa Thompson for [sic]

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design for a Play – Tim Hatley (winner) for Private Lives, John Lee Beatty for Morning’s at Seven, Michael Brown for World of Mirth, David Gallo for Wonder of the World, Derek McLane for The Woman, Douglas Stein and Rupert Bohle for 36 Views

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design for a Musical – Douglas W. Schmidt (winner) for Into the Woods, Beowulf Boritt for The Last Five Years, Bob Crowley for Sweet Smell of Success, David Gallo for Thoroughly Modern Millie, Anthony Ward for Oklahoma!

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Tony Award in Scenic Design – Tim Hatley (winner) for Private Lives, John Lee Beatty for Morning’s at Seven, Daniel Ostling for Metamorphoses, Douglas W. Schmidt for Into the Woods Wright, Doug Unit set: simple square room with a 2002-2003 I Am My Own Wife table and 4 wooden chairs Jenkins Ephron, Nora Flexible set: starts with an empty 2002-2003 Imaginary Friends stage as the characters are in hell Jenkins and changes to different events/locations in their lives Greenberg, Richard Unit set: Locker room of a 2002-2003 Take Me Out professional baseball team Jenkins Design Awards 02-03 season The Henry Hewes Award – John Lee Beatty for Book of Days, Dinner at Eight, My Old Lady, and Tartuffe

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design for a Play – John Lee Beatty (winner) for Dinner at Eight, John Lee Beatty for My Old Lady, Troy Hourie for Temporary Help, Scott Pask for Take Me Out, Neil Patel for Endpapers, B.T. Whitehall for Shanghai Moon

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design for a Musical – Catherine Martin (winner) for La Bohème, Riccardo Hernandez for Radiant Baby, Scott Pask for Amour, David Rockwell for Hairspray, Stephane Roy for Cirque du Soleil: Varekai

Tony Award in Scenic Design – Catherine Martin (winner) for La boheme, John Lee Beatty for Dinner at Eight, Santo Loquasto for Long Day’s Journey into Night, David Rockwell for Hairspray Cruz, Nilo Flexible set: several locations in 2003-2004 Anna in the Tropics Tampa but mainly a cigar factory Jenkins Kushner, Tony Flexible set: the set changes to 2003-2004 Caroline, or Change several locations – Gellman’s house Jenkins

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor and other locations in Louisiana. Some scenes on the back porch. Greenberg, Richard Unit set: The office of John Pace 2003-2004 The Violet Hour Seavering and its anteroom in a Jenkins Manhattan tower Kron, Lisa Flexible set: part of it is Ann Kron’s 2003-2004 Well living room and part of it is the Jenkins stage on which the play is performed as well as other spaces as needed Design Awards 03-04 season The Henry Hewes Award – David Korins for Blackbird

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design for a Play – John Lee Beatty (winner) for Twentieth Century, Scott Bradley for The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, Ralph Funicello for Henry IV, David Korins for Blackbird, Andrew Lieberman for Wintertime, Derek McLane for I Am My Own Wife

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design for a Musical – Eugene Lee (winner) for Wicked, John Lee Beatty for Wonderful Town, Robert Brill for Assassins, Tom Pye for Fiddler on the Roof, Mark Thompson for Bombay Dreams

Tony Award in Scenic Design – Eugene Lee (winner) for Wicked, Robert Brill for Assassins, Ralph Funicello for Henry IV, Tom Pye for Fiddler on the Roof Margulies, Donald Act I – Hospital in Brooklyn 2004-2005 Brooklyn Boy S2 – hospital cafeteria Jenkins S3 – apartment in New York Act II – hotel suite in Los Angeles S5 – an office in Los Angeles S6 – Weiss apartment, Brooklyn Shanley, John Patrick Unit set: St. Nicholas church school 2004-2005 Doubt, a Parable and grounds outside Jenkins Wilson, August Unit set: parlor of a home in 2004-2005 Gem of the Ocean Pittsburgh’s Hill District, 1904 Jenkins

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Design Awards 04-05 season The Henry Hewes Award – Michael Yeargan for The Light in the Piazza

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design for a Play – Santo Loquasto (winner) for Glengarry Glen Ross, Robert Brill for A Streetcar Named Desire, Marisa Frantz for Frankenstein, Nathan Heverin for Outward Bound, Richard Hoover for After the Fall, David Korins for Orange Flower Water

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design for a Musical – Michael Yeargan (winner) for The Light in the Piazza, Lez Brotherston for Play Without Words, Tim Hatley for Monty Python’s Spamalot, Scott Pask for Sweet Charity, David Rockwell for All Shook Up, Anthony Ward for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Tony Award in Scenic Design in a Play – Scott Pask (winner) for The Pillowman, John Lee Beatty for Doubt, David Gallo for Gem of the Ocean, Santo Loquasto for Glengarry Glen Ross

Tony Award in Scenic Design in a Musical – Michael Yeargan (winner) for The Light in the Piazza, Tim Hatley for Monty Python’s Spamalot, Rumi Matsui for Pacific Overtures, Anthony Ward for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Wright, Doug, Scott Frankel Different parts of the Gray Gardens 2005-2006 and Michael Korie estate. Mostly indoors, but some on Jenkins Grey Gardens the porch Lindsay-Abaire, David Unit set: a house in Larchmont, NY 2005-2006 Rabbit Hole Jenkins Design Awards 05-06 season The Henry Hewes Award – Allen Moyer for Grey Gardens

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design for a Play – Michael

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Yeargan (winner) for Awake and Sing!, Roger Hanna for Walking Down Broadway, Eugene Lee for The Ruby Sunrise, Derek McLane for Abigail’s Party, Robert Wilson for Peer Gynt, Michael Yeargan for Seascape

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design for a Musical – David Gallo (winner) for The Drowsy Chaperone, Michael Bottari and Ronald Case for Fanny Hill, John Doyle for Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Thomas Lynch for See What I Wanna See, Allen Moyer for Grey Gardens, Scott Pask for The Wedding Singer

Tony Award in Scenic Design in a Play – Bob Crowley (winner) for The History Boys, John Lee Beatty for Rabbit Hole, Santo Loquasto for Three Days of Rain, Michael Yeargan for Awake and Sing!

Tony Award in Scenic Design in a Musical – David Gallo (winner) for The Drowsy Chaperone, John Lee Beatty for The Color Purple, Derek McLane for The Pajama Game, Klara Zieglerova for Jersey Boys Rodewald, Stew and Heidi Flexible set – the play takes place in 2006-2007 Passing Strange lots of locations in Los Angeles, Jenkins Amsterdam and Berlin Wilson, August Unit set – an office in a storefront in 2006-2007 Radio Golf the Hill District of Pittsburgh Jenkins Sater, Steven and Duncan Flexible set – platforms serve as 2006-2007 Sheik various locations changed with light Jenkins Spring Awakening Design Awards 06-07 season The Henry Hewes Award – David Gallo for Radio Golf

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design for a Play – Bob Crowley and Scott Pask (winner) for The

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Coast of Utopia, David Gallo for Radio Golf, David Korins for Essential Self-Defense and Jack Goes Boating, Garin Marschall for Hell House, Scott Pask for Blackbird

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design for a Musical – Bob Crowley (winner) for Mary Poppins, Beowulf Boritt for LoveMusik, Anna Louizos for In the Heights and Curtains, David Rockwell for Legally Blonde, Kris Stone for Brundibar/But the Giraffe

Tony Award in Scenic Design in a Play – Bob Crowley and Scott Pask (winners) for The Coast of Utopia, Jonathan Fensom for Journey’s End, David Gallo for Radio Golf, Ti Green and Melly Still for Coram Boy

Tony Award in Scenic Design in a Musical – Bob Crowley (winner) for Mary Poppins, Christine Jones for Spring Awakening, Anna Louizos for High Fidelity, Allen Moyer for Grey Gardens Letts, Tracy Unit set: inside the home of Beverly 2007-2008 August: Osage County and Violet Weston Jenkins Foote, Horton Unit set: inside a house in Harrison, 2007-2008 Dividing the Estate Texas Jenkins Sorkin, Aaron Flexible set – The set changes to 2007-2008 The Farnsworth Invention various locations with lighting and Jenkins prop changes Design Awards 07-08 season The Henry Hewes Award – Mark Wendland for Next to Normal, Richard III and Unconditional

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design for a Play – Scott Pask (winner) for Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Beowulf Boritt for Spain, Scott Bradley for Eurydice, David Korins for Hunting and

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Gathering, Santo Loquasto for Trumpery, Clint Ramos for The Return of the Prodigal

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design for a Musical – Michael Yeargan (winner) for South Pacific, David Gallo for A Catered Affair, Takeshi Kata for Adding Machine, Derek McLane for 10 Million Miles, George Tsypin for The Little Mermaid, Robin Wagner for Young Frankenstein

Tony Award in Scenic Design in a Play – Todd Rosenthal (winner) for August: Osage County, Peter McKintosh for The 39 Steps, Scott Pask for Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Anthony Ward for Macbeth

Tony Award in Scenic Design in a Musical – Michael Yeargan (winner) for South Pacific, Timothy Bird, David Farley & The Knifedge Creative Network for Sunday in the Park with George, Anna Louizos for In the Heights, Robin Wagner for Young Frankenstein LaBute, Neil Various locations created with a few 2008-2009 Reasons to be Pretty pieces of furniture Jenkins Design Awards 08-09 season The Henry Hewes Award – David Korins for Why Torture is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them, Derek McLane for 33 Variations, Louisa Thompson for Blasted

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design for a Play – David Korins (winner) for Why Torture is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them, Dale Ferguson for Exit the King, Rob Howell for The Norman Conquests, Neil Patel for Fifty Words, Derek McLane for 33 Variations, Walt Spangler for Desire Under the Elms

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design for a Musical – Tim Hatley (winner) for Shrek the Musical, Anna Louizos for Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, Thomas Lynch for Happiness, Scott Pask for 9 to 5 and Hair, Basil Twist for Arias with a Twist

Tony Award in Scenic Design in a Play – Derek McLane (winner) for 33 Variations, Dale Ferguson for Exit the King, Rob Howell for The Norman Conquests, Michael Yeargan for Joe Turner’s Come and Gone

Tony Award in Scenic Design in a Musical – Ian MacNeil (winner) for Billy Elliot the Musical, Robert Brill for Guys and Dolls, Scott Pask for Pal Joey, Mark Wendland for Next to Normal The 2008-2009 book was the last one published so from here on this will just be a listing of design awards. Design Awards 09-10 season The Henry Hewes Award – Donyale Werle for Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design – Phelim McDermott, Julian Crouch & Basil Twist (winner) for The Addams Family, Sandra Goldmark for The Boys in the Band, Derek McLane for Ragtime, Christopher Oram for Red, Jay Rohloff for Underground, Karen Tennent for Hansel and Gretel

Tony Award in Scenic Design in a Play – Christopher Oram (winner) for Red, John Lee Beatty for The Royal Family, Alexander Dodge for Present Laughter, Santo Loquasto for Fences

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Tony Award in Scenic Design in a Musical – Christine Jones (winner) for American Idiot, Marina Draghici for Fela!, Derek McLane for Ragtime, Tim Shortall for La Cage aux Folles Design Awards 10-11 season The Henry Hewes Award – John Lee Beatty for The Whipping Man

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design – Derek McLane (winner) for Anything Goes, Rachel Hauck for Orange, Hat & Grace, David Korins and Zachary Borovay for Lombardi, Derek McLane for Bangal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, Tony Straiges for Treasure Island, Mark Wendland for The Merchant of Venice

Tony Award in Scenic Design in a Play – Rae Smith (winner) for War Horse, Todd Rosenthal for The Motherfucker With the Hat, Ultz for Jerusalem, Mark Wendland for The Merchant of Venice

Tony Award in Scenic Design in a Musical – Scott Pask (winner) for The Book of Mormon, Beowulf Boritt for The Scottsboro Boys, Derek McLane for Anything Goes, Donyale Werle for Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson Design Awards 11-12 season The Henry Hewes Award – David Korins for Chinglish

Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design – Jon Driscoll, Rob Howell & Paul Kieve (winner) for Ghost the Musical, David Gallo for The Mountaintop, Roger Hanna for A Little Journey, David Korins for Assistance, Derek McLane for Follies

Tony Award in Scenic Design in a Play – Donyale Werle (winner) for

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Playwright & Play Title Scenic locations Season & Editor Peter and the Starcatcher, John Lee Beatty for Other Desert Cities, Daniel Ostling for Clybourne Park, Mark Thompson for One Man, Two Guvnors

Tony Award in Scenic Design in a Musical – Bob Crowley (winner) for Once, Jon Driscoll & Rob Howell for Ghost the Musical, Sven Ortel & Tobin Ost for Newsies, George Tsypin for Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark

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APPENDIX B

TABLE OF PHOTOS FEATURING NATURE DESIGN IN The Theatre (1901-1917) and Theatre Magazine (1917-1931)

Note: Only images of plays by American authors are listed. Except in rare cases images related to operas, university or amateur theatrical productions or from films have been excluded. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I created the following color-code to identify relevant settings: Text in blue = settings that are outside, but in some way influenced by humans Text in green = outdoor, open space wilderness settings. Text in orange = reason this setting is not applicable to this dissertation

Author & Work Scenic location and Notes Issue & Page title 1900 Our Players’ Gallery Fitch, Clyde Two people on a wooden bench with trees, a 1901 Lovers’ Lane fence and a painted hill behind. Per the script the Vol. I – (New scenes are name) The AI – The Parsonage Theatre AII – The Main Street Meyer Bros. AIII – Autumn in the Orchard & Co; New AIV – Spring in the Orchard York Photo shows flowers on the trees so it must be Editor Arthur from Act IV Hornblow Note: Per Richard Lee Arnold’s dissertation May “Actualistic [sic] tree trunks and a bench occupy Page 11 the center of the stage before a painted backdrop in Lover’s Lane.” p. 36 (While “actualistic” is a word in English, it seems that Arnold misapplied it throughout his dissertation.) “For his production of Lover’s Lane, four trees were built with leaves wired to real boughs which were ‘riveted with iron into paper mache trunks covered with bark.” p. 70 Quote from - Lavinia Hart “Behind the Scenes,” Cosmopolitan XXX March 1901, page 474

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Author & Work Scenic location and Notes Issue & Page title Beauty and the Painted backdrop 1901 Beast December Page 6 Presbrey, Eugene Set on a New England farm. Picture shows some 1901 W. 3D scenery in front of a painted backdrop of hills December New England Folks Page 16 Kidder, Edward E. Setting is in New England. Picture is too close to 1902 Sky Farm read much setting, but there is a 3-D plow buggy Vol. II drawn by a horse in front of a painted drop. March Page 7 Pixley, Frank S. Setting: King Dodo's Palace in Dodo Land and 1902 King Dodo Queen Lili's Palace in Spoopju Land June Looks like multilayered painted drops of jungle Page 6 setting Smith, Harry B. Setting: Strassburg, Germany 1902 The Wild Rose While there are some 3-D objects in the July foreground, setting of woods and stream is a Page 5 painted backdrop Barnet, Robert Setting: Cyprus 1902 Ayres 3-D objects in foreground, setting of an inlet July The Show Girl beach with cliffs is a painted backdrop Page 7 Caine, Hall Painted backdrop of a wooded garden with a 1902 The Eternal City stone wall October Page 6 Hazelton, George Setting: The Revolutionary War 1902 C. 3-D grassy ramp for the actors with painted flats October Captain Molly in front and painted backdrop of a hill and valley Page 11 Note: Per Richard Lee Arnold’s dissertation “A practical hillside slope in Captain Molly was achieved by a ramp. A profile of shrubs and rocks disguised the front while a landscape drop was placed at the back.” p. 31 Morris, Ramsay Picture only shows a train engine surrounded by 1902 The Ninety and smoke, but part of the description below it reads; November Nine “The big stage is literally covered with fire. Flames lick the Page 11 trunks of the trees. Telegraph poles blaze and the wires snap in the fierce heat. Sharp tongues of fire creep through the grass and sweep on blazing fiercely. In the midst of it all is the massive locomotive…” Note: Per Richard Lee Arnold’s dissertation the forest was created with a revolving background and tissue paper streamers made the flames of the fire with the help of lighting. p. 19

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Author & Work Scenic location and Notes Issue & Page title Churchill, Winston Picture only shows 2 people in front of a small 1903 The Crisis flowering tree, but article mentions the second act Vol. III “on the lawn in the Southern moonlight” January Page 9 Belasco, David & Story in six pictures – First is of a “transparent 1903 John Luther Long curtain on which are painted the ruins of a February The Darling of the pagoda, a shimmering river and” Buddha. “In the Pages 42-43 Gods distance are peaks of mountain ranges, the whole being progressively under lights of different colors.” Pictures 2-4 are inside, pic 5 is in the mountains, but seems to be inside a giant stone cave. Picture 6 is “In the bamboo forest.” The trees behind the actors look to be 2-D on sliders. “In the following tableau, of which no pictures were taken, the lovers are seen among the clouds united in heaven.” Review: January page 2 Note: Per Richard Lee Arnold’s dissertation “…included in the mountain retreat setting created by a painted backdrop and a bamboo forest achieved by a series of tree drops.” p. 9 Harburg, E.Y Picture is of the cyclone on Kansas fields near the 1903 (lyrics) & Harold beginning of the story. Wide shot with 3-D March Arlen (music) objects and actors in the foreground and a drop / Page 59 The Wizard of Oz transparency with the tornado behind. Review on 60-61 praises scenery, but not acting. Note: Per Richard Lee Arnold’s dissertation about the cyclone scene, “For this scene, the exterior included a landscape backdrop, with ground rows and profiles. Several three- dimensional items were placed among these painted units. A functional well with a wooden pump and real buckets were used. Several shallow pens were hung from a painted ground row representing a fence covered with climbing ivy or roses. A quantity of real hay or straw was forked onto a painted hay stack.” p. 38 Bataille, Henri Play told in 6 pictures – the last is the only one 1903 (based on Tolstoy outside. Road to Siberia. Stage is covered with April novel) snow and surrounded by trees with snow. Painted Page 95 Resurrection backdrop behind. Young, William Revival of 1899 production. 1903 (based on novel by Several outdoor images but most have painted September Lew Wallace) backdrops Pages 226- Ben Hur 227

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Author & Work Scenic location and Notes Issue & Page title Smith, Edger (book Painted backdrop of trees, flower covered gazebo 1903 and lyrics) & and view of a valley beyond. November William Francis Page 282 (music) Whoop-Dee-Doo Fitch, Clyde Four actors among 3-D trees with lots of leaves 1903 Major André and grass covered floor. Review on page 290 December says the show isn’t good. 12 performance run. Page 291 Note: Per Richard Lee Arnold’s dissertation “Fitch was also concerned about using actualistic objects in his productions. In Major André he used actual leaves on actual bushes Ives, Alice E & Collection of pictures labeled as “Plays of 1903 Jerome H. Eddy Yesterday.” Picture looks like a farm courtyard December The Village by a barn with trees. Page 307 Postmaster Ade, George Setting: In Front of Jimmison's Store, Main 1904 The County Street, Antioch; Court House Grove; Hackler's Vol. IV Chairman Law Office; Town Hall on Election Night January Picture might be the front of the store. Buildings Page 16 covered with flowering vines might be painted. Burnett, Frances Picture shows the actors on what looks like a 1904 Hodgson patio surrounded by plants/flowers with a painted January The Pretty Sister of backdrop of a valley behind. Page 17 José Hall, Owen (book Setting: Cannes and Greece 1904 and lyrics) & Picture shows a detailed painted backdrop of the February Sidney Jones woods with a castle seen in the distance. Page 33, also (music) In March the painting looks similar, but has lots March The Medal and the of ruined Greek columns Page 79 Maid Shelle, Kirke La Setting: A Wyoming ranch 1904 and Owen Wister Three pictures on page. Two seem to be outside. February The Virginian One looks like the yard of a house with actress Page 35 sitting on a bench in front of a tree. Other is outside a window with flowers in front. Thomas, Augustus Picture shows the deck of a city house. Some 1904 The Other Girl trees seen on the painted backdrop behind, but February mostly a city scape of buildings. Page 47 Morton, Martha This play only had one special performance 1904 The Triumph of Picture shows two men with wicker furniture and March Love a painted backdrop that looks like the woods. Page 63 Note: Per Richard Lee Arnold’s dissertation “A tree unit near the front of the stage in The

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Author & Work Scenic location and Notes Issue & Page title Triumph of Love was constructed with actualistic [sic] bark.” p. 36 Skinner, Charles M. Picture with article about the play shows some 3- 1904 The Harvester D objects in front of a painted backdrop of wheat June fields with mountains in the distance. Page 138, and Review in November page 270 November Pictured is an outdoor setting with 3-D bushes, Page 268 grass, and a tree Note: Per Richard Lee Arnold’s dissertation “In The Harvester, a painted canvas landscape was separated from the front of the stage by a three- dimensional tree trunk, a scarecrow, a camp fire and a number of logs.” p. 36 Pixley, Frank and Review only 1905 Gustav Luders Musical fantasy where all the characters play Vol. V Woodland birds. January Page 6 McLellan, C.M.S. Five photographs tell the basic story of the play. 1905 Leah Kleschna Act 5 takes place in front of a painted backdrop January of a farm. Page 7 Note: Per Richard Lee Arnold’s dissertation “One of the most noted examples of this curious linking of the painted and the actual is the famous lettuce field setting for Leah Kleschna. This included prop lettuce heads on the floor of the stage with the remainder of the lettuce field painted on a drop behind. This illusion was apparently quite successful. According to Arthur Edwin Krows, it won the enthusiasm of Henry Roger a noted easel painter of the time.” pp. 38-40 (p. 39 is a picture) Krows, Arthur Edwin. Play Production in America. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1916 See page 188 Doremus, Mrs. Images from Acts II, III & IV. Act II is outside 1905 Charles A. and with 3-D trees, rocks, grass and flowering bushes January Leonidas with a painted backdrop behind. Act IV might be Page 15 Westervelt a rocky hillside, but mostly looks like a painted The Fortunes of the backdrop. King Note: Per Richard Lee Arnold’s dissertation “A woodland setting for The Fortunes of the King was created of actualistic tree trunks, vines, flowers and rocky mounds. The entire foreground of the stage was provided with actualistic grass.” p. 106

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Author & Work Scenic location and Notes Issue & Page title Royle, Edwin Six pictures on the page, but none show much of 1905 Milton the setting. Most of the nature is in painted July The Squaw Man backdrops of both England and the ranch. Page 177 Fitch, Clyde Three pictures from the play take up the page. 1906 The Toast of the The first one seems to be a garden with grass, but Vol. VI Town the background is a painted backdrop. January Note: Per Richard Lee Arnold’s dissertation Page 15 “Representative grass also filled the forestage of The Toast of the Town. In addition, real-looking shrubs, fines, benches and mounds were used in [this] play.” p. 107 Belasco, David Four pictures on two pages. One of the bar, two 1906 The Girl of the of the cabin, and one of the tableau of the Girl January Golden West and her lover in the prairie. Page 18-19 The Vanderbilt Cup Two pictures on the same page meant to compare 1906 Bedford’s Hope the use of cars onstage in two different plays. March One has 2 cars, the other a car races a train. Page 57 Note: Per Richard Lee Arnold’s dissertation “Bedford’s Hope included a scene in which an automobile raced with a railroad train with ‘accompanying panoramic effects.’ … The passing background panorama was achieved by motion pictures projecting the passing of houses, fields and woods while in the foreground, ‘on the train and various parts of the set, similar images were flashed, showing the telephone poles, and the rails scattered along the way.’” p. 87-88 Quotes from: Moulton, Technical World Magazine, XVI, 578-79 Churchill, Winston Picture is pretty close to the actors but shows a 1906 The Title Mart yard between two buildings with trees and a April painted backdrop of a lake. Vol. VI Page 87 Moody, William Review – pages 283-284 1906 Vaughn Picture only shows the interior of the house from November The Great Divide the beginning of the play with curtains drawn Vol. VI Page 285 Belasco, David Three pictures cover the page showing scenes 1907 The Rose of the from Act I & II. Both are in courtyard areas Vol. VII Rancho where the upstage is buildings covered by vines January and flowers, but the floor looks to be carpet. Page 11 Smith, Edger & IBDB Description: A burlesque in one act 1907 music by Victor Comments: Performed following "Dream City" February Herbert Painted backdrop of a calm bay with tiny islands Page 34

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Author & Work Scenic location and Notes Issue & Page title The Magic Knight Armstrong, Paul Two pictures fill the page. Act III in front of a 1907 Salomy Jane log cabin, Act II in front of a dark background March with woods and the corner of a cabin. Play set in Page 77 & the California redwoods. Also pictures of kids in May p. 130 the show on a bench. Note: Per Richard Lee Arnold’s dissertation “In this production, the realistic earth of American frontier life was depicted by the use of wood chips, twigs and leaves spread over the stage.” p. 109 Beach, Rex and Set in Alaska in the winter 1907 James MacArthur The set looks to be a combination of 3-D snow April The Spoilers covered rocks/objects with a painted backdrop Page 93 Tanner, James T. & Two pictures fill the page. Large cast musical. 1907 Joseph W. Herbert Act I photo is in a garden with a building upstage June The Orchid center. Stage is framed in layers of foliage. Page 167 Thomas, Augustus Two pictures fill the page. The Act I picture 1907 The Ranger shows a southwestern building with a painted October backdrop of rolling hills of the plains Page 169 DeMille, William Three pictures fill the page. The Act III picture is 1907 C. & Margaret set in the jungle of South America. Set looks October Turnbull very 3-D (see NY Library for Key sheet) Page 279 Classmates Note: Per Richard Lee Arnold’s dissertation “Exterior settings, difficult as they are to represent, were depicted somewhat more realistically than previously. The painted backdrop which usually was central to an exterior was less conspicuous in scene design due to an increase of actualistic foreground details which masked a great deal of the backdrop. In photographs of scenes from Classmates, the foreground almost crowded the painted background out of view. The Act I setting in this play displayed a row of tents and three- dimensional tree trunks. The Act III scene in the South American jungle was most actualistic. Rocks and a variety of jungle vegetation were all three-dimensionalized.” p. 93 Note: Per Richard Lee Arnold’s dissertation “Bits of grass, leaves, stones and other natural debris covered the stage floor for a jungle scene in Classmates.” p. 109

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Author & Work Scenic location and Notes Issue & Page title Blethen, Joseph & Setting: Prologue: On the trial. Act I: Long Chance Creek, 1907 Max Figman, music near Nome. Act II: Arlee Easton's Bungalow at Dawson. October by Harry Girard Pictured is an actor in front of lots of totem poles Page 280 The Alaskan in front of what looks like a painted backdrop of hills and mountains with snowcaps. Day, Edmund Pictured is some 3-D scenery with painted drop 1907 The Round-Up behind. Lots of actors seen high up on a rock November cliff, all set is rocky, no plants. Page 300 Note: Per Richard Lee Arnold’s dissertation “In The Round-Up, a sensational melodrama set in the badlands of Arizona, a portion of a mountain side was three-dimensionally represented. The scene was located in a mountain pass with masses of rocks rising on both sides. One of these rock formations was constructed actualistically and provided a practical overhanging ledge many feet above the stage floor. At one moment in the play, the sheriff and his posse, mounted on 32 horses, descended this path, winding out of view and then returning on a lower level. This effect gave the illusion of twice the number of horses.” p. 82 “A photograph reveals that a cyclorama was used in the 1907 spectacular production of The Round- up. Theatre Magazine reported that the dawn effect used in the background was ‘made possible by recent developments in the management of lights and scenery.’” p. 122 (the picture he referenced is the one on this page. The review is in the October 1907 issue on page xv) Esmond, H.V. Picture is from Act III. Two actors having a 1908 Under the picnic on grass with flowers behind them. Image Vol. VIII Greenwood Tree too close to see much of the set. February Note: Per Richard Lee Arnold’s dissertation “In Page 34 Under the Greenwood Tree, realistic grass covered the stage for a picnic scene. Real- looking flowers, shrubs and trees were included.” pp.107-109 (108 is a picture) De Mille, William Too close and focused on the actress to see much 1908 C. setting but looks like 3-D of woods and a stream. February The Warrens of Note: Per Richard Lee Arnold’s dissertation Page 49 Virginia “Three-dimensional trees and logs were used in The Warrens of Virginia and The Wolf.” p. 107 Note: Per Richard Lee Arnold’s dissertation “A babbling brook was used in the center of the stage for Warrens of Virginia. Starting from a slight

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Author & Work Scenic location and Notes Issue & Page title elevation it flowed to within five feet of the footlights and disappeared in the stage rocks to be led through a sewer.” p. 114 Smith, Harry B. and Painted backdrop of the woods. Picture also 1908 music by Maurice shows actors holding lots of dogs on leashes. March Levi Note: Per Richard Lee Arnold’s dissertation Page 81 The Soul Kiss - “Backdrops, cut drops, leg drops, foliage borders Musical and ground rows were used for landscape setting of The Wolf and The Soul Kiss.” p. 78 Walter, Eugene Four pictures fill the page, 2 inside the cabin and 1908 The Wolf 2 outside. Woods seem to be all painted June backdrop with a few 3-D objects. Review about Page 157 the play on 144-145 Note: Per Richard Lee Arnold’s dissertation “Three-dimensional trees and logs were used in The Warrens of Virginia and The Wolf.” p. 107 De Mille, Cecil B Setting is a lumber camp. Picture shows the front 1908 & William C of a log cabin, backdrop of woods behind and June The Royal Mounted some 3-D trees and snow Page 166 Note: Per Richard Lee Arnold’s dissertation “A snow scene in The Royal Mounted was provided with white floor covering and piles of material resembling snow.” p. 109 Grossmith, George Three pictures on the page. Setting seems to be 1908 Jr. & L.E. Berman outside with flowers but very dark/out of focus October The Girls of Review on page 261 & viii Page 281 Gottenberg Fairfax, Marion Lady on a swing (implied that it is hanging from 1909 The Chaperon a tree). Behind are trees, a lake, low hills and a Vol. IX bit of a cabin, but where 3-D ends and painted February drop begins is unclear Page 47 Note: Per Richard Lee Arnold’s dissertation “A woodland scene in the Adirondacks graced the production of The Chaperon given in the intimate Maxine Elliott’s Theatre. Separating a lawn of artificial grass, a path led to the steps of a realistic mountain cabin. A practical swing seemingly hung from a tree was located in the foreground.” p. 106 Long, John Luther Three pictures on one page. Floor covered with 1909 Kassa grass, some 3-D rocks for sitting and painted tree March drop behind. Review on page 72 Page 101 Note: Per Richard Lee Arnold’s dissertation quoting the review on page 72 “….stupendous in

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Author & Work Scenic location and Notes Issue & Page title its massiveness, and yet save for the picturesqueness of the background there is little need for such extravagant settings. In fact, they might well be dispensed with for the time expended in putting them up only interrupts the little continuity which the story possesses.” Grossmith, George Four pictures on one page, but some are quite 1909 and Graham Hill, small. Biggest picture shows arches with hanging April music by Leslie foliage and a painted drop showing the bay Page 115 Stuart beyond. Review on page 107 & xi Havana Armstrong, Paul Play set on a New Mexico ranch. Half page 1909 and Rex Beach picture shows two men about to race. Background May Going Some has a rough, tall picket fence (3-D unclear) and Page 138 painted drop of the prairie with pine trees. Conan Doyle, Play set along the Nile river, but pictures are a bit 1909 Arthur unclear. Some of the setting is in front of rocks, Vol. X – as of Fires of Fate some in front of the river and trees, but might all this point, 2 be painted backdrops. Author is British volumes per year starting in July August Page 41 Ziefield Follies of While not a play, one scene pictured is interesting 1909 1909 Depicted is “With Roosevelt in South Africa” August Image is in the jungle with actors dressed up as Page 53 various animals. Looks all painted backdrop. Drury, Major W.P. Set in Crete, but the lands, mountains and bay 1909 and Leo Trevor beyond the fort are a painted backdrop October The Flag Review on page 103 Page 113 Lieutenant Smith, Winchell The setting is “An American Village” but the 1909 The Fortune Hunter picture shows part of a house, cut-outs of trees November and a painted backdrop with a river and hills Page 147 Knoblauch, Edward One picture from Act II set “outside the Creeper 1910 The Cottage in the cottage in Summersetshire”. Lots of flowers Vol. XI Air visible behind a group of seated actors but most January of the set can’t be seen Page 9 Note: Per Richard Lee Arnold’s dissertation “The second production [at the New Theatre], The Cottage in the Air, reveal a spacious exterior of a village of thatched-roof cottages. Realistic fences, artificial flowers and grass were interspersed between the cottages. Designed by the art director of the theatre, Hamilton Bell, emphasis in the pictorial composition was provided by

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Author & Work Scenic location and Notes Issue & Page title creating all lines in the setting to converge at a central element: …” p. 118-119. Maeterlinck, Setting: The woodcutter's cottage, the Palace of 1910 Maurice the Fairy Berylune, the Land of Memory, the February The Blue Bird graveyard, the Kingdom of the Past, the Palace of Page 51 Night, the Kingdom of the Future, the Palace of Happiness, the Leave Taking, and the Awakening Picture of interest is labeled “The scene in the forest” but level of 3-D is unclear The playwright is Belgian Review: October page 121 & Nov p. 130 & 132 Note: Per Richard Lee Arnold’s dissertation “Similar realistic details were employed in the forest scene of The Bluebird. Actualistic trees, artificial vines and leaves strewn over the floor give a natural outdoors effect.” p. 149 Maugham, W. Pictured is a porch with a bit of the house, tree 1910 Somerset flats and a painted backdrop. March Mrs. Dot Review on page 70-71 Page 66 Peple, Edward The setting is on a yacht, so the first of the 2 1910 The Spitfire pictures on the page is in a nice stateroom. But June the other picture is on a beach with a painted Page 193 backdrop of the sea and the yacht. Ambient, Mark & Set in Arcadia and London 1910 A.M. Thompson, Pictured is lots of actors in a forest setting with Vol. XII Music by what looks like both 3-D and flat trees. Backdrop September Monckton and unclear. Page 74 Talbot The playwright is British The Arcadians Note: Per Richard Lee Arnold’s dissertation “Molly May (May 1910) included an exterior setting comprised of backdrops, profiles and cut foliage borders. Similar scenic units were employed in a forest setting for The Arcadians. This production, however, included some three- dimensional trees in the foreground and a tremendous sense of depth in many profile trees, foliage borders and cut-out drops.” p. 139 Puccini - opera Two pictures fill the page of the interior settings 1910 The Girl of the for the Opera version which look a lot like December Golden West Belasco’s version. Page 177 Article with picture from Act III in the forest in Jan 1911 page 4, 6 & viii

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Author & Work Scenic location and Notes Issue & Page title Parker, Louis N. Two pictures fill the page. Set outside with lots 1911 Pomander Walk of doorways. One photo with tree surrounded by Vol. XIII a round bench. Playwright is French. February Page 61 Rostand, Edmond Two pictures fill the page. Play is set in a 1911 Chantecler barnyard and the actors dress as chickens. March Playwright is French. Page 81 Note: See article by Karl K. Kitchen from April 1911 Theatre Magazine and Samuel Howe “Stage Setting” in International Studio Note: Per Richard Lee Arnold’s dissertation “However, the true revolutionary aspect of this setting was its distinct advance away from facsimile realism. It replaced actualistic construction and profusive realistic details with suggestive colored areas, quick brush strokes, profiles and silhouettes. At the same time, a sense of depth provided by the succession of gauze drops under variations of light and color gave dimension to the setting. This production is also noteworthy for the imaginative use of stage lighting in creating its effects.” p. 168-169 Peabody, Josephine Setting: The town of Hamelin. Picture too close 1911 P to the actors, but setting looks like a garden or March The Piper forest with lots of flowers. Page 84 Patson, George 2 pictures fill the page. Act III set in a garden or 1911 Nobody’s Daughter yard with flowers, and a tree with a round bench April around it Page 109 Austin, Mary 4 pictures fill the page, but 3 are of the actors in 1911 The Arrow Maker costume. Setting is in an Indian village with April trees, bushes and maybe a cave. Page 129 Review on page 106-107 Harris, Elmer The front of adjoining houses with front yards, 1911 Thy Neighbor’s bushes and climbing vines. Vol. XIV Wife Review on page 116 October Page 115 Hichens, Robert 2 pictures fill the page. Act I is inside a dance 1911 and Mary Anderson hall, but Act II is “Count Anteoni’s Garden” with December The Garden of various trees and palm bushes as background. Page 213 Allah Review on page 184-185 Note: Per Richard Lee Arnold’s dissertation “…the production of Kismet in 1911 which started a wave of adventure dramas set in the luxurious and mysterious East.” p. 140

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Author & Work Scenic location and Notes Issue & Page title “In 1911, realistic illusion distinguished the majority of stage settings. The facts of nature were reproduced on the stage by careful and thorough attention to innumerable details. The Garden of Allah, a serious drama set in the Sahara Desert, was particularly noteworthy for its detailed verisimilitude. The sandstorm scene in this play was recorded as one of the most elaborate effects ever produced. It was found that real sand looked ‘unreal’ under the glare of the lights and did not blow easily across the stage. Consequently, it became necessary to find a suitable substitute to satisfy realistic illusion. One report indicates that the effect of blowing sand was achieved by a mixture of ground wheat and cork. However, releases from the press agent for the production stated that three hundred pounds of cornmeal was used for the effect.” p. 150-151 - Arnold cites Krows Play Production page 220, Moses “The Art of the Theatre” page 639, Dodge “Staging a Sandstorm” page viii, and Hamilton Studies in Stagecraft page 56 McKean, Thomas Picture from Act III of the courtyard of Nora’s 1912 The Wife Decides villa in Santa Barbara. Painted backdrop behind Vol. XV 3-D arches shows a bay and trees January Page 31 Walter, Eugene Picture too close on the actors to see the whole 1912 (novel by John Fox set but looks to be a 3-D stone steep trail with a February Jr.) tree and painted backdrop of a mountain behind. Page 41 The Trail of the Review in March page 76 (beautiful scenery) Lonesome Pine Note: Per Richard Lee Arnold’s dissertation “A beautiful mountain setting was provided for The Trail of the Lonesome Pine. A mountain path, rocks and vegetation were three-dimensionally conceived.” p. 153 DeGresac, Fred and 3 pictures fill the page. Set in Dalmatia. Pictures 1912 Harry B. Smith, are too close on the actors, but set outside with February Music Reginald what seems to be a painted backdrop of Page 43 DeKoven mountains and trees. The Wedding Trip Tully, Richard 2 pictures fill the page. Set in Hawaii. Act I on a 1912 Walton beach with a hut and a cave. Act III outside a February The Bird of small house with arches covered in flowers. Page 59 Paradise Review on page 42 & ix

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Author & Work Scenic location and Notes Issue & Page title Note: Per Richard Lee Arnold’s dissertation “An erupting volcano was attempted in The Bird of Paradise, a play placed in Hawaii which opened in January of 1912. The basis of this effect was a great moving wheel almost 24 feet in diameter. A Sheet of canvas which covered this wheel vibrated by fans and the spinning of the wheel resembled the ‘undulating lava’. Stitched to the canvas were loose strips of colored cheesecloth which became the leaping flames. Circles of lack were painted several feet apart from the center of the wheel to suggest the ‘troughs of seething waves of fire’. Clusters of red electric lamps from below and lighting instruments from overhead gave an appropriate red glow.” p. 143 (Arnold cites the review listed above and Fox “Dramatizing Electricity”) Besier, Rudolph 3 pictures fill the page. Set in a “luxurious tree 1912 Lady Patricia house.” Pictures too close to the actors but do April show the base of a large 3-D tree that the actress Page 133 starts to climb. Gilbert, W.S. and Picture and review on same page. Picture shows 1912 Arthur Sullivan 3 girls on grass with a row of flowering bushes in May (Revival) front of a painted drop of birch trees in a glade. Page 170 Patience Setting is the exterior of Bunthorne castle Gilbert, W.S. and 2 pictures fill the page. Review on page 2. Set 1912 Arthur Sullivan on a beach with rocks on each side. Vol. XVI (Revival) July Pirates of Penzance Page 3 Pixley, Frank S & 3 pictures fill the page. Set in rural England. 3-D 1912 Music Gustav unclear, but background looks to be a forest December Luders Page 181 The Gypsy Hauerbach, Otto Picture shows a porch or deck with 3D shrubs and 1913 The Firefly trees in front of a painted backdrop. Vol. XVII Review on the same page January Page 3 Gerard, Rosemonde Six pictures fill the page. Two are from Act II set 1913 and Maurice in the backyard. Has a large tree, concrete fence February Rostand and a mountain on painted backdrop Page 35 A Good Little Devil Ongley, Byron and Actress on a bench style swing next to an actor 1914 Emil Nyitray sitting in the grass. Tree behind the man looks 3- Vol. XX D, and the grass clearly is. Behind her it looks October

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Author & Work Scenic location and Notes Issue & Page title He Comes up like the bush is 3-D but the trees beyond that Page 156 Smiling seem to be painted. Overall the look of a yard. Review: page 207-208 in November issue Cohan, George M. Collection of five photographs. Several depict 1914 The Miracle Man the front yard and porch of a home with a tree Vol. XX stage left. The porch is framed with flowering November vines and the leaves on the tree are very light so Page 217 they could pass for flowers too. The tree looks flat, but the grass is clearly 3-D Review on page 205 of same issue Harbach, Otto A collection of 5 pictures from 5 plays fills the 1914 Suzi page, so only one is from this play. Shot is fairly Vol. XX close, but shows a couple sitting on a bench in December front of a tree. Another actor is above them Page 265 peaking around the tree, so the tree seems to be at least half round, especially based on the shadow cast by the top actor’s hand. Brown, Alice This “second cover” publishing page has a large 1915 Children of Earth photo of a couple in a 3-D environment with a Vol. XXI tree, bush and grass. Background looks very February plain but might have a painted tree. Note below Page 55 picture said that the critics liked the atmosphere, but that the play was hollow and unconvincing. Paulton, Edward A. Page has 5 pictures of the play. Two clearly 1915 and Adolf Philipp show some kind of courtyard/garden with steps Vol. XXII The Girl who up to the house. The tree might be flat and leaves October Smiles on the ground look painted, but the foliage looks Page 170 to be 3-D. Gate in the background also looks painted. Hazzard, John E. Page has 3 pictures from the play. The last one is 1916 and Winchell Smith outside on the peach farm. Background looks to Vol. XXIV Turn to the Right be a painted backdrop with flowering branches October hanging in front of painted tree trunks. Page 205 Footner, Hurbert Page has 3 pictures from the play. First picture is 1916 Shirley Kaye outside in front of a painted backdrop with wicker Vol. XXIV furniture and 3-D grass. Backdrop has trees and December bushes of a backyard setting. Page 347 Raphael, John N. Picture takes up ½ the page. Shows an outside 1917 Peter Ibbetson eating area next to a low wall. Set has several Vol. XXVI small trees with flowers and a 3-D grass floor. July Page 15 Thomas, Augustus As listed in the script, 3 acts out of 4 take place in 1918 The Copperhead the dooryard of a character’s home April Page 221

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Author & Work Scenic location and Notes Issue & Page title – Some 3-D set pieces with a painted backdrop of grassy hills and a lake Milne, A. A. Backyard with trees holding a hammock and 1918 Belinda painted backdrop behind. June Page 375 Crothers, Rachel Act I and II take place on a train, but before Act 1919 A Little Journey III there has been an accident and everyone is February waiting for help in a “little oasis.” Picture is on Page 81 the actors, but the floor looks to be grass with some 3-D set pieces and a painted drop Crothers, Rachel The description on the previous page says that the 1919 39 East play takes place at breakfast at a boarding house, May but the image looks to be outside. Hard to tell Page 277 & because the picture is focused on the actors. Both July pictures show actors sitting on a bench with Page 27 “nature” behind them Pauline Settings of the play are “Interior of Jed's 1920 Phelps & Marion Windmill Shop and the yard between the shop April Short; from the and Ruth's cottage from June to September.” The Page 275 novel by Joseph C. picture shows the actress up on a ladder handing Lincoln flowers, which seem to have come from the tree Shavings between them, to the man. The image is too focused on the people to see the rest of the yard. Barrie, James M. Picture shows three actors having a picnic. 1921 Mary Rose Behind them are rocks with moss and bushes. Vol. XXXIII They are clearly sitting on 3-D grass. March Page 155 Strange, Michael The first of three photographs shows a queen and 1921 Clair De Lune court in a garden. The bushes to the sides as well Vol. XXXIV as the grass are 3-D, but behind is a painting of August what looks like the gardens at Versailles in a mist Page 92 of distance. McGuire, William The largest of 3 pictures shows a yard with part 1921 Anthony of a house at each wing. A car has knocked over Vol. XXXIV Six Cylinder Love the divider wall and the residents of both houses November are in their yards. Page 291 None 1922 Harbach, Otto One small picture out of four looks to be outside. 1923 Oscar Hammerstein Lots of actresses with a donkey and a wagon, but Vol. Wildflower overhanging flowers can be seen and a slight XXXVIII view of a farm and mountains seems to be a August painted backdrop. Page 17 Anspacher, Louis Page is about 2 examples by designer Fredrick W. 1923 K. Jones. One of them is a tall, thin picture of a

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Author & Work Scenic location and Notes Issue & Page title Dagmar simplistic realistic porch or deck with a low wall. Vol. Beyond is a simple cyc, described as “…the XXXVIII infinite distance behind the wall, gives a feeling September of ocean beyond. The medium of suggestion is Page 18 used. The audience unconsciously builds up the scene for itself.” Ervine, St. John Page shows 5 small pictures in a yard/garden 1923 Mary, Mary Quite behind a house. Larger picture shows 3D grass, Vol. Contrary bushes and a flowering tree. Play was produced XXXVIII by Belasco November Page 17 Tierney, Harry Page has 4 pictures, but 3 are character pictures 1924 Kid Boots of the actors. One is a photo of a large group Vol. XXXIX watching a man putting. Play takes place at a April golf club in Palm Beach. Background seems to Page 17 have a 3-D tree and flower covered gazebo with a painted backdrop of the golf course. Lawson, John 6 pictures on the page, most of them small. The 1925 Howard last one is of a “wedding under the trees” which Vol. XL Processional is most likely the climax of the play, but the trees April and background are all on a painted backdrop Page 14 Lawrence, Vincent Page has 4 pictures, but 2 focus on character. 1925 Spring Fever The largest one is of a scene on a golf course. Vol. XLII There are a few small 3-D trees hardly taller than October the people with painted rolling hills Page 17 None 1926 None 1927 Royal, Edwin Small picture in with play reviews, but this play 1928 Milton was not reviewed in this issue. Picture gives the Vol. XLVII White Eagle impression on cliffs simplistically created with March (musical based on line and shadow. Center is a cluster of rocks on Page 62 The Squaw Man) which the actors are standing. Bushes or cactus plants are also simplistic with head sized, teardrop leaves. Black and white photo makes it unclear how simplistic the color tones were. Romberg, Sigmund Picture shows the opening to a porch/veranda in 1929 The Desert Song the foreground. Opening has no doors and is Vol 49, No. 2 (Operetta) round, but beyond is a variety of desert trees, February some closer than others to give a clear impression Page 28 of distance and expanse beyond the porch. The setting for the play is Northern Africa. Holfe, Monckton Of the 8 settings for this play, only one is outside 1929 Many Waters in a park. The picture seems to be in the park but Vol 50, No. 6 is too close on the man whose head rests in a December

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Author & Work Scenic location and Notes Issue & Page title woman’s lap to get much of a sense of the set Page 50 other than the short grass below them and taller grass behind them. None 1930 None Ends with April 1931

Over time the magazine changed from containing lots of pictures from productions to more of a focus on the actors and their personal lives. Also included later were ever increasing looks at fashion, cinema, amateur and little theatres. Ads for luxury items like jewelry, furs and cars also increased and were even included as articles about what kinds of cars theatrical stars drove.

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APPENDIX C

TABLE OF PHOTOGRAPHS FEATURING NATURE DESIGN IN Theatre Arts Magazine (1916-1924), Theatre Arts Monthly (1924-1939), and Theatre Arts (1939-1964)

Note: Only images from plays by American authors are listed. Except in rare cases images related to operas, university or amateur theatrical productions or from films have been excluded. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I created the following color-code to identify relevant settings: Text in blue = settings that are outside, but in some way influenced by humans Text in green = outdoor, wilderness settings. Where appropriate these will have a reference for page numbers related to this production in this dissertation Text in orange = reason this setting is not applicable to this dissertation

Author & Work Scenic location and Notes Issue & Page title N/A Interesting drawing by designer Hermann Rosse Vol I, Number for an open-air theatre in San Francisco that was 1 never built. Has tall pillars but is open in the Ed. Sheldon back to use distant trees as the background. Chaney “The pylons and hangings with the vista through November 1916 rows of trees at the back form an interesting Page 41 arrangement.” J. duRocher Page 50 has a sketch by Robert Edmond Jones Vol I, Number MacPherson and L. followed on p. 51-61 by an article by Moderwell. 2 du Rocher The sketch from The Happy Ending shows a February 1917 MacPherson forest created via hanging fabric. (my copy of Page 50 The Happy Ending the article in “Articles – design general” does not have as clear an image as it was in the magazine.) N/A The pictures on pages 32 & 33 are the most Vol III, interesting of this collection, but no play titles Number 1 are given. One is a 3-panel background of a January 1919 painted forest with long, thin and bubble shaped Page 31-34 trees. The other is a garden scene. The painting has branches, streaks and dots to look like a weeping willow with flowers or something like that. Looks like an impressionistic garden.

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Author & Work Scenic location and Notes Issue & Page title Synge Play is Irish, but design is interesting since it is a Vol IV, Deirdre of the painted forest, but mostly silhouettes of trees Number 3 Sorrows with only a hint of leaves. July 1920 Page 235 O’Neill Picture of the slave auction in the play. Vol V, number The Emperor (Also see Vol. VI page 43, Vol. VIII Pages 377- 1 Jones 379) January 1921 Pages 11 & 29 Ibsen, Henrik Play is Norwegian, but Lee Simonson’s design is Vol VII, Peer Gynt interesting. “…the sky is patterned with green Number 2 tree-shadows projected by lanterns.” Looks to April 1923 be gobos Page 107 Name changed to Theatre Arts Monthly Ibsen, Henrik Image is with the article “The Theatre Work of Vol. VIII, Lady from the Sea Paul Nash” by Gordon Bottomley. Even though Number 1 the play is Norwegian, it is of interest in how the January 1924 sea and a tree filled garden are depicted onstage Pages 40 & 41 by English designer, Nash. Trees made of (article = p. 38- drapery 48) O’Neill, Eugene Rendering of the design by James Reynolds Vol. VIII, Gold depicts a desert island, beach in foreground, sea Number 1 in the background. One giant palm leaf cuts April 1924 across the stage in a diagonal. Page 273 Goodman, Jules E. Not the original Broadway production. Howard Vol. VIII, Treasure Island Claney’s design for a forest scene basically uses Number 1 silhouettes of trees and overhanging leaves with April 1924 a cyc in the background. At first glance, the Page 279 folds in the cyc gave the impression of water ripples so the picture looked filmic. O’Neill, Eugene Production was near Philadelphia, but the Vol. VIII, The Emperor explanation of the designs with pictures is Number 1 Jones interesting. June 1924 Pages 377-379 Gilbert & Sullivan Not the original Broadway production. This Vol. IX, Patience design by Robert Edmond Jones was shows no Number 1 attempt at realism in the depiction of the woods. March 1925 Thin birch tree wings are clearly flat and the Page 150 painted backdrop is “heavy with intense colors” with the look of mosaic tile. Shaw, George Play is Irish, but Theatre Guild design of the Vol X, Number Bernard jungle is interesting modern art. 1 January 1926

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Author & Work Scenic location and Notes Issue & Page title Androcles and the Page 8 Lion None 1927 O’Neill, Eugene The page has 2 pictures from the play designed Vol XII, Marco Millions by Lee Simonson. Second picture is from the Number 1 prologue which is “before a sacred tree.” Looks March 1928 to be a painted drop. Picture with article “New Page 167 York goes Native” None 1929 Connelly, Marc Set by Robert Edmond Jones. Very simple Vol. XIV Green Pastures proscenium frame of leaves for “Noah catching April 1930 up to the Lord as the latter is walking about Page 361 looking over the earth.” photo by Vandamm Turgenev, Ivan The images from the Theatre Guild’s revival of Vol. XIV A Month in the this Russian play is interesting because it looks May 1930 Country to be set in a park. There is a park bench and the Page 368 trees have 6” fencing and flowers at the base. The trees are roughly 2’ wide trunks in the picture with no leaves showing. What is interesting is that they are clearly 3-D since two actors can be seen in front of the trees, and two other actors between them. The trees could still have been flat, but if so, they are each painted with different hot spots in the lighting. Far distant hills are clearly painted. Designer Raymond Sovey copied the design from Moscow Art Theatre Barry, Philip The pictured set designed by Lee Simonson is a Vol. XIV Hotel Universe patio or deck with 3-foot walls and a cyclorama June 1930 in the background. On each side there are tall Page 456 thin cyperus type trees and other plants that seem to be growing just beyond the low walls. Gui, Vittorio The pictured setting for this opera was designed Vol. XIV La Fata Malerba by Theodore Komisarjevsky. It appears in the September photograph to have 3-D objects (entrance to a 1930 house, well frame, dog house and gate) in front Page 796 of a painted backdrop with trees and fields. Connelly, Marc Under the illustration “For the new de luxe Vol. XIV Green Pastures edition of The Green Pastures, Marc Connelly’s October 1930 play of negro religion in the deep south, Robert Page 893 Edmond Jones has made ten full-page black and white illustrations based on his stage sets which were so integral a part of the New York production. The book is published by Farrar and

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Author & Work Scenic location and Notes Issue & Page title Rinehart, through whose courtesy four of these illustrations are reproduced.” Image looks like a man lost in the woods much like Jones. Rigg, Lynn There are two pictures from this “play of Vol. XV Green Grow the cowboy life in Oklahoma, produced by the March 1931 Lilacs Theatre Guild” The photos by Vandamm show Page 182 one picture of a small living room with one wall and ½ the ceiling removed surrounded by a yard and outbuilding, but nothing green. The second picture shows several squarish haybales, three of which have the heads of people at the top. There is a cyclorama clearly visible, but once again, the setting seems simplified to contain only the essentials. Totheroh, Dan Photograph has a half circle of wagons from a Vol. XVI Distant Drums wagon train with a painted backdrop of high March 1932 mountains behind them. Play is set “On a foot- Page 183 hill meadow in the Snake Indian Country and in the mountains of Idaho” Set design by Jo Mielziner La Farge, Oliver The production pictured was in New Orleans, Vol. XVI Laughing Boy but the play is set outside with giant rocks and a March 1932 cyclorama. The note with the picture says that Page 251 there were three western exteriors in a unit set designed by Ethel Crumb Brett Shaw, George The pictured set features the tree of knowledge Vol. XVI Bernard on a backdrop with a round platform in front of June 1932 Back to it. Set designed by Lee Simonson Page 432 Methuselah N/A “The Technique of Stage Design” Vol. XVII By Joseph Gregor March 1933 Looks at how design relates to building Pages 215-226 architecture Totheroh, Dan Picture is three women surrounded by darkness, Vol. XVII Wild Birds but a pole can barely be seen behind them so it March 1933 does not look like an outdoor setting (Revival) Page 237 Totheroh, Dan The picture is too tight on the actors to see much Vol. XVII Distant Drums setting. Covered wagon in the background and a March 1933 possible fire pit in the foreground. Note says Page 238 that it is a drama about wagon trains and Indians which played in New York last season, but the Vol. XIX picture might be from the Denver Univ. Nov. 1935 production. Portland, Oregon production Page 878

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Author & Work Scenic location and Notes Issue & Page title pictured in 1935 shows a group of covered wagons N/A “Faith and Works” Vol. XVII Article by Lee Simonson July 1933 Mentions The Great Divide, but I didn’t read it Page 501-510 Jennings, Talbot Picture is from a Drake university production. Vol. XVII No More Frontier The play seems to be in a bar and in an open area July 1933 between two buildings. Page 520 Emperor Jones Took picture of the Yale production Vol. XVII July 1933 Page 531 Outdoor theatre Interesting pictures of outdoor theatres in St. Vol. XVII Louis (Little Clay Cart) and Seattle (Alice in July 1933 Wonderland) Page 572-573 Karem, Fred Sketches of the play as first presented by the Vol. XVIII Garden of Louisville Players. One image is a grassy June 1934 Memories, The backyard with a fountain, a big porch stage left, Page 468 fence and trees beyond upstage. The other has a breezeway downstage with doors on either side and a tree with a bench around it upstage center. Because these are sketches, it is hard to tell what would be 3-D and what would be painted. Setting by Rollo Wayne Green, Paul Picture mostly focuses on the actors, but the Vol. XVIII In Abraham’s setting is clearly in a forest, or at the edge of one. August 1934 Bosom Trees closest to the actors look like 3-D with flat Page 630 painted ones in front of a cyc in far background. Picture is part of the New York Library theatre collection Moody, William V Long shot of Henry Miller in the last scene. Vol. XVIII The Great Divide Looks like much of the mountain/prairie behind August 1934 him is part of a painted backdrop. Picture is part Page 638 of the New York Library theatre collection. Obey, Andre Cleon Throckmorton designed a simple set with Vol. XIX Noah a façade of a ship stage right center, one stylized April 1935 tree far right and 2 stylized trees stage left. The Page 291 trees look like a child’s drawing of rounded branches with tiny balloon leafs. Many of the actors are in animal costumes. Produced in NY by Jarome Mayer. Photo credit to Vandamm Riggs, Lynn Picture is outside, but background mostly too Vol. XX Russet Mantle dark to see, but looks like at least 3 tree trunks March 1936 and a few leafs at the top of one. Actors sit at a Page 195 wooden picnic table on wicker chairs. Setting is

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Author & Work Scenic location and Notes Issue & Page title Portal of Kincaid Ranch in Santa Fe; The Chicken House. Set designed by Donald Oenslager, photo by White Cain, James M. Picture of set designed by Jo Mielziner shows a Vol. XX The Postman car in the rocks with a bridge and sky above. April 1936 Always Rings Might be outside, but no nature visible. Play Page 275 Twice settings include Nick's Lunchroom, Near Los Angeles, California; A Bridge Abutment; A Hospital Room; Sackett's Office; A Beach; Along a Road; A Courtroom; A Cell. Conkle, E. P. Too close on the actors to tell much of the Vol. XXI 200 Were Chosen setting. Actors are in front of a 6-foot tent, but January 1937 there might be mountains behind them. The play Page 14 is set in the Matanuska Valley of Alaska and tells of early American settlers. Design by Donald Oenslager, Photo by Maley Anderson, Two pages with sketches from the play. The Vol. XXI Maxwell first is more interesting with a silhouette of a February 1937 High Tor couple up on rocks looking at a starry sky. The Page 113-114 second is the better known image with the crane. Designed by Jo Mielziner. Kulback The picture shows a group of hobo musicians Vol. XXI The Outlaw cooking a pot of food over a fire in the woods. December 1937 The background is not clear enough to make out Page 975 if the trees are painted or not. Production is from the Yiddish theatre and was not produced on Broadway or Off. Photo by Alfredo Valente Osborn, Paul Lone flowering apple tree near center stage with Vol. XXII On Borrowed Time a barn behind and house on stage left. Stage March 1938 right unclear, but sky in the far background with Page 239 streaks of clouds. Since “Death” is caught in the tree, it must be a functional piece. Very realistic look. Set designed by Jo Mielziner, photo by Lucas and Pritchard Name changed to Theatre Arts None 1939 Anderson, Picture of 2 actors standing on rock steps with an Vol. XXIV Maxwell all-black background. Photo by Vandamm January 1940 Key Largo Page 10 Anderson, Two sketches of the set drawn by designer Jo Vol. XXIV Maxwell Mielziner. First is the exterior with a covered February 1940 Key Largo porch area. Covering is unclear but may be palm Page 83 fronds over a wood frame. Second sketch is the interior of the house

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Author & Work Scenic location and Notes Issue & Page title Bein, Albert The page has one sketch of Boris Aronson’s Vol. XXIV Heavenly Express design for this “hobo fantasy” set in a “cold, June 1940 gray prairie dawn. Stage left is a water tower Page 405 and stage right has the support leg and wooden railroad tracks going off into the fly space. Upstage is the prairie with tiny rolling ground and telephone poles. The sky is shaded, but it is unclear whether that was done with lighting. “Mr. Aronson has felt and transported into line, color and light the curious blend of sordid realism and soring imagination of which this play… is composed.” Dubin, Al and Three actors/dancers are pictured in front of a Vol. XXIV Howard Dietz bench and painted backdrop. The backdrop has September Keep off the Grass the classic stone wall of central park rendered 1940 simply. Above that are whitish tree trunks Page 623 against a dark background, but all has a blurry look that is more suggestive than pastoral. Root, Lynn Sketch of the design for a “negro fantasy with Vol. XXIV Little Joe music.” “Mr. Aronson’s design for the Backyard October 1940 Scene shows the Devil’s house on the left, and Page 727 the Angle’s on the right. The telegraph pole over the Angel’s abode somehow takes the shame of a cross to lend a note of sanctity to the scene, while over on the Devil’s side a tree of sinister shape answers with foreboding.” Howard, Sidney In a collection of photographs and sketches Vol. XXV Yellow Jack representative of major designers this page has a February 1941 sketch by Jo Mielziner. There is a photo credit Page 127 for Peter Juley. The sketch is rough but it seems to show a chain of men carrying litters. Behind them at center seems to be a group of 4 men lit from below and behind that there seems to be a series of pyramids. The description is more about Mielziner and nothing about this play. O’Neill, Eugene Picture of the slave auction from 1920. Photo Vol. XXV The Emperor credit for Bruguiere – New York Public Library August 1941 Jones Page 569 Steinbeck, John Photo of the scene by the river as designed by Vol. XXV Of Mice and Men Donald Oenslager in November 1937. Picture August 1941 credit to Vandamm Page 606 Porter, Cole Two sketches of designs by Harry Horner. Both Vol. XXV Let’s Face It! look to be outside. The first one looks to be a October 1941 backdrop of a housing development made of Page 702

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Author & Work Scenic location and Notes Issue & Page title train boxcars. The second one looks to be a carnival, or outdoor tables by a small food stand. Van Druten, John Each of the two pages has a sketch of a setting Vol. XXVI Solitaire from the play. One is the porch of a two-story March 1942 modern home in California and the other is a Page 158-159 jungle of weeds and underbrush of an arroyo nearby. “the fairy-story quality of the arroyo which Jo Mielziner has designed for Solitaire, with its winding path leading down from the upper world, its warm colors and diffuse atmosphere, turns sinister as the play rises to its climax on a night when the child, fearful for her friend’s safety, rushes down into its suddenly menacing depths only to find her place of refuge turned into a veritable witch’s cauldron of evil. Anderson, The picture on this page is not in nature, but the Vol. XXVI Maxwell location is unclear. It might be a ship because November 1942 The Eve of St. the notes say that it is the embarkation scene. Page 666 Mark Mostly likely Act II, scene 1 on a pier. Photo credit to Vandamm Shumlin, Herman Full page picture of 2 actors so only some of the Vol. XXVII The Great Big set can be seen. There is an old cabin and a tree January 1943 Doorstep behind them and the setting is on the river bank Page 14 in Louisiana. Photo credit to Vandamm James, Dan The image is very close to the three soldiers, so Vol. XXVII Winter Soldiers the cave can barely be seen over their heads. February 1943 There is no photo credit listed. Page 78 Rogers & Picture is of the dance at the ranch. Trees hang Vol. XXVII Hammerstein overhead and a “multicolored” sky is in the May & June Oklahoma! background. Photo credit to Vandamm 1943 In the June issue Vandamm submitted 2 more Page 295 & 371 pictures from the play – Female dancers in front of a painted prairie backdrop and male dancer cowboys in front of a painted farm and field drop. The Great Divide The cabin from Act I pictured. Photo credit to Vol. XXVII New York Public Library August 1943 Page 488 The Girl of the Girl playing poker in the cabin. No photo credit Vol. XXVII Golden West August 1943 Page 492 Hart, Moss Sketch of the design. Enclosed back porch of a Vol. XXVII Winged Victory house on stage right. Rest of the stage is a yard December 1943 Page 723

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Author & Work Scenic location and Notes Issue & Page title with one a fence and sad tree. Lots of houses in the background Rogers and Fields Large photo from the production. Setting is Vol. XXVIII A Connecticut Camelot which is clear via the towers in the January 1944 Yankee background. The Yankee is about to be burned Page 13 at the stake so they are outside, but no nature is visible. Photo credit to Eileen Darby-Graphic House Hammerstein, February has a nearly full-page picture mostly Vol. XXVIII Carmen Jones focuses on the actors, but the factory and trees February & (palm trees?) can be seen behind them. Photo March 1944 credit to Eileen Darby-Graphic House Page 66 & 154 In March the picture is a group of actors on a mostly bare stage but there are some trees in the background by walls or curtains. Photo credit to Richard Tucker Rigby, Howard This production has sets designed by Boris Vol. XXVIII and Dorothy Aronson. The description of the set is on 136 as March 1944 Heyward “…thatched hut, overgrown with luxurious, Page 140 South Pacific flowering vines, shadowed by palm fronds showing green against a deep blue tropical sky.” Photo credit to Fred Fehl. Porter, Cole The picture is of a Mariachi band playing Vol. XXVIII Mexican Hayride outside. There are 2 dimensional trees in the April 1944 background that are drawn simplistically, with Page 206 curving waves. Photo credit to Curt Gunther. Curtis, Margaret Five actors pictured on different levels all Vol. XXVIII A Highland Fling covered with grass. The playwright, also acting, May 1944 leans against a tree trunk, but no leaves on it. Page 265 Hint of leaves in a far corner above. The play is described as a Scottish fantasy designed by John Root. Photo credit to Vandamm Rogers & Picture from the still running show that opened 2 Vol. XXVIII Hammerstein years before. Very close to the actors, but a October 1944 Oklahoma! barn, yard and some fields can be seen behind Page 569 them. Photo credit to Vandamm Dietz, Howard and Sketch of the set by Boris Aronson. The sketch Vol. XXVIII Rouben is simplistic, but it seems to be a hut with one October 1944 Mamoulian wall removed and a tropical jungle visible on Page 605 Sadie Thompson both sides and above. Bush-Fekete, Two sketches of settings from the play. One is Vol. XXVIII Ladislaus and of the Vatican, but the other is an open courtyard November 1944 Mary Helen Fay of a Spanish house. The house is stage right and Page 630 Embezzled Heaven over the back wall a mountain can be seen.

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Author & Work Scenic location and Notes Issue & Page title Fields, Herbert and Pictured is a dance number where they mock ice Vol. XXIX Dorothy skating. The description says that Howard Bay’s June 1945 Up in Central Park sets are “a confetti-storm of color.” Behind the Page 333 dances is a painted backdrop where the trees without leaves look very Asian and reseed into a mist. Photo credit to Lucas-Pritchard Totheroh, Dan Both 632 and 633 have sketches of the designs Vol. XXIX Live Life Again by Albert Johnson. There are 5 sets for this play November 1945 and the one on 632 is at the edge of a farm field. Page 632 The description talks about the brown of the hills and the blue of the sky. Downstage a figure leans against a tree. Smith, Lillian This page has 2 sketches by designer George Vol. XXIX Strange Fruit Jenkins. One is of an open area between a house November 1945 and a small cottage. Seen between them are Page 634 trees and bushes thick enough to form a solid backing. Herzig, S.M. and Photo of a set by Lemuel Ayers. The play is a Vol. XXIX Fred Saidy period piece set in 1860 and behind the dance November 1945 Bloomer Girl number is a classic painted backdrop that looks Page 652 like a landscape painting. Photo credit for Vandamm Van Druten, John Picture is from the third act of the play and has Vol. XXX The Mermaids the male and female leads on a park bench. The January 1946 Singing scenery behind them is bushes flowers and grass. Page 7 It is not clear how much of it is painted and how much is three dimensional. Photo credit to Richard Tucker – Graphic House Lerner, Alan Jay & Two pictures from the play in April. The first is Vol. XXXI Frederick Loewe a grassy area with several levels and painted April & May Brigadoon series of houses of the Scottish village in the 1947 background. The second picture is isolated by Page 23 & 17 lighting on the actors making the edges of the set lost in the dark. The tree behind the actors seems to be topped with a cone, much like a thatched roof on a hut. There is a doorway between the trees and a wall on either side. Photo credit to Bob Golby In May the dance number pictured is described as Oliver Smith’s “neo-Gothic background.” There seems to be partial ruins of a gothic building and behind that a river and mountains. Photo credit to Vandamm

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Author & Work Scenic location and Notes Issue & Page title Fields, Herbert and The description says that the play has returned Vol. XXXI Dorothy for a late spring engagement. As noted before, June 1947 Up in Central Park the trees on the backdrop have an Asian art look. Page 37 Photo credit to Bob Golby Ward, Theodore Large parts of the photo are black from lack of Vol. XXXI Our Lan’ light, but behind the actors is a curvy tree with June 1947 moss hanging from branches. Edward R. Page 57 Michell designed and directed this production off Broadway. Photo credit to Louis Melancon Saidy, Fred & E.Y. Caption says that this picture is from its second Vol. XXXII Harburg year on Broadway with Jo Mielsiner’s set. The February 1948 Finian’s Rainbow set has a gnarled south-western looking tree and Page 49 behind that a patchwork quilt of farm field painted on the backdrop. Photo credit to Graphic House Maloney, Russell Picture of a dance number from the play. Vol. XXXII and Miriam Scenery behind them seems to be broken in Summer (June- Battista thirds. On stage left is a dark section with a July) 1948 Sleepy Hollow door. Upstage center is an impression of a tree Page 16 trunk against a white background. On stage right is a dark area that is difficult to make out. No photo credit and the note says that it opened too late to review. Saidy, Fred & E.Y. With the script published in this issue is a picture Vol. XXXIII Harburg of the same set mentioned above, but this time in January 1949 Finian’s Rainbow bright daylight. The setting for the play is the Page 56 state of Missitucky and the crop is supposed to be tobacco but the fields look to be many colored. No photo credit. Miller, Arthur This page has two sketches of Mielziner’s set Vol. XXXIII Death of a with different lighting. One is isolated lighting May 1949 Salesman for the 4 characters and the other has the leaf Page 22 gobos everywhere to create the yard as Willy imagines it. Rogers, Richard & The light in the photo is mostly downstage on Vol. XXXIII Oscar the actors leaving the painted trees on the April 1949 Hammerstein backdrop mostly in the dark. Per the description Page 15 South Pacific the Mielziner design gave “only one brief glimpse of gauze jungle.” No photo credit. McEnroe, Robert The picture is with the published play in this Vol. XXXIII E. issue. The lighting is exclusively on the actors. July 1949 The Silver Whistle All that can be seen behind them is a bit of roof Page 59 and maybe light hitting some leaves. Photo credit to Vandamm

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Author & Work Scenic location and Notes Issue & Page title Whedon, John and The picture is credited to Fred Fehl from Vol. XXXIV Sam Moore November of 1949, but it is a low angle shot of February 1950 Texas, Li’l Darlin’ two actors with just the sky in the background. Page 9 The brief summary on the page mentions corn fields, but since this is a musical the sets might be simplistic. McCullers, Carson In an article about scenic design “In the Mood” Vol. XXXIV Member of the on pages 36-38 there is a picture of Lester July 1950 Wedding Polakov’s set for Member of the Wedding. The Page 37 set is a covered porch with a fence behind and a painted backdrop of trees. The porch looks like a sunroom with one wall removed. Capote, Truman Three characters are pictured sitting on a Vol. XXXVI The Grass Harp horizontal piece of plywood in a low fat tree. June 1952 The tree looks white in the black and white Page 24 photo and there are no leaves. There is a hint of leaves on what looks to be a painted backdrop behind the one actor standing on the ground. The article implies that the show was a flop. Lerner, Alan Jay The script of the musical and the songs start on Vol. XXXVI Brigadoon page 50 as the first musical script that the August 1952 magazine has presented. The first two pages are Page 48-49 & a large picture of a dance number presented in 52 front of a painted backdrop of hills with a river down the middle (see phone picture). A similar Play 50-65 & picture can be found on page 52. Picture on p. 80-87 59 was indoors, but on p. 63 the characters are outside even though all setting pieces seem to be painted. The picture on page 80 has an actor standing with his back against a tree that he seems to be gripping which makes it look 3-D. Pictures on 82 & 84 have more of a forest look, but are still painted. Capote, Truman The play with pictures. Most look to be indoors, Vol. XXXVI The Grass Harp but there is another picture on p. 50 that shows 4 September people up in the tree and several more below. 1952 Page 32-64 Lerner, Alan Jay The script of the play plus several pictures, Vol. XXXVI Paint Your Wagon several of which are outside and in the December 1952 wilderness since the play is during the gold rush Page 36-60 of 1850. Copyright on the play is 1952. (see pics on phone) Nash, N. Richard The script of the play plus several pictures. Act Vol. XXXVII See the Jaguar II is set in the mountains of a western state. August 1953

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Author & Work Scenic location and Notes Issue & Page title Most photos of too close to the actors to see the Page 34-64 setting. Laurent, Arthur The first page of the script has a large 1.5 page Vol. XXXVII The Time of the picture of the set which is a garden surrounded November 1953 Cuckoo by walls. The floor is squares of stone and the Page 34-35 only plants are on the latus overhead. Foote, Horton Picture that fills the bottom of the page has an Vol. XXXVIII The Trip to old cabin off to stage left. Both the cabin and January 1954 Bountiful the yard that fill the rest of the space seem to be Page 23 overgrown with plants. Inge, William The 2 pages before the text of the play show the Vol. XXXVIII Picnic setting “a small Kansas town in the yard shared April 1954 by Flo Owens and Helen Potts.” Page 34-35 Hart, Moss Starting on page 34 is the full text of the play. Vol. XXXVIII The Climate of The setting is outside the church (stage left) and May 1954 Eden both in and outside a house with one wall Page 34-65 removed (stage right). Outside this yard area is the jungle of British Guiana. Saint-Subber, There is a brief summary of the play along with Vol. XXXIX Arnold several pictures, one of which is a dance in the March 1955 House of Flowers jungle. But since the description doesn’t Page 20-21 mention anything about the jungle, this is probably just a quick one scene location. Hayward, Dubose Before giving the full text of the play from 1927 Vol. XXXIX and Dorothy there are pictures from the 1953 revival. Pictured October 1955 Porgy on this page is the 1 scene out of 9 that is set in Page 33 the jungle. Most of the play is set in Catfish Row Hunter, N.C. The page is a summary of the play with a small, Vol. XXXIX A Day by the Sea but wide picture at the top which shows the full December 1955 garden/yard setting. There is one large tree. Page 16 Lavin, Ira On page 28 is a summary of the play and on Vol. XXXIX No Time for page 29 are two pictures. One seems to be tents December 1955 Sergeants set up in the woods for the army officers Page 28-29 pictured. Summary is unclear regarding the setting. Laurents, Arthur A brief summary/review of the play with a Vol. XLI A Clearing in the picture of the set. March 1956 Woods Page 20 Anouilh, Jean Although this is a foreign play the set from Act I, Vol. XLIII Trans. Patricia scene 2 by Oliver Smith looks a great deal like Feb 1959 Moyes the one he designed for A Clearing in the Woods Page 20 Time Remembered

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Author & Work Scenic location and Notes Issue & Page title Lindsay, Howard A two-page picture (in an article featuring Vol. XLIV and Russel Crouse multiple photos from the musical) shows a January 1960 The Sound of painted backdrop. It is explained that this is Page 66-67 Music used early in Act I when Maria is in the mountains, but the painting has a minimalist, Asian style to it with one tree. This might be practical since there is a silhouette that seems to be a woman lying on the tree. LaTouche, John In an article “Scene Design and Lighting by Vol. XLIV The Golden Apple William and Jean Eckart” as told to John S. July 1960 Wilson there is 1/3 page size picture from the Page 57 play. This is the apple tree created by several framed, hanging pieces of scrim collected together with apples and leaves painted on them. Mosel, Tad The top 1/3 of the page is a picture of the set Vol. XLVI All the Way Home before the text of the play. The house has no September walls, but the second floor is up on a platform. 1962 There are hanging ropes the whole way across Page 25 the stage forming a fence. In the text it says that action flows from inside to outside with no interruption. The backdrop is painted with one large tree. None 1963

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