Cleveland Theatre in the Twenties

This dissertation has been Mic 61-2823 microfilmed exactly as received

BROWN, Irving Marsan. CLEVELAND THEATRE IN THE TWENTIES.

The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1961 Speech - Theater

University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan CLEVELAND THEATRE IN THE TWENTIES

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University

By

Irving Marsan Brown, A.B., M.A.

*.»****

The Ohio State University 1961

Approved by

Adviser Department of Speech ACKNOWLEDGMENT

To lay wife, Eleanor, without whan this would not have been

ii CONTENTS

Page

LIST OF TABLES...... iv

Chapter

I. INTRO SU C T I O N ...... 1

II. CLEVELAND IN THE TWENTIES...... U

III. THE AMERICAN THEATRE IN THE T W E N T I E S ...... 20

IV. CLEVELAND THEATRE IN THE TWENTIES: INTRODUCTION. . U6

V. CLEVELAND THEATRE IN THE TWENTIES: THE COMMERCIAL THEATRE ...... 71

VI. CLEVELAND THEATRE IN THE TWENTIES: THE AMATEURS ...... 128

VII. CONCLUSION...... 20$

BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 210

AUTOBIOGRAPHY ...... 216 TABLES

Table Page

1. Plays That Ran for Over $00 Performances on Broadway Between 1919-20 and 1928-29 ...... 2$

2. Road and Stock Company Shows in Cleveland; Statistics: 1919-20 to 1928-29 122

3. Kinds of Shows, 1919-20 and 1928-29 123

U. Play House Productions, 1928-29...... 191

iv CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this study is to examine closely the theatrical

activities of the population of a single, reasonably significant

American city, Cleveland, Ohio, during the decade 1919-1929. The hope

for the study is that it may reveal by this examination as much as

possible of the exact nature of the commercial and amateur dramatic

activities of the period, may place in some perspective the relation­

ships of the many and varied dramatic endeavors that occurred in the

city, and may note, wherever found, the implications of the dramatic

developments of this decade for those of later years. This particular

ten-year period was selected for its position in the developmental era

of American drama. By the end of World War I the American commercial

theatre was struggling to recover from the war of the commercial syn­

dicates. Amateur interest in the drama had broken through the psycho­

logical and organizational barriers of the professionals but had not

yet moved far from the hands of the select and exclusive groups that

first dared to produce plays. The years which followed the decade under

examination brought forth the American community theatre. The question

of what happened in between may deserve an answer, and Cleveland as a

major American city may offer a fairly reliable indication of what the

answer might be.

The method of the study has been to accumulate from the principal Cleveland sources as much data as possible concerning the smallest as well as the greatest of Cleveland's dramatic activities.

Following a survey of the theatrical clipping and program files of the

Reference, Literature, and Fine Arts Divisions of the Cleveland Public

Library, a page-by-page examination of each issue of the Cleveland

Plain Dealer published during the decade was undertaken. This information was supplemented by a search of the pertinent drama files of the library of the Cleveland Press, by examination of other Cleveland periodicals, by interviews with Clevelanders active in the drama of the period, and by background reading and research in books and periodicals concerned with the city of Cleveland and with American drama. During and fol­ lowing the process of information gathering, the material was collected into related groups for the purposes of description and comparison which make up the body of this work.

There is no intention here to offer statistical analysis as the principal method of determining the nature of Cleveland's dramatic activities. Drama groups, especially newly formed ones, rarely concern themselves with record keeping and often do not date their programs.

To ask interviewees to recall personalities and events of thirty to forty years past was to ask a great deal. Material taken from local periodicals and even the Cleveland Plain Dealer, as fine a newspaper as it was, sometimes lacked important details and occasionally was in­ accurate. The author's language limitations prevented examination of the many foreign language periodicals, but a number of factual pamphlets on Cleveland's nationality groups remedied that deficiency to some extent. This is not to say, however, that the study has little value.

No work thus far appears to have attempted to describe the base upon which the more obvious theatrical enterprises of a major city or nation have stood. Did the theatre of the twenties live by the support of an enthusiastic, devoted, educated, leisure-endowed, and financially suc­ cessful few? Or was it the result of a broad general interest, a concern for the drama which swept through the populace? Was this interest limited to the staging of prepared plays, or did it find ex­ pression in a variety of dramatic activities created by different groups of people? Did this activity appeal to particular kinds of groups, or was it common to all or most? These and lesser questions should be investigated if the nature of the development of the theatre is to be understood as fully as possible. This study attempts to answer as many of these questions as the availability of information makes answerable. Where statistics are inadequate, the study will attempt to supply an estimate of the typical example or the "sense" of events or attitudes. Where comparison is possible or enlightening, comparison will be used. The principal objective is to record and interpret, for whatever values may be found, the nature of dramatic activities in

Cleveland in the twenties. CHAPTER II

CLEVELAND IN THE TWENTIES

Some description of the characteristics of the city of Cleve­ land may assist in understanding its theatrical interests, whether it be to correct erroneous impressions or to provide some new details with which to complete the information held.

Cleveland's location at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River is of much less importance than river mouth placement might indicate. The

Cuyahoga has never been easily navigable and therefore has not served

Cleveland, as other rivers have served their ports, as a major means of commercial transport. Lake Erie, which establishes Cleveland's northern boundaries and connects Cleveland through the other Great

Lakes to the iron mines of Minnesota, the industries of Detroit and

Chicago to the west and Buffalo to the east, has been of much greater service. The southward thrust of the lake has also forced American railroad lines to thread their way along its southern edge and thus through Cleveland. The lake's tempering influence produces a longer growing season and less severe ranges of temperature than might be ex­ pected from Cleveland's northern location. This relatively mild climate, in conjunction with the fertile soil deposited by the glaciers that created the lake, has fostered a nursery industry of considerable economic importance to the area as well as the truck gardening tracts necessary to urban areas. The foothills of the Appalachians, which bound Cleveland to the south, are a factor in keeping the railroads on the level land along the lakeshore and have tended to reinforce

Cleveland's east-west orientation and to retard relationships with the more southerly cities, Columbus, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh, although the Ohio Canal cut through the hills to bring coal from southern Ohio in the nineteenth centuryThe Pennsylvania Railroad runs between Pittsburgh and Cleveland, but the two major roads through the city, The Nickel Plate and The Mew Tork Central (The Water-Level

Route), go directly along the lake shore to Buffalo to the east and towards Detroit and Chicago to the west.

The population of Cleveland, like that of all the major Ameri­ can cities, increased significantly during the twenties, though to a lesser extent than did that of the Greater Cleveland area included in

Cuyahoga County. Cleveland itself rose from approximately 797,000 in

1920 to 900,^00 in 1930, an increase of 13 per cent, while Cuyahoga

County expanded 27 per cent to 1,201,000 by 1930.2 As early as the fall of 1919 the shift toward heavier suburban than urban growth was

surprising Cleveland officials. In September, 1919, the Cleveland

Public School System Statistician noted that city school enrollments were far less than expected and reported that unusually heavy enroll­ ments had occurred in Lakewood, Cleveland Heights, and other Greater

^William Sanson Rose, Cleveland: the Making of a City (Cleveland: The World Publishing Co., 19^0), p. 607•

2Bureau of the Census, "Growth of the Largest United States Cities," The World Almanac and Book of Facts for 1957, p. 362. 6

Cleveland suburbs.^ In the 1910 census Cleveland ranked sixth largest among the cities of the United States, New York, Chicago,

Philadelphia, St* Louis, and Boston preceding it. The 1920 census found it fifth, St. Louis and Boston below it and Detroit in fourth place. By 1930 Cleveland had dropped to sixth place as Los Angeles swept into fourth, some 700,000 persons ahead of Cleveland. ** An indication of the lateness of Cleveland’s population growth may be seen in the totals set forth below.

i860 1930 Cincinnati 161,000 U9i,00O St. Louis 160,000 821,000 Cleveland U3,000 900,9003

Immigration greatly affected the composition of Cleveland's population. Over two-thirds of Cleveland's residents in 1920 were foreign born white or American born with foreign born or mixed parent­ age.^ There were more than twenty-five different nationalities repre­ sented Including approximately 35,000 Poles, 26,000 Germans, 21^,(XX)

Czechs, 22,000 Russians (or Russian Poles), 18,000 Italians, 16,000

Jugoslavs, and 19,000 Austrians.^ During the next ten years iusni- gration kept up with population growthj by 1930 the foreign-derived category described above had dropped only 3.9 per cent to 69.9 per cent. Poles were still the largest foreign group} the Czechs had

^Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 16, 1919, p. 12. Cited hereafter as CPD.

^Bureau of the Census, p. 362.

3League for Human Rights, This Is Cleveland (Cleveland: The League for Human Rights, 19U6), p. 9. ”

*«CPD, July 2U, 1921, p. 17. ScPD, July 30, 1921, p. 11. climbed to a close second. Negroes were now 8 per cent of the popu­ lation, about 72,000 in number, that Cleveland's immigration took place somewhat later and in greater volume than that of some comparable

American cities may be demonstrated by comparison with St. Louis and

Cincinnati.

Immigration between: 1900-1910 1910-1920 1920-1930 Cincinnati “IEr,w “1H7W “TO 5& r St. Louis 112.000 85,000 U9,ooo Cleveland 180.000 236,000 liUjOoo1

Cleveland's economy during the twenties was diversified though principally industrial. In manufacturing the city maintained through­

out the decade its rank as fifth in the United States in value of

manufactured goods. Although the automobile industry had been lost to

Detroit, Cleveland had become the second largest foundry center in the

country by 1929.2 As early as 1919 it was as large a producer of

automobile parts and bodies as any other center. It was a major pro­

duction area for iron and steel and had in operation a number of

rolling mills. Other principal manufacturing activities included

slaughtering and meat packing, electrical machinery and supplies,

printing and publishing, women's clothing, and paint and varnish. Of

the 600 freighters operating on the Great Lakes in 1920, two-thirds

were Cleveland-osned. In oil refining it had once held first place

in the nation and was still a leader in the early years of the decade.3

Rose noted that Cleveland was a center of union activities, that there

^League for Human Rights, p. 9.

2Rose, p. 891. 3Rose, pp. 797-798. 8 were about 150 labor unions la the city, and that "strikes were being reduced in number through conferences of employers and employees."1

It may be suspected that the continuous influx of immigrants was of considerable aid to the employers during and outside of these con­ ferences.

Mr. Rose described the business cycles In Cleveland during the twenties as follows$

The first World War was followed by three waves of business activity* The postwar inflation cycle continued through the stimulated prosperity of 1919 and 1920 and ended during the severe depression of 1921. The recovery cycle began in the summer of 1921 and continued through the brief prosperity period of 1923, concluding in the mild depression of 192U; and then followed what was called the Coolidge prosperity cycle, lasting until the financial crash at the close of 1929.

The Cleveland Year Book added a few substantiating details. Its report on 1921 stated that "three times as many firms failed in 1921 as during 1920, and their liabilities were six times as great.

In 1926 the report exuded confidence and in 1929 could describe the end of the year business situation as follows;

The high point was higher and the low point did not reach that of other industrial and financial recessions.. . . In spite of the last quarter, 1929 set records which will not soon be sur­ passed. Taken as a whole it was an amazing business year.**

By 1929 Clevelanders owned more automobiles per capita than Chicagoans and New Yorkers, were buying life insurance at a greater rate of

If. 782. 2P. 781.

3fhe Cleveland Foundation, The Cleveland Year Book; 1922 (Clevelands The Cleveland Foundation, 1922), p. 117. Cited hereafter as CYB.

UdBtl929» pp. 218-219. increase than citizens of Chicago, Detroit, Boston, and New York, and were claiming more savings accounts per hundred persons than the populations of any of the nation's other large cities.1

Clevelanders' interest in civic affairs during the twenties was unusual and productive. A survey of the public schools had been completed by 1916 and 92 per cent of its recamendations carried out wholly or in part .2 A recreation survey was undertaken in 1919 and was followed by an investigation of criminal justice in Cleveland conducted by Dean Boscoe Pound and Professor Felix Frankfurter of the

Harvard Lav School.3 In 1921 Cleveland became the first large munici­ pality in the United States to adopt the city manager plan and with it the proportional representation form of balloting.^ The Cleveland iear Book commented that the adoption of the manager plan was a demon­ stration of "the pride in democracy and faith in the judgment of the people" and that it "was carried to success by a genuine people's movement, the more remarkable because it did not have to be evoked by the beating of tom-toms or the 'jazzing' of public opinion."^

The city government rewarded the interest of the citizenry with a considerable number of public improvements. Early in the decade the public transportation systems were expanded, new bridges were con­ structed across the Cuyahoga River and the mid-town industrial area, and a public auditorium was completed. Later 1,1*00 buildings were

lRose, p. 892. 2Rose, pp. 7UU-7U5

3CYBt 1922, pp. 70-113. ^Rose, p. 780.

5CYB: 1922. p. 28. 10 razed to make way for the Cleveland Union Terminal development, a municipal airport was opened, and the development of a system of parks and parkways around the city was begun.3-

The city possessed a number of educational establishments.

In the fall of 1920 Western Reserve University, the largest of Cleve­ land's institutions for higher education, enrolled nearly 2,000 students in its various colleges: Adalbert (men), College for Women,

Graduate School, School of Medicine, Law School, Dental School, Library

School, School of Pharmacy, Department of Religious Education, and

School of Applied Social Sciences. The Case School of Applied Science enrolled 810 and granted undergraduate and graduate degrees. Baldwin-

Wallace College of Berea operated its Law Department in Cleveland as the Cleveland Law School, enrollment 350, and had just opened the

Baldwin-WaUaee Night College with three instructors. The Cleveland

School of Education offered a two-year course for elementary school teachers at fifteen centers distributed about the city. A small

Catholic college for women, Ursuline, had been operating since the latter part of the nineteenth century. St. Ignatius' College and St.

Mary's Theological Seminary offered training for priesthood. The function of The John Marshall School of Law is evident. The IMCA

School of Technology, The YWCA School of Adult Education, and The

John Huntington Polytechnic Institute were the active vocational 2 schools. By the end of the decade Western Reserve University had

3-Rose, passim.

^The Cleveland Foundation, Directory of Community Activities (Clevelands The Cleveland Foundational^!), pp. 250-2SU. 11 almost doubled its enrollment and had added a School of Nursing, a Primary Education Department, and a downtown evening branch,

Cleveland College. Two small colleges and a small university had been established, Fenn College, an outgrowth of the IMCA educational program, Notre Dame College, Catholic, for women, and John Carroll

University, Catholic, for men. In 1921* the Cleveland Conference for

Educational Cooperation was organized from eighteen educational organizations "to study the educational problems of Cleveland and community with the expectation of ultimately developing a coordinated educational program for the entire community. Nor were these in­ stitutions without private support. In 1922, for example, Samuel

Mather gave $2,500,000 to Western Reserve University}^ in 1925 he supplied $3,000,000 more.3

The Cleveland Public School system was evidently progressive and effective. Robinson 6. Jones, formerly Assistant Superintendent, was appointed Superintendent in 1920 and re-appointed in 1928 for a five-year term at $15,000 per annum, as one of the highest salaried school men in the United States.^ Rose reported that in 1920 Cleveland led the ten largest cities in percentage of children between seven and thirteen attending school and that only Los Angeles bettered Cleveland

3-CYB:1926 (al, pp. 189-190.

2CPD, January 25, 1922, p. 1.

3Rose, p. 817. **CPD, May 22, 1928, p. 1-Society. 12

in the fourteen to fifteen-year-old group.^ He commented later that

at the end of the decade,

Cleveland was noted for the modern policy of its school authori­ ties in giving each child educational experience to fit his needs. The schools were praised for their non-partisan, non­ political control through a capable Board of Education, and for the loyal support of the Parent-Teaehers Association.2

In addition to its elementary and secondary schools the Board of

Education provided night school extension courses, ran evening classes

to teach immigrants English, supervised summer playground activities,

and provided leadership and facilities for the community centers

program. These last were programs of recreational and instructive

activities which used city school facilities to serve the neighbor­

hoods surrounding many of the schools. The centers were led by

elected neighborhood committees and financed at first by Board of

Education funds and later by their own small fees. The activities

sprang from just about any reasonable idea suggested from debating to

dancing and often included drama. In 1920 the Board of Education

budget for the centers was $500,000.3

There were a number of private schools in Cleveland during the

period. The Homan Catholic and Lutheran churches maintained elementary

and high schools as well as a few academies. There were also Czech,

Greek, Hebrew, and Polish schools; the latter used the Polish language

for teaching purposes and as a result burdened its students with some

obvious language difficulties when they graduated to the public schools A

ip. 783. 2P. 883. 3CPD, February 7, 1920, p. 10.

^Charles W. Coulter, The Poles of Cleveland (Clevelands The Cleveland Americanization Committee, 1919), pp. 20-21. 13

The five other private schools were Hathaway-Brown* Hawken, Laurel,

Park, and University Schools. Park and Hawken were elementary schools; the remainder prepared secondary level students for college.*

The Cleveland Public Library may have been one of the most influential educational forces that Cleveland possessed in the twenties. The total circulation for the year 1919 was just under

3,500,000, greater per capita than that of any other large city in the United States.2 By 192? circulation had risen to over 7,700,000 volumes in the city alone and over 8,200,000 in the city and county combined, still the greatest of any of the nation's largest cities.

At this time the Library distributed its books through over 1,100 agencies.3 in its report of the opening of the Library's new main building in 1925, the Cleveland Year Book described many services beyond the usual provided by the Public Library: free auditoriums and club rooms for lectures, civic meetings, and clubs; clubs and story hours for children; other special work with children, the foreign born, the blind, teachers, and students; and set forth some descriptive statistics: one million volumes owned, including books in twenty-five languages; custodianship of another 190,000 volumes; six Library branches set up as special repositories of books in the languages of the principal immigrant groups living in the branch areas; 900 classroom libraries for the Public School System; thirty- three neighborhood branches, thirty-three school branches, 108

iThe Cleveland Foundation, Directory of Community Activities, pp. 276-278.

2Bose, p. 783. ^Rose, p. 852. "stations” in factories, stores, phone exchanges, churches and other institutionsj and operation of the county's library service.^ The value of the Library did not go unrecognized. Ward Harsh, film critic for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, wrote that the Public Library had done more than any other group to foster reading, that "among film moguls, the Public Library is looked upon as one of pictures' greatest assets

in Cleveland," and that its displays had been reproduced all over the country.2 In 1929 Linda A. Eastman, Librarian since 1918, was awarded the Cleveland Medal for Public Service by the Cleveland Chamber of

Commerce for her use of "her personal knowledge of library science for the benefit of the people of Cleveland."3

Cleveland's social welfare agencies were principally concerned with children and immigrants. Programs directed by the IWCA, YMCA,

Girl Reserves, Girls' Council, Girls Friendly Societies, Campfire

Girls, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, and settlement houses directed the

children, among other things, to drink milk, eat hot lunches, breathe

fresh air, read books, and learn to swim. Immigrants were urged and taught to learn English, retain and share their native cultures, ac­

quirejob skills, and learn American ways through settlement houses,

special public school system adult classes, camps for mothers, IM and

IWCA evening classes, cultural and recreational activities, church

organizations, and neighborhood centers. In 1920 the Welfare Federa­

tion of Cleveland, a coordinating body for welfare agencies, "had 85

3-CIBs 1926 kh pp. 239-2l|l.

2CPD, June 27, 1929, p. 29. ^Rose, p. 861. financially participating member agencies and eighteen co-operating members. The Cleveland Recreation Council, a major member of The

Welfare Foundation., was another coordinating body, the result of the

Recreation Surrey of 1919, and organized to better social welfare by promoting "adequate play opportunities for children and wholesome spare time activities for adults.”^ It was successful enough to eliminate itself in 1927, by which time the City Department of Recre­ ation had been established and developed sufficiently to supply to the city the Recreation Council's former services.3

Clevelanders' interest in the arts other than drama lay principally in music and the plastic and graphic arts. Institutions and organizations to encourage artists in these fields, to instruct persons interested, and to make art works available to the public were already well established by the beginning of the decade. Concern with the plastic and graphic arts had been strong enough by 1882 to support the incorporation of the Cleveland School of Art during that year. By 1922 the school was offering through a staff of twenty-one instructors day and evening classes to adults and children and diplo­ mas for two-year, four-year, and graduate programs of study to an enrollment of 700.^ By the onset of the 1928-29 school year the en­ rollment and staff had more than doubled in number.'* The Cleveland

iThe Cleveland Foundation, Directory of Community Activities, p. H I .

2CIB: 1926 , p. 195. 3ciB: 1928, p. 158.

^The Cleveland Foundation, Directory of Civic and Welfare Activ- ities ,of Cleveland (Cleveland: The Cleveland Foundation, I923), p. 19l.

% B : 1929, p. 370. 16

Art Association, organized in 1915 to promote art interests in the city and to provide a market for artists' work, had originated the now nationally famous Hay Show in cooperation with the Cleveland Museum of Art in 19191 and by 1927 had a membership of 350.2 The Museum had been organized in 1913, had moved into its great new building in 1916, and by the end of 1920 possessed 5,600 contributing members and a record of 270,000 visitors during the year.^ In 1929 the Museum com­ puted its total attendance at over 315,000, which included public lectures and musical events for adults, classes £nd entertainments for children, and "visitors coming to the Museum for some definite contact.

Cleveland'8 preoccupation with music seems to have been greater than with any of the other arts. The Cleveland Institute of Music and the Music School Settlement as well as the public schools and the YWCA were the principal sources of music instruction. The Musical Arts

Association, the Fortnightly Musical Club, and the Museum of Art were probably most active in fostering music appreciation. A number of amateur groups presented regular programs of vocal music, solo work, operas and operettas, and sponsored concerts by professional artists.

The Cleveland Orchestra had become a reality in 1918 and by the 1919-20 season had grown from fifty to eighty-six musicians, had scheduled fourteen local concerts and engagements in eleven other cities in­ cluding Boston, New York, Washington, and Pittsburgh.^ Ten years

iRose, p. 773. 2CIBt 1927, p. 277.

3CIB: 1921. pp. 186-187. UciB: 1929, p. 362.

5cYB: 1921, p. 272. later, during the season of 1929-30, the Orchestra played forty symphony concerts, fifteen children’s concerts, fifty-one out of town concerts, and twelve radio broadcasts."^ The citizens' taste for opera was satisfied by a number of organizations* New fork's Metropolitan

Opera Company returned to Cleveland in 192U after a number of years' absence and began a highly successful series of annual spring per­ formances in Public Hall. In 1926, for example, the Cleveland Plain

Dealer reported that approximately 70,OCX) persons had attended the week's performances and that receipts had increased 25 per cent over the previous year.^ In 1927 the company signed a five-year contract.3

Prior to each arrival of the "Met" the newspapers provided a consid­ erable amount of news and editorial space to the coming event. The

Chicago Grand Opera Company visited the city regularly during the first seven years of the decade. Creator©■s Opera Company, the San

Carlo Opera Company, the Scotti Grand Opera Company, and the United

States Grand Opera Company sang for Clevelanders on various occasions during the early part of the period. An attempt to establish Cleve­ land's own opera company was made in 1921, and evidences of its efforts continued to appear throughout the period. Its aim of acquiring the status of the Chicago and New York companies, however, never seems to have been achieved. Two nationality groups had especially active singing groups. The Czechs had a number of themj one, the Lua&r, was founded in 1867 and was still a strong organization in 1 9 5 0 The

•kiYB: 1929, p. 369. 2May 6 , 1926, p. 6 .

^CPD, January 9, 1927, p. 1. ^Rose, p. 31^. 18

German groups were numerous enough to be hosts to a number of nation­ wide Saengerfests. The fifth one to be held in Cleveland presented a mass ensemble of li,000 singers on the Public Hall stage in 1927.2'

As the intensity and variety of concerns described above may have indicated already, Clevelanders in general were proud of their

city and devoted to its welfare. During the winter and spring of 1919-

20, while United States census returns were being computed, the Cleve­

land Plain Dealer ran a number of front page articles and editorials

conjecturing on the possibility that the city might beat Detroit to

the position of fourth largest city in the nation. In early June an

editorial writer revealed considerable apprehension that Detroit's

great population growth might enable it to win but pointed out at some

length that Clevelanders might be consoled by the probability that

their city would pass Boston and St. Louis and climb to fifth place.2

The construction of the new public auditorium elicited the statement

that it was the most expensive of any in the great municipalities of

the United States and an accompanying list set forth the names of the

great cities which had built cheaper o n e s . 3 The fact that Cleveland

won the 192U G.O.F. convention was sufficient cause for headlines.

Articles in the Plain Dealer, particularly during the early years of

the period, pointed out that Columbus was building a downtown club­

house for women and Cleveland had better hurry, that Cleveland had more

of one thing or another than Cincinnati, was ahead of Chicago in this

iRose, p. 8U9. 2CPD, June 7, 1920, p. 81.

3CPD, November, 11, 1921, p. 1. 19 or that, and might lose out to Detroit in achieving something else first. Advertisements for Community Fund Drives appealed to pride in being a Clevelander,1 and Detroit's Fund goals were compared with

Cleveland's as a device appealing to civic pride to encourage contri­ butions . In the Cleveland Tear Book report on the year 192$, more than fifty-five agencies and clubs devoted to civic betterment were

Hated.2 In the summer of 1920 the Department of Public Welfare pro­ duced a pageant to dramatize the ideals of community living and "to bring together the best elements for strengthening the whole commun­ ity."^ Of principal interest while awaiting the opening of the new

Ohio Theatre was the belief that it would "place Cleveland on the theatrical map— with Detroit, Boston, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

It would appear, then, that Cleveland was an active, progressive city during the twenties, interested in the welfare of its American and foreign citizens, proud of its achievements, and intensely and continu­ ously pursuing its own betterment in education, municipal government, cultural activities, and economic and social conditions.

1CPD, November 20, 1919, p. 11. 2CIB; 1926 , pp. 156-161*.

3CPD, July 7, 1920, p. 7. ^CPD, June 5, 1920, p. 15. CHAPTER i n

THE AMERICAN THEATRE IN THE TWENTIES

A number of competent texts carefully delineate a fev or many of the aspects of the state of the drama in America during the twenties.

A surrey of the situation here, however, may not be out of place as a preliminary to examination of theatrical events in Cleveland and as an attempt to describe the particular "flavor" of the decade.

The Commercial Theatre

There are four principal aspects to be considered in an attempt to characterize the American ccamaercial theatre of the twenties: the boom in theatre construction and production of shows in New York; the relative decline of the "road”; the mild revival of the stock companies; and the trends in dramatic literature. The 1919-20 season saw forty- five theatres available for legitimate theatre productions in New York

City.1 By 1926 there were eighty first-class houses;2 sixteen years before, in 1910, there had been only about thirty. 3 The average number

^Stephen Rathbun, "Parvum in Multo, A Broadway Review," The Drama. X, No. 10 (December, 1919), pp. 99-100.

2Edaond M. Gagey, Revolution in American Drama (New York, Columbia University Press,”19^7), p. 23>£.

%rock Pemberton, "Broadway and Main Street," Proceedings of the Conference oa the Drama in American Universities and Little Theatres (Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute of Technology. I925>). p. 39. lilted hereafter as Conference on the Drama.

20 21 of new plays produced in New York each year during the period 1910

to 191k was 130; between 1920 and 192U it was 166? from 1925 to 1927

it was 2 0 8 Two hundred and twenty-four plays were produced in New

York during the 1928-29 season, and this number was thirty less than

that of the previous year,2

The "road15 did not fare anywhere near as well as Broadway; in

the periods mentioned above between 1910 and 1927 the average numbers

of shows on tour each year ran as follows: 198; 72; 6k; 68.^ Granted

that the drop in the twenties, seventy-two to sixty-eight, was minute,

nevertheless the proportion of New York shows that toured to the number

of plays produced was sharply di- iniaihd® The Cleveland Plain Dealer

noted that between 1920 and 192k two-thirds of the 1,200 legitimate

theatre houses in rural and small towns had closed and 600 out of 800

in cities across the nation.^

A number of reasons have been given for the collapse of the

"road," but those most often stated are the increased cost of railroad

transportation, the declining quality of road companies as managers

economized on casts, and the annihilation of the popular-priced circuits

by the growth of the movies. One writer indicated that an attempt was

made to remedy one cause of the decline. In 1921 William McDermott of

the Cleveland Plain Dealer pointed out that a number of the best New York

^Kenneth Maogowan, Footlights Across America: Towards a National Theatre (New York: Harcourt, Sraca and Co., 19^9), p. 12.

2Burns Mantle (ed.), The Best Flays of 1928-29: and the Year Book of the Drama (New York: ttodd, Mead and Company, 1929), p. 10.

3Macgouan, p. 72. ^February 10, 1921;, p. 1. 22 actors, Ethel Barrymore, Mrs. Fiske, Fay Bainter, Frank Bacon, Roland

Young, and many others, were on the Nroad,n "where no respectable New

York actor would ever tread in bygone days,1’^ but this card ob'idously did not turn the trick. Brock Pemberton summed up the situation in his article mentioned above. "Freak plays like Abie’s Irish Rose, The Bat,

The Cat and the Canary, and White Cargo can pitch their tents in almost any community and play to a profit, as can certain of the more popular stars, but except for these and musical plays, which are a law unto themselves . . • , the road no longer exists."2

It may be conjectured that the sharp drop in road shows made the revival of the stock company possible. At any rate Kenneth Mao-

gowan's figures show that the number of operating stock companies almost

doubled during the years between 1923 and 1927,^ and a text published in

1929 mentions the reappearance in stock of the old system of guest

stars

The very natural tendency for historians to concern themselves withthat part of the past which bears upon the state of things in their

own time often results, as in the case of the theatre in the twenties,

in some distortion of the actual nature of the earlier events. So, our

impression of the theatre of the twenties is often assembled from our

concern with the new American playwrights, O'Neill, Rice, Barry, Kelly,

Lawson, Kaufmann and Connellyj the new simplicity in staging and the

^DPD, September 11, 1921, p. 1-Amusements. 2Pemberton, p. 1*2.

3Froa 133 to 257. (Ibid., p. 79.)

kjchn Anderson, Box Office (New York: Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith, 1929), p. 25. ” “ designers who made it so, e.g., R. E. Jones, Urban, Mielziner, Simon­ son, Bel Geddes, Oenslager; the rise of the independent theatres

(Neighborhood Playhouse, Provincetown Players) ; the progress of the

Theatre Guild; the work of Miss LeGallienne' s Civic Repertory Company; and the influential foreign visitors, e.g., The Moscow Art Theatre,

The Habima Theatre, and Max Reinhardt. Of the ten Pulitzer Prizes awarded to playwrights between 1920 and 1929, three went to O'Neill and most of the rest to gentlemen whom we still regard as of major import­ ances Elmer Rice, Paul Green, Sidney Howard, George Kelly.-*- A modest flow of Shakespearean plays sprang forth right after the war and con­ tinued in the form of single productions and repertory throughout the decade. Walter Hampden, Robert Mantell, and Fritz Lieber played in

Shakespearean repertory for stretches of a few years each, and Jans Cowl,

Ethel Barrymore, John Barrymore, George Arliss, Julia Marlowe, and

Edward Sothern played in New York or on the "road" in single productions.2

Actually, although these persons and events were usually recognized and sometimes hailed by the critics and lecturers of the period, the greater part of the theatrical productions of the time, that part maintained by audience members paying for tickets at box offices, was romantic, senti­ mental, farcical, or sensational, and often musicalized. The 1922-23 season, for example, according to Burns Mantle's report was "unusually

*-Zona Gale, Hatcher Hughes, and Owen Davis won the other three. (World Almanact 195*7, p. 138.)

%arlowe Hoyt of the Cleveland Plain Dealer described the post­ war appearance of Shakespearean performances as "a revival." (GPP, October 2U, 1920, p. 1-A.) McDermott of the same paper noted later on that the New York performances of Shakespeare were well supported and highly profitable. (CPD, December 17, 1921, p. 12.) 2U good • . . with one hundred and ninety plays to its credit and a higher percentage of hits than usual. Owen Davis' Icebound won the Pulitzer Prize. Mantle's selection of the ten plays representa­ tive of the season's best offerings follows:

Icebound, 11*5 performances,2 drama, Owen Davis. Iain, 2$6 performances, drama, adaptation of Maugham's story. fou and I, 136 performances,2 cosedy, Philip Barry. Loyalties, 220 performances, drama, Galsworthy. Why got?," 120 performances, comedy, Jesse Lynch Williams. The fool, 272 performances, melodrama, Channing Pollock. ierton "of the Movies, 2U8 performances,2 comedy, Kaufman and Connelly. The Old Soak, U23 performances, comedy, Bon Marquis. S.U.R., ldii performances, drama, Karel Capek. Mary the 3d, 152 performances,2 drama, Rachel Crothers.

Rain was the most consistently popular success of the season. The Fool,

a sermon drama concerning a young man who tries to live like Christ,

after three hesitant weeks became a success and drew quantities of tears

each night with its "miracle" scene. The Old Soak dealt with a genial

alcoholic with a weak character but a good heart. Loyalties fostered

some discussion but closed before the season's end. Why Not? was written

as a protest against some of the divorce laws; as a plot device it used

a poet working as a butler.

The principal substance of the season's program may be revealed

by a little analysis. Forty of the year's new plays, not counting

Mantle's ten best, ran for more than 100 performances. Of these, twelve

were musical comedies or romances, four were musical revues, five were

mysteries or melodramas, three were farces, seven were comedies, and

^-Burns Mantle, The Beat Plays of 1922-23 (Boston: Small, Maynard and Co., 1923), p. 1 8 , fhe 1922-23 material which immediately follows is taken from this volume.

2Still playing on June 1$, 1923, Mantle's end-of-the-season date. Bine ware dramas. Of the 190 plays that opened sixty were musicals.

This sort of analysis may be extended in order to characterize the drama of the twenties as a whole by examining Mantle's lists*

"Plays That Have Run Over $00 Performances on Broadway," as they appear in his seasonal reports. Of the twenty-four plays listed, twenty-two had opened and completed their runs during the decade 1919-1929. Two more, Lightnin1 and East Is West, opened prior to the decade but played into its early years. The list (see below) reveals ten musicals, eight comedies or farces, five dramas and one mystery-melodrama, more or less evenly distributed through the period.

TABLE I

PLAYS THAT RAN FOR OVER 900 PERFORMANCES ON BROADWAY BETWEEN 1919-20 AND 1928-29

Perf. Opened Play Title Type of Drama Run Aug 191$ Idghtnin1 Comedy 1,291 Dee 1918 t&si Is West Drama 680 Sep 1919 The Uold Diggers Comedy 720 Nov 1919 Irene Musical comedy 670 Aug 1920 fSTBat Mystery 867 Oct 1920 The ysar Comedy 760 Dec 1920 Sally Musical comedy 970 Sep 1921 Hossom Time Musical comedy 992 Nov 1921 Kild. Farce comedy 600 May 1921 bhulfle Along Musical comedy 90U Oct 1922 Seventh Heaven Comedy 70U Nov 1922 ftain Drama 6U8 May 1922 Sale's Irish Rose Comedy 2,318 Nov 1923 White Cargo Drama 702 Feb 192U %.e'aUf Comedy 971 Dec 192U The Student Prince Romantic operetta 608 Jan 1929 Is Zat So? Farce 618 Sep 1929 The Vagabond King Musical romance 911 Sep 1929 bunny Musical comedy 917 Sep 1926 Droadway Drama 603 Oct 1926 ¥He ladder Drama 789 Sep 1927 5 S S O S 5 T Musical comedy 991 Dec 1927 Showboat Musical comedy 972 May 1928 blackbirds Musical revue 918 26

And the New fork cossssrsisl theatre was the American commercial theatre. The reports from Chicago, San Francisco, and Southern

California which are included in most of the Mantle collections of this decade show clearly the dependence of other American cities on

New York as their source of commercial productions. Although the shows financed by New York producers frequently tried out in the provinces as they do today, it was a very rare occasion indeed when a play sponsored by an out-of-town producer travelled to Broadway.

Furthermore, the Theatre Guild's few touring shows to the contrary, the productions travelling the provinces tended to be only those which had been conspicuously successful financially in New York. These, as the list of long run Broadway plays has shown, were not likely to be either Burns Mantle's "Ten Best" or the works of the new playwrights which we honor today.

Alan Downer summed up the situation neatly in his analysis of the American theatre of the era.

The revolution is, to be sure, more apparent thirty years after the event. At the time the great success of such masterpieces of mediocrity as Three Wise Fools and Abie1s Irish Rose and The Bat far ever shadows dp in the box-office handicap, Anna Christie or Miss Lulu Batt. The change which today appears cataclysmic, in its own time seemed merely the sparks from some eccentric fireworks in various "arty," noncommercial theatres.

Barnard Hewitt supplies the conclusion.

The stock market crash of October, 1929, though its effects on the theatre were not immediately felt, heralded for the (commercial]

^Alan S. Downer, Fifty Years of American Dramas 1900-1950 (Chicagos Henry Hegnery c s : , i 9 W , P: n : ------27

Theatre not only the end of a period of prosperity but the end of an era during which it had dominated the entertainment field.1

The Amateur Theatre

The varied nature of amateur theatrical enterprises was des­ cribed by S. Marion Tucker in 1925.

Their name is legion, and their methods of organization, their strength, their equipment, the quality of their productions vary so widely that it becomes Immediately evident that these hundreds of organizations have little in common except the term (utterly without meaning) of "Little Theatre." Some have fine playhouses of their own; some have no abiding habitation or city of refuge. Some have thousands of subscribers and are firmly founded in the community life; others live from hand to mouth. Some produce virtually every night; others only two or three times a season. Some produce fine plays, others mere "hokum." Some have so trained their workers, have such expert directing, and such good equipment, that their productions bear favorable comparison with good professional work; others are so amateur in the most objectionable sense that their productions cry to heaven for suppression. Individually, few of these amateur organizations amount to much; in the aggregate they amount to a great (teal. They mean something -something of immense import to our national life. Watch them.*

This discussion would derive some considerable advantage from a set of clear-cut definitions of the kinds of amateur groups, kinds by purpose, by organizational structure, by theatrical program, by

constituents, by income sources, and so on. As Mr. Tucker stated in

the quotation above, such an achievement is just about impossible. It may, however, be possible to form a few categories which will be of

some assistance in our discussion. Let us assume for our purposes

-^-Barnard Hewitt, Theatre U.S.A. a 166$ to 195>7 (New Yorks McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1 ^ ) , p. 382.

^S. Marion Tucker, "Progress, Problems and Prospects," Conference on the Drama, p. 126. 28 three general categories of amateur activities in drama: the art theatre, the little theatre, and amateur theatricals. The art theatre, tie shall say, denotes the groups formed in s ome likeness of the

European art theatres, that is, the group intends to improve the state of the theatre by the introduction of the works of new playwrights,

European cr American. Most of these groups began with a limited mem­ bership, the individuals of which subsidized the theatre's activities

and were themselves the only audience for its productions. Usually facilities were very limited in both amount and size, and this last

contributed to an atmosphere of intimacy and exclusiveness that was

characteristic. Some of them, The Toy Theatre of Boston and the

Chicago Little Theatre, for example, were created specifically to bring

to America the principles, dramatic literature, and staging techniques

of the European Art Theatres .•*• Some were devoted to the works of new

playwrights, e.g., the Little Theatre of Duluth.^ At any rate most of

these came into existence around 1910 or a few years later and had

either disappeared or changed in nature by the end of World War 1.

Let us skip to the third category for the moment, the second,

the little theatre, being the most difficult to circumscribe. With

the phrase "amateur theatricals" let us cover all those amateur dra­

matic activities which were engaged in by groups whose principal

function lay in some other area than theatre. Here the dramatic enter-

•^John Wray Young, The Community Theatre and How It Works (New York: Harper and Brothers, 19f>7), p. 2.

^Ibid^, p . 3 * 29 tairanent most often served some other purpose than the presenta­ tion of drama for the enjoyment of drama itself. Charity affairs, club-sponsored entertainments, non-curriculsr school and college productions, didactic church plays, usually presented by the most inexperienced individuals and without drama-trained leadership, characterized this aspect of the amateur theatre.

The middle category, the little theatres, we shall designate as including groups, no matter how derived, whose principal function was the production of the best theatre possible by the most experienced amateurs under the most highly trained leadership obtainable. These groups, as Hr. Tucker has suggested, varied greatly in size, quality

and duration, but they can be generally characterized as having open membership, attempting to support themselves by their box offices

rather than being underwritten by their members, tempering their program by their box office needs, and by possessing as their principal

purpose the provision of theatrical experiences for amateurs. Percy

MacKaye's often-quoted statement may assist here: "There is partici­

pation; there is creative expression; there is neighborly ritual."1

The stated purposes of the little theatres were numerous and varied,

and they reveal two contrasting points of view regarding the functions

of the groups. A questionnaire sent by Charles Prickett, Business

Manager of the Pasadena Playhouse, to approximately 600 amateur theatre

lCommunity Dramas Its Motive and Method of Neighborliness, cited by Albert McCleory and Carl Glick, Curtains Going Up (New York: Pitman Publishing Corp., 1939), p. 16. 30 groups in 1929 brought the following responses (the top ten from the

100 replies) to a request for a statement of purpose:

Wider, more critical appreciation of drama. Encouragement of original drama. The fun of good plays put on as well as possible. Good plays by professionals. To encourage dramatic arts and an experimental theatre. To revive and bring back spoken drama. To promote the appreciation of the best drama. To produce good and unusual plays and educate the public. To provide an acting opportunity. To promote and educate the public in amateur dramatics.

The contrast in points of view is best illustrated in the third and fourth statements above. The fact that "the fun of good plays" was very probably the prevailing view of the function of little theatres is indicated by the strength of the statements made in opposition to that concept. At the 1925 Conference on the Drama Fred McConnell of the Cleveland Playhouse said, "The amateur theatre is a myth. . . .

^ou cannot take a step in the realm of the theatre without becoming professional and the great mistake is to compromise in the matter."2

S. Marion Tucker, speaking at the same conference, agreed with McConnelL

Statements in the Macgowan text demonstrate his assumption that a suc­ cessful little theatre is one that is moving toward professionalism.3

To read the declarations of the enthusiasts of the period is to be convinced that drama could cure anything, could do everything.

In 1919 an explanation of the purposes of the Drama League of America^ revealed scone of the areas and some of the ways in which the League

3-Cited by Macgowan, Footlights Across America, p. 9U.

Conference on the Drama, p. 139. ^Pp. 90-91.

UThis institution will be discussed more fully a few pages hence. 31 felt drama should operate. Hr am, was to be restored to her former place among the arts, '’that place so well maintained by the early

Greeksnj it was to be democratized. Cities were to be encouraged to set up community centers wherein to operate theatres for the people

"where groups of amateurs may freely work out their own salvation, where the children may have their little plays or educational films, where the working man may feel at home and where he may find resort after we close up his 'club,' (the Anti-Saloon League at worljj . . . ."

Our boys must not "go out from the clean, wholesome, happy, rollicking enjoyment of the Liberty Theatre and the I hut (array camp recreational facilities, back to the cheap dance halls, the burlesque show and the

'movie, 1 . . . back to the utter dearth of recreation in the small isolated towns.

Now is the time to restore drama to her earlier position as the child of the church, to place within reach of the church that great medium for teaching great truths. . . . Now, the time of hard awakening, is the moment to make use of this strong instru­ ment for teaching spiritual and ethical truths, and to encourage the use of dramatic principles and methods in church work and in Sunday School.*

At the same time, the League indicated, we must use the drama to foster pride in our nation since we have only recently acquired a deep national feeling and respect for our national life and history. Other functions of the amateurs that appear in statements at the Conference on the Drama, in the magazine, The Drama, and in texts describing the period include the development of theatre artists for the commercial

l’!The Drama League of Today," The Drama, IX, No. 33 (February, 1919), pp. 128-133. 2ibja. 32 theatre, improving the standards of the coisaereial theatre, and acting as a democratizing agent for the American people.

It may be pertinent to note that the production of plays was by no means the sole dramatic activity of the twenties. Surely it is this activity which is of principal interest to the historians, but the materials presented in The Drama and the contents of a number of instruction books on the drama reveal many other fields of dramatic activity besides play production. The Drama, for example, contains in a number of issues distributed through most of its publication years, many study courses covering European and American dramatic literature. These were designed to be pursued by drama-interested groups or individuals with or without trained leadership. Texts con­ cerned with use of the drama for religious or educational purposes describe at length the techniques for and the benefits to be derived from many drama activities peripheral to the production of prepared plays. Grace Overton in her text Drama in Education, for example, discusses statue posing, tableaux and pantomime, the playing out of stories, using the masque for its allegorical characters and situations, the impromptu dramatisation of events and situations, the techniques of the pageant, and, in great detail, the introduction of dramatic materials into liturgical programsThe Reverend John Talbot Smith urges us to follow the examples of a few parishes which have experi­ mented with Passion and Mission plays, dramatic forms lying somewhere between the pageant and the usual play form and using, of course,

1Grace S. Overton, Drama in Education: Theory and Technique (New York: The Century Co., 1926), pp. xi, 136, 138, ll*0. 33

Biblical material and the lives of saints and famous figures of the

Roman Catholic Church.* And certainly not the least of the dramatic activities of the twenties was sitting, sitting and listening to lectures an the drama, dramatic literature, plsywriting, play pro­ duction, and any combination thereof that may be imagined* The details of this kind of activity will be enlarged upon in the section of this study pertaining to Cleveland; suffice it to say now that the Drama

League possessed a section devoted to providing speakers at reduced rates (profits from the occasions to be used for the purchase of stock in the League's publication, The Drama)» Among the speakers listed as available in the 1919-20 season were Harley Granville-Barker, William

Butler Yeats, John Drinkwater, Lord Bunsany, and St. John E r v i n e . ^

These lectures, study courses, and the living pictures, masques, pageants, and What all, existed side-by-side with production activities and seem to have been as widely pursued*

. . . The Ibsen influence passing through England after Shaw's work as protagonist, reached courses in literature in this country and had its part in creation of courses in modern drama. There was a period when such courses were so popular that cautious oldsters in our universities set up pre-requisites to filter out the heavy registrations. Adult interest was revealed in the surge of drama clubs, some heavily weighted with social activities, and some creative in their influence on our communities. That phase

John Talbot Smith, The Parish Theatres A Brief Account of Its Rise. Its Present Condition, and lie Prospects (Mew Yorks Longmans. Qreen and Co., 1917), pp. 31-39. (This is a delightfully vituperative work which takes every opportunity to castigate "the Puritans," i.e., the Protestant churches, for their renunciation of the theatre.)

2"The Drama," The Drama, X, No. 1 (October, 1919), p. 35. 3k

of cultural growth in the United States has yet to he studied 'from the side of its effects on critical sense, on reading habits, and on our institutions.*

An important corollary to the activities for adults was the development of programs in children's theatre. In 1921 the Association of Junior Leagues of America inaugurated a program in this area that by 1928 had involved more than fifty Leagues in sponsoring professional and non-professional performances for children, trouping plays to schools, and, as a group, fostering the publication and distribution 2 of children's plays. The Clare Tree Major group was organized in the early years of the decade and began its national tours in 19281 the

Children's Theatre of Evanston (Winifred Ward) and the Goodman School of the Theatre program for children both got underway in 1925 s by the end of the twenties the programs in children's theatre which we 3 know now were fairly well established.

The prophecies made concerning the amateur theatres, particu­ larly the little theatres, are often in retrospect barely believable, but they offer us a sense of the spirit with which the drama was em­ braced during the twenties. B. Iden Payne during one of his early visits to our nation called the amateur theatre "the hope of the

drama o"^ Brock Pemberton said he was looking forward to the time

3-David H. Stevens (Director, The Humanities, The Rockefeller Foundation), "if it be not now, yet it will come,11 National Theatre Conference Quarterly Bulletin, I, No. 1 (April, 193$), p. 3.

2j®d Davis, Mary Jane Watkins, and Roger M. Busfield, Jr., Children's Theatre (New Yorks Harper and Brothers, I960), p. 8 .

3lbid., pp. 9, 10.

^CPD, June 27, 1926, p. 2-Amusements. 35

"when we in New York shall have to know what you jjhe amateur theatrei are doing in order to keep up with our competitors. . . . You will be sending us plays of the American scene written by your own dramatists; and with players to act them who have been schooled within your own walls."1 In 1^1? the Drama League was excited about the possibilities of a nation-wide program of construction of community center theatre buildings in the form of war memorials.^ Clarence Stratton in the introduction to his Producing in Little Theatres assumed the success of the war memorial community center buildings and predicted that the drama would "spread to nearly every part of the land to entertain, educate, and stimulate people in ways which no other human agencies can ever equal."3 Barclay Leathern of Western Reserve University was certain that "the day is coming when Broadway producers will send scouts to watch college dramatic clubs much as the ball teams now watch the college diamond stars."** Something of a highpoint may have been reached in 1927 when Dorothy Fuldheim, a Cleveland commentator, told a women's group that the little theatre's next step might well be toward the production of art films

Although amateur theatrical activities had been very sparse during the war,^ the burgeoning activities in the years following were

^"Broadway and Main Street,*)1 Conference on the Drama, p. U5.

^Martha Candler, "American Community Drama," The Drama, X, No. 1 (October, 1919), pp. 71-77.

% e w Yorks Henry Holt and Co., 1921, p. 3.

**Xn Lillian F. Collins, The Little Theater in School (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1930), p. 2.

5CPD, August 30, 1927, p. 15. 6Stratton, p. 1. remarkable in quantity and scope. Baring the ear the Drama League had fostered dramatic productions in Army camps and sponsored shows brought to the camps,^ and the YMCA had spent $li*,QOO,QOO on dramatic activities for the soldiers.2 But the principle reasons to which this growth of amateur activity has been ascribed were the decay of the commercial theatre's touring system and local stock companies, an increase in American interest in the arts in general, and the dis­ covery that the professionals of the theatre held no monopoly on the ability to produce plays. ^ Just before the war Constance D'Arcy

MacKay stated that there were over fifty little theatres in existence in the United States.^ Arthur Hobson Quinn estimated less than ten years later that there were probably 3,000 active theatre groups of one kind or another.^ (In 1957 the estimate was 150,000.^) Stratton in his early-in-the-decade enthusiasm repeated the report that in 1921 there were 10,000 acting groups connected with churchesJ But even the more cautious Marion Tucker estimated the numbers in the hundreds

l"The Drama League of Today," The Drama, IX, No. 33 (February, 1919), p. 128.

2The Drama, X, No. 1 (October, 1919), p. 21.

^Tucker, Conference on the Drama, p. 127, and almost any text covering the periods

^The Little Theatre in the United States (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1917), p. 15* "

History of the American Drama From the Civil War t o the Present Day, Vol. II; From William Vaughan Moody to the Present Day (New 'forks Harper and Brothers, 1927), p. 163.

%oung, p. 11*1. 7producing in Little Theatres, p. 1. 37 in 192$.1 By the beginning of the decade George Pierce Baker's

Harvard U7 Workshop was firmly established; Carnegie Institute of

Technology had been supporting a drama department for seven years;

A. M. Drummond had been active at Cornell for eight years; and 2 E. C. Mabie was just arriving at the State University of Iowa. By

1929 the Departments of Drama (or whatever they were called) at Xale,

Carnegie Tech, Iowa and Northwestern averaged annual budgets of over

135,000 each; these plus North Carolina and Cornell averaged seventy- five performances of fifteen productions each year; Northwestern,

Iowa, Southern California, and Cornell were granting Master of Arts degrees for creative work in drama; Cornell was granting the Ph.D. in

drama and theatre; and Carnegie was granting a B.A.3 A Macgowan questionnaire to universities compiled in 1929 recorded 123 replies, of which 111 indicated that drama courses were included in the cur­ riculum. A questionnaire sent out by Lucille Calvert of Northwestern

University to 383 colleges, universities, and normal schools a little before Macgowan's brought back 189 replies, only eighteen of which

showed no activities in drama.** As for the high schools, Macgowan,

obviously our richest statistical source, estimated that by the end of

the decade 7,000 of the 22,000 high schools in America were presenting

courses in drama to an average of fifty students per course and that

some hundreds of thousands of student thespians were producing plays

for an audience that totalled in the millions.'*

^Conference on the Drama, p. 128. ?Macgawan, pp. U5-120.

3lbid., passim. Ulbid., p. 109. ^Ibid., p. 1 6 9 . Space and time here do not permit the setting down of the

details of the life and nature of the Drama League of America. Horn much responsibility it bore for developments in the amateur theatre

is not known, but there is no question but that it was the origin for

a number of ideas used by the amateurs and promulgator of many more.

The League came into existence in 1910 with the intention of acting

as a positive corrective to the commercial theatre. It described

itself as "an organization of all those persons who are interested in

the encouragement and support of good plays and in the spread of

printed plays for popular reading."^ By 1920 the circle of its activ­

ities had widened considerably} "To crowd out vicious plays by

attending and commending good plays and building up audiences for them

through study courses, reading circles and lectures5 to aid in the

restoration of the drama to its honorable place as the most intimate,

the most comprehensive, most democratic medium of self-expression of

the people both in and out of the theatre."2 Its Educational Depart­

ment was directed to use its influence and knowledge to secure better

stages for amateur productions, to persuade amateurs to produce better

quality plays, and to educate local schools and colleges to emphasize

the production of plays rather than the study of dramatic literature

alone.3 A sub-committee to advise and service church theatre groups

3-The Drama League of Ameriea, Proceedings (Chicago, 1915), p. 127.

2«The League Idea inaa Nutshell," The Drama, XI, No. 1 (October, 1920), p. 37.

3»Three Points for Educational Departments," The Drama, X, No. 1 (October, 1919), pp. 31-32. was organised in 1919, and at the same time the chairman of the

Publicity and Organization Department was touring the country offering advice to all who requested it.1 The speakers service has been described. The League was still concerned with play pro­ duction standards* The Chicago Center set forth the following ideals to be pursued: setting should convey mood and are as important to the production as acting and script; the script should deal with ma­ terial of real significance, not bedroom farce or melodrama; American plays should be produced; actors should develop their own styles, not copy foreign styles.3 During the five years preceding 1919 the League was publishing two periodicals, the Drama League Monthly, a series of reports on the League's activities, and the Drama Magazine which con­

tained numbers of one-act and full-length playscripts and the study

outlines described a few pages back. The two magazines were combined

in late 1919 as The Drama, which brought together in diminished amounts

the contents of the previous two and continued until 1931. In addition

the League published many, many lists of plays for various occasions

and types of organizations; the centers published Playgoing Bulletins,

which recommended to their members attendance at commercial

(principally) and amateur productions that met League standards; and

the League (through Longmans, Qreen) published twenty-one volumes of

I"Drama League Activities," Ibid.» pp. 28-33.

2Above, p. 32.

3"Chicago's Tear of Drama," The Drama, IX, No. 33 (February, 1919), pp. 110-11U. Uo contemporary American and European plays and a series of pageants.1

Before It was ten years old the League had centers in more than sixty

American cities* the memberships ranging in number from 100 to 2,000* in dozens of colleges, and in hundreds of schools, all of them at one time or another using the League’s lists and literature and working on its study courses.2

Although the League seems to have been successful in assisting the amateurs, it does not seem to have been so in influencing the commercial theatre, its principal early purpose. Walter Pritchard

Eaton described the contempt of the commercial managers for the League and criticized League members for being perfectly willing to listen to lecturers and take tea with visiting stars but quite reluctant to follow through by attending League-recommended productions. Drama

League play recommendations, he said, have been known to scars some people off.3 The demise of the New York Center in 1927 was attributed by Percy Hammond to the fact that Drama League guidance to the best productions was no longer necessary and that the State Legislature, the District Attorney, and the Mayor of New York had assumed ’'even livelier" interest in censoriog objectionable theatre pieces.^ Possibly

^■Twenty three-act and four one-act plays: The Clod, Eugenically Speaking. Overtones, and Helena’s Husband, the Washington Square ?lays.

2Mt s . A. Starr Best, "The League 1919-20," The Drama, X, No. 1 (October, 1919), pp. 30-31. The British Drama League, by the way, was copied from the American organization in name, aims, and organization. (Ibid.)

3"Remarks and Opinions," Conference on the Drama, pp. 123-12U.

^CPD, May 29, 1927, p. 1-Amusements. the League's sole claim to direct influence on the commercial theatre lies in its success with Charles Kenyon's Kindling, which failed to

draw the public in New York but reopened in Chicago and with Drama

League support succeeded there and eventually toured the country.1

The national body, the Drama League of America, suspended its

activities in 1931 because it lacked funds to carry on its work.

Much as it deserved to be honored, it probably did not need to continue.

The colleges, play publishers, professional critics, little theatres,

and production text writers had undertaken the tasks it had begun.

The prolific growth of the amateur drama, as may be expected,

was not without accompanying problems and complaints. In addition to

the normal difficulties of organizing groups and producing plays there

was the problem of obtaining plays to present. Although a number of

play collections had been published by 1919,3 it was not until 192$

and later that the response of publishers to the heavily increased

demand for producible plays began to be noticed. Marion Tucker re­

marked in 192$ on the recent increase in the availability of play

collections and production technique manuals but deprecated the great

number of bad plays available for amateurs.^ A few years later Arthur

3-Quinn, pp. 2U-2$.

2McCleery and Glick, p. 3$3.

3g . p. Baker's Plays of the Harvard Dramatic Club, Margaret Mayorga's Representative One-Act Plays, Samuel Eliot's Little Theatre Classics, Diehard Burton's donteaporary Drama Series, Thomas Dickinson's collections, Frank Shay^s lists and collections of short plays, the Brentano plays series, and others.

^Conference on the Drama, p. 130. Hobson Quinn indicated that practically every play was published in some form and that this was a radical change from the past.^ In 1929

William Lyon Phelps stated his belief that the publication of new plays was the distinguishing characteristic of the book trade in the twentieth century.2

The discovery of the published play, of course, is not the last step in the process for the amateurj production rights must be obtained. That this was no easy task, at least in the early part of the decade, may be demonstrated by examination of one of the early issues of The Drama. The rights to the seven one-act plays printed in the February, 1920, issue of this magazine were obtainable by five different means, only one applicable to each play. The first requested the prospective lessee to write the translator at a given address; the second named an author's agent located in Mew Jersey; the third and fourth suggested sending the request to the magazine; the fifth in­ structed the reader to address the author but included no address; the

sixth and seventh gave no information whatsoever. The Drama, as indi­ cated earlier, was printing these so that they might be produced! And when the proper source for rights could be found, the poor producer

sometimes discovered, particularly in the middle of the decade, that

stock company priorities prevented amateur production. In many cases,

Mr. Macgowan points out, the stock companies never used the plays for which they blocked amateur use .3

iQuinn, p. 16U. 2q p d , January 20, 1929, p. 10-Society.

3Footlights Across America, p. 79. U3

The criticisms of the amateur theatre were stated forth­ rightly and covered very thoroughly by the participants in the Con­ ference on the Drama in 192$. Harold Ehrensperger supplied six items which are condensed as follows:

1. Emphasis has shifted from the performance of plays to pro­ motion, sociality, committees, listening to experts, and community organizations. 2. There is an insufficiency of trained leadership. 3. The influence of "society folk" makes the theatre a social club and debilitates standards. U* There are too many dabblers. Theatre must succeed as a business before it can succeed as an art. $. Even training is not enough; we need dedicated people in the theatre. 6 . Little theatre programming is now appealing to the mental and physical "middle sexes," to the mental lightweights, to pretty faces and handsome bodies, and to the idea of getting on Broadway.1

At the conference Marion Tucker added to the criticisms the amateur theatre's fear of novelty; Harold Brighouse deprecated the lack of discrimination of the democratically minded audiences; and Walter

Pritchard Eaton condemned the acting as the weakest feature of the amateur playhouses.2 Cornell's Drummond discussed the faults in college and university theatres: aesthetic disciplines being lost in artistically superficial work done for academic credit; plays offered to the public without the restraining disciplines of excellence pro­ vided by competent direction, technical assistance, and qualified production groups; pre-occupation with contributory arts encouraging neglect of acting skills and the arts of speech; and the presence of educators who were too often teachers trying to become artists rather

^•Conference on the Drama, pp. 117-122. 2Ibid., passim. than artists who were teachers.-1- A few years later Macgowan added the comment that amateur acting clubs at colleges were not as sig­ nificant as those in churches or among the socially elect because the college groups had few players of any maturity, could not do ensemble playing, and often used men in women's parts.2 Many of these problems are familiar today, but one perhaps unique to the era was described by Clarence Stratton In 1921. The combination of unbridled enthusiasm for the theatrical arts with the great new war-related pride in democ­ racy led, in enough cases to call forth published comment, to the assumption that "a play should be the result of a voluntary association democratically working out its own destiny," i.e., the director should be eliminated. Stratton commented that "the results of the system, while doubtlessly great fun and education for the performers, do not expeditiously or assuredly move into the production of plays."3

The conclusions concerning the results of the amateur's love affair with the drama include some diametrically opposed opinions.

No one argues with the statement of Ward Marsh of the Cleveland Plain

Dealer to the effect that amateur theatricals may have assisted in the demise of the road and the resident stock c o m p a n y . ^ Likewise, Macgowan's information describing the numbers of college men and women trained in the arts of the theatre who went forth into the professional theatres, the local amateur theatres, and, to a much greater extent, into the

3-Ibid., pp. 150-151. 2Macgowan, p. 112.

3stratton, p. 65. ^CPD, June 16, 1923, p. 16. k$ high schools as teachers, brings forth no rebuttals.1 Quinn's report that playwrights are encouraged by the fact that plays denied great success on Broadway now have a potential amateur theatre audience in addition to the usual one of the stock companies is accepted.2 But

John Murray Anderson, author, drama critic of the New York Journal, and lecturer at New York University, was firm in the conviction that although no one would admit it, the amateur theatre had been of no influence whatsoever. He pointed out that sometime during 1918 or 1919

Variety had announced with some alarm that little theatres in ten years would have the legit" by the throat. In 1929 Anderson believed that the little theatres seemed to have "the legit" by the coat tails.3

However, William McDermott of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, looking at the amateurs from the early days of the dacade,1^ and John Wray Young, gazing back from the distant 1957,^ both agree that the amateur theatre was a major cultural force.

^•Footlights Across America, p. 1$3»

2a History of the American Drama, p. 163. ^Box Office, p. 117.

bCPD, August 21, 1921, p. 1-Amusements.

*Young, pp. 131-133. CHAPTER IV

CLEVELAND THEATRE IN THE TWENTIES: INTRODUCTION

Clevelanders were interested in the theatre in the twenties.

They wrote letters to the newspapers; the drama critic's column in the

Plain Dealer was often devoted to answers to readers' questions and

sometimes included long quotations from correspondents with strong or well-stated opinions. They were interested in knowing about or under­

standing the plays that came to town. When it was announced that the play An American Tragedy was booked for Cleveland, the Public Library's

entire collection of fifty copies of the novel went out on loan so rapidly that the librarians were left with insufficient material for

their usual book displays.3- They made no objection to the use of city

funds to support drama activities at city-supported playgrounds and

community centers nor to the use of welfare funds for the same purposes

at settlement houses, the IWCA, and in the many welfare-supported

activities for girls. They encouraged the theatre with gifts. The

Francis Brurys donated the Playhouse's first home and the land for

Playhouse's new theatre plant. Beckwith House, for a number of years

the production facility for the College for Women's Curtain Players,

was provided without charge. On occasion Clevelanders travelled some

distance to see a theatre piece that interested them. Once, more than

lCPD, June 6 , 1929, p. 23.

U6 a thousand of them travelled all the way to Buffalo to see a Passion

Play being presented there by a small Catholic college (Can&lus).1

Clevelanders were fortunate in having some organizations of consequence supporting their interests in the drama* The Cleveland

Plain Dealer, the Cleveland Public Library, and, to a lesser extent oddly enough, the Cleveland Center of the Drama League of America, were of considerable assistance in fostering dramatic activities in

Cleveland during the twenties. In great part, of course, the attention paid to such a subject as drama by these kinds of agencies is induced by public interest, but the scope of the response was such in these cases that the agencies themselves became important for their own contributions*

The Cleveland Plain Dealer was without question the out­

standing newspaper of the city during the twenties* As a matter of

fact, it bad a national reputation as a newspaper of unusually com­

prehensive coverage and excellent staff Even a superficial examin­

ation of the scope of its theatre coverage will demonstrate the certain

superiority of that department alone. A testimony to the effectiveness

credited to the paper was the inclusiveness of the commercial theatre

advertisements placed in it. All Cleveland commercial theatre events

appear to have been advertised in the Plain Dealer including those

produced by the touring foreign language companies. The editorial page

of the paper contained articles commenting on theatrical items of

•kiPD, July 28, 1920, p, l?Women's Section.

^George Seldes, Lords of the Press (New Tork: Julian Messner. Inc., 1938), p. 181. 1*8 national or international note, e.g., the Shakespeare and Bacon controversy,the fairness of subsidization of the French theatre,2 the true location of the Elizabethan Globe Theatre,^ the Cleveland visit of the Oberansnergau Passion Players,^ the actual order of ap­ pearance of Shakespeare's plays.£ During the early years of the decade the Plain Dealer carried a number of special articles on stage figures and productions of the past.^ On four occasions reader interest in the theatre was stirred up by means of prizes awarded for letters related to the local commercial theatre. Five-dollar prizes vere awarded in

1921 for published letters commenting critically on the local legitimate and vaudeville shows.? The newspaper cooperated with the stock company at the Colonial Theatre in 1927 with a letter contest rewarding readers who compiled and justified lists of plays that the stock company should O perform.0 A year later, in anticipation of a production of Desire

^October 1, 1923. 2j)gcefflber 1*, 1927.

3january 22, 1922. January 1*, 1921*.

SMay 21*, 1923.

&For example, a weekday series of pictures with articles on famous stage stars of the past, beginning in July, 1921.

?April 21*, 1921, p. 2-B.

^February 26, 1927, p. 17. The prizewinning letter requested a rotating program of a classic or literary play, a comedy or farce- coraedy, and an experimental play of soma sort. (Ibid., March 10, 1927, p. 18.) The letters in general named no recent Broadway successes, requested revivals of the best plays of the previous decade and romantic plays, and, in a great number of instances, took exception to plays containing vulgarity. (Ibid., February 26, p. 17j February 25, p. l6 j March 6 , p. 1-Amusements.) The contest judges were McDermott of the Plain Dealer, the director of the stock company, and Clarence Stratton", Directorof English, Cleveland Public School System. (Ibid., March 10, p. 18.) Undar the Elms, contest letters were to answer the question: "Is

Eugene O'Neill the greatest American playwright?" Mary Morris* who starred in the play, was one of the contest judges.-*- A few months later enthusiasm for a week of Shakespearean repertory by Frits

Lieber's company was promoted with a two-part contest. The first part, for students attending colleges in the Greater Cleveland area, awarded fifteen dollars, ten dollars, or a pair of tickets to a per­ formance for answers to the question, "Why are Shakespeare's plays good drama today?" High school students, for the same awards, were to 2 write on the Shakespearean play they liked best. The last Plain

Baaler contest of the decade awarded a free trip to Washington to the grammar school student who answered most effectively the question,

"What is the historical and educational value of a play like My

Maryland?" The prize was donated by the management of the Hanna

Theatre, where the play was to appear.3 On one occasion during the twenties the paper cooperated with the manager of a number of local stock c ompanies, Robert McLaughlin, in a playwriting contest. The play was to be full-length, to use a cast of twelve to fifteen char­ acters, and preferably to be something other than tragic. McLaughlin offered a prize of $£00 and production by one of his companies.^*

^February 17, 1928, p. 19.

2october 17, 1928, p. 23. Judges were Fritz Lieber, Barclay Leathern of Western Reserve University, and Eleanor Claridge, Women's Page writer for the Plain Dealer.

3January 8j 1929, p. 23.

^October 22, 1922, p. 1-Amusements; November 5, 1922, p. 1- Amusements. 5o

Entries ware numbered in the dozens,^ but none of the plays was con­ sidered prize-worthy. ^

The Plain Dealer paid considerable attention to the regional, national and international commercial theatre. Its coverage was as extensive as that found today in the Hew York Times, excepting theatrical advertisements. Theatre material in the Sunday edition normally filled the first two pages of the Amusement Section. The drama critic usually took the entire first page and part of the second for some sort of feature article and announcements of the commercial theatre attractions opening that evening or the next. Each Sunday the second page included an article chi the developments from the New York scene written by the Plain Dealer's New York theatre correspondent of the moment. In many instances the reader would find on this page ad­ ditional articles on the European theatre or on general theatre topics, e.g., playwriting or staging, written by figures from the New York or national theatre scene. During the week the drama critic's column would appear daily, expanded somewhat on Tuesdays and Wednesdays by reviews of the road and stock company productions that had opened at the beginning of the week. Towards the end of each week the subject matter of the critic's column would often concern special aspects of the coming week's plays and players.

■*€YBsl923, p. 156.

^CPD, July 29, 1923, p. 1-Amusements. One of the entries, The Prince, did receive a production in New York five years later, but it got there by the regular route, not through the contest. (Ibid., April 2U, 1927.) Coverage of amateur theatre activities was minute at the opening of the decade and was scattered throughout the Plain Dealer.

In 1919, for example, the only mention of the Playhouse’s production of Proteus was a brief article, informative rather than critical, tucked into a corner of the Business Section.'*' Although announcements of amateur enterprises began to appear more and more frequently as the decade wore on, amateur performances were rarely reviewed. The Play­ house, almost the sole exception, evidently did not receive a drama critic review of any of its performances in the Plain Dealer until the

1922-23 season.^ As announcements of amateur activities began to in­ crease, they also began to be concentrated in two principal divisions of the paper, the Woman1 s Page (mostly) and the Amusements Section

(sometimes). In 1922 the drama critic’s column contained for the first time a section devoted to the amateurs,3 but it was not until 1921* that they gained a space all their own. In February of that year the

Plain Dealer announced it was to begin a weekly column entitled "Notes on the City’s Amateur Players Mid Art Theatres.Under one title or another this column continued through the decade, but announcements of drama activities of groups existing for other than dramatic purposes continued to appear for the most part on the Women's Page.

The list of the names of the persons who contributed to the

Plain Dealer articles concerning the theatre is as impressive for its

^November 1, 1919, p. 2U. ^CPD, March 22, 1923, p. 20.

3CPD, February 18, 1922, p. 12, "With the Amateurs."

^February 2$, 192U, p. 2-Amusements. length as it is for the quality of writing that the names connote.

William Lyon Phelps, George Jean Nathan, Percy Hammond, Karl K.

Kitchen, and Gilbert Gabriel, some of them regularly and some of them occasionally, saw to it that theatre reports on New York and the nation were available to Plain Dealer readers. Kitchen, a Cleveland expatriate to New York and author of informal reports on European night life, contributed the weekly report from New York for the first four years of the decade. Percy Hammond, drama critic for the New

York Herald Tribune, wrote a few articles daring Kitchen's tenure, replaced Kitchen as the writer responsible for the Sunday report from

New York, and continued to write special theatre articles after he passed his weekly responsibility to George Jean Nathan. Nathan, an ardent supporter of "the new theatre" as drama critic of the New York

Herald between 1905 and 1921 and co-editor and co-founder with

H. L. Mencken of the American Mercury (192)4.), was New York theatre correspondent for the Plain Dealer during most of the two years between the opening of the 1925-26 season and the end of the 1926-27 theat­ rical year. William Lyon Phelps, then Lampson Professor of English at

Yale, covered 1928 and most of 1929. Gilbert W. Gabriel, drama critic of the New York Evening Sun, relieved Phelps of the weekly column daring the last half of the 1928-29 season. A number of feature stories and news items dealing with the local amateur and commercial drama were

supplied by Plain Dealer staff writers, most of whom were not prin­ cipally concerned with the theatre. W. Ward Marsh, film editor for the paper during the entire decade, substituted for the drama critics on a number of occasions and during each of the summer seasons from 1922 on. Glenn Pullen, who joined the staff in 192U, wrote a few articles on > the amateur theatre. Grace V. Kelly, a feature writer who specialized in women's activities, contributed a number of very comprehensive articles on amateur drama during the latter half of the period.

Clarice White, principal women's page writer, often included items describing the dramatic work of women's and girls' groups.

The drama critic for the Cleveland Plain Dealer during this period was William J. McDermott. This is not to say that he held that title during the entire decade; he did not. Until the early summer of 1921 Harlows Hoyt had the position. But Mr. Hoyt was not, at the end of his tenure, the writer or the mind that McDermott was from the beginning. Hoyt accepted the commercial theatre offerings as they were. He believed that if the theatre programs were poor it was the fault of the audiences that went to see them and in no way the responsibility of the producers and managers that brought them into existence and booked them.-*- He felt the war had left audiences less interested than before in serious drama. "People want to be amused, not uplifted," he said.^ This appears to have been true of the greater part of the theatre-goers of the time (and of all time, for that matter), but for a critic to make the statement without at least in­ dicating that it was unfortunate that serious-minded theatre buffs were not attended to, or that this was not necessarily the proper

scope of program for such a major art, characterizes the comment as

ICPD, December 12, 1920, p. 3.

^CPD, September 19, 1920, p. 1-Music. 5U derived from a very limited concept of the theatre. It was a disap­ pointment, too, on arriving at the end of Hoyt's review of the road production of John Drinkwater's Abraham Lincoln, to find the play summed up as "a big human lesson.The arrival of McDermott just prior to the opening of the 1921-22 season marked the beginning of a new and brilliant era for dramatic criticism in Cleveland.

In 19U5 Fred McConnell, Director of the Cleveland Playhouse, wrote "Salute to a Critic" in which he said of McDermott, "The Play­ house is one of the many Cleveland institutions to enjoy the illum­ inating acuity of one of the best critical minds in the country."'*

John Mason Brown described McDermott's articles as "sharply observed and admirably written."3 A few days after he died, the Plain Dealer printed a memorial to McDermott from which the following is taken:

Mac was without doubt the finest writer of simple, exact, descriptive prose who ever wrote for the Plain Dealer. He was one of the most adept users of English who ever wrote for any paper, book, or magazine. From his great erudition, he knew exactly what words meant. Few readers, except those who had read as much as Mac, ever realized what a magnificent stylist he was, or what a broad sweep his mind encompassed. It read as if he wrote easily, but he didn't. It was hard work. But more than that, Mac was a kindly man who never as a dramatic critic got really rough with the actors he was evaluating. If the show was excellent, he said so. If it was mediocre, he let it down gently. If it stank, he wrote very little about it, and you had to read between the lines to know it stank. He hadn't the heart to blast a performance into which actors and writers had put their hearts and souls. It was this lovable quality as well as his encyclopedic knowledge of the theatre that endeared him to Katherine Cornell

ICPD, January 15, 1921, p. 12.

2CPD, November 1?, 1958, p. 12.

3ln The Best of McDermott: The Selected Writings of William F. McDermott (Cleveland: The World Publishing Co., 1259), p. 9. 55

and her husband; the late Gertrude Lawrence, Mary Martin, and scores of others, and made Brooks Atkinson, the eminent critic of the New York Times, hold him in such high esteem.1

Following such comprehensive praise as that just quoted, perhaps a single statement from the man himself will suffice to complete the sketch. The excerpt below, taken from one of his daily columns, is typical of the quality of his writing; it reveals in a few sentences

McDermott's gentle humor, liberal mind, and breadth of understanding.

On Jazz and Deterioration With the moral myopia that perhaps follows too regular attendance at the theatre, I have believed jazz to be more annoying than immoral. If the world is going to the dogs, as it does every generation or so, it will do so regardless of the musical accom­ paniment. National deterioration grows from something deeper than the times we dance to.2

McDermott's theatrical interests knew no limit. His columns were devoted much more often to the commercial theatre than to the amateur, especially during the early years of his work with the Plain

Dealer, but he was certainly convinced of the importance of the amateurs. In one of his earliest articles he wrote:

Despite its failings, all its youthful waving of artistic red flags, all its stumbling and getting its knees skinned, all its mistaking dreariness for greatness, all its emphasis of the bizarre and tricky against the simple and true - with all this duly entered in the books, I yet believe that when the record is finally summed up, what is conveniently called the "Little Theatre movement" will be found to have contributed more to stirring up the theatre and raising its artistic and intellectual level than any single force within the generation.-*

3-CPP, November 20, 1928, from The Best of McDermott, p. 279.

2CPP, February 2, 1922, p. 11*.

3CPP, August 21, 1921, p. 1-Amusements. 56

During the ten-year period under observation he often reviewed the productions at the Playhouse but rarely those of any of the other amateur organizations. His coverage of the commercial theatre was probably as comprehensive as that of any other American critic. His yearly summer tours of Europe brought to the readers of the Plain

Dealer descriptions and analyses of productions and theatre conditions in most of the major European cities, Dublin, London, Berlin, Paris,

Vienna, and Rome, as well as such theatrically interesting spots as

Oberansnergau. These mere interspersed with interviews of notable theatrical figures, e.g., 0. B. Shaw, Somerset Maugham, Max Reinhardt, and John Galsworthy. He managed visits to New Xork during each theatre season and thus provided his readers with information on the new Broad­ way productions to add to the more general comments sent up by the

Plain Dealer's regular New Xork theatre correspondents. His columns on plays and performances covered all aspects of the art and business of the theatre, staging, dramatic literature, directing, acting, ticket prices, attendance, theatre architecture, and so on. The range of his knowledge in dramatic literature alone may be illustrated at one end by an article that pointed out quite incidentally that the introduction to The Taming of the Shrew was the only part of that play which all authorities agreed was written by Shakespeare1 and at the other by his detailed discussion of the philosophy behind Hauptmann's The Sunken

Bell.^ In the light of the breadth and depth of his theatrical

1CPD, September 25, 1921, p. 2-Amusements.

2CPD, December 5, 1925, p. 16. coverage, the inclusion by the Plain Dealer of articles by the New

York or other theatrical correspondents appears to have been, more than anything else, a demonstration of conspicuous consumption.

McDermott's convictions were clear. He was strongly opposed to vulgarity for the sake of vulgarity.

Moral matters, easily soluble by most men, such as naming to the exact inch the skirt length where modesty leaves off and indecency begins, are wholly beyond my ken. When a playwright puts his finger to his nose and writes a bedroom piece that is deliberately and consistently and cheaply dirty, the problem is considerably easier.*

He did not believe in giving the public what it wanted but rather what was good for it.^ He felt that worship of the art products of the past because they were of the past was u seless andpointed out that

“tomorrow's classics are being written today."3 His attitude toward sentimentality may be exemplified by his notes on J. M. Barrie •s Marjr

Rose: "His plays seem to me often sicklied o'er less with thepale cast of thought than with the sweetish taste of babies and other too- lovely theatrical confections.He felt that Eugene O'Neill was the only contemporary American dramatist of international standing^ and consistently recommended to his readers that they see O'Neill's plays.

McDermott's readers were an active and interested lot, and he responded to them often and at length on a great number of topics theat­ rical and non-theatrical. He would frequently devote a whole column to

*C?Da February k, 1922, p. 12.

^CPD, October 16, 1921, p. 1-Amusements.

3CPD, November 12, 1921, p. lU. ^CPD, October 12, 1921, p. li*.

^CPD, April 18, 1926, p. 1-Amusements. 58 answering their questions or commenting on their views, in one Sunday

edition* for example, one letter requested more productions of Ibsen's plays, another complained about the difference in quality between New

York productions and the versions sent out to the "hinterlands," and a

third discussed McDermott1s functions as a critic.1 On another oc­

casion he printed a number of amusing letters that chided him for his

mistake in announcing Ethel Barrymore's arrival in The Constant Nymph

rather than The Constant W i f e . 2 in a later article he pointed out how

amazed he was at the public's faith in him. He wrote that, among

other things, he had been asked to suggest an idea for a novel to John

Galsworthy and to take drastic action about a policeman who was

habitually impolite to pedestrians* A critic, he noted, seemed to be

expected to be a combination of employment office, booking agent, play

broker, social secretary, and house plumber.3

William McDermott's columns must have been both an inspiration

and an education to Clevelanders related in any way to the theatre.

Over the years he presented to his readers the equivalent of a number

of comprehensive college courses in dramatic literature, theory, pro­

duction and criticism. Through the scope of his material and his in­

sights he brought to Clevelanders a national and international view of

the theatre against which to measure their own efforts. He criticized

Cleveland productions not in terms of Cleveland tastes or values but

in terms of the western world's standards, and occasionally he

1CPD, February 1U, 1926, p. 2-Amusements.

2CPD, April 5, 1928, p. 23. 3cPD, April 6 , 1928, p. 17. 9 criticized Cleveland audiences from the same point of viev.^ He was both a scholar and a great human being yet enough of a newspaperman to begin each of his working days with a shot of whiskey downed at the local bar in the company of a few of his co-workers.^

The Cleveland Plain Dealer, then, largely through the presence of William McDermott, but also as a result of its collection of feature and editorial writers, its theatre correspondents, and its playwriting and drama letter writing contests, was a major contributor to and

strong supporter of Cleveland's theatre activities in the 1920's.

The Cleveland Public Library has as its statement of purpose

"the maintenance of a free public library, the preservation and dis­

semination of knowledge through the printed page, and the encourage­ ment of the use and enjoyment of books."3 This purpose seems to have been fully carried out as far as the drama in the twenties was con­

cerned, and perhaps stretched a little. In any case, it was very

active in its support of Cleveland dramatic activities, both commercial

and amateur, and, in addition, managed to produce a modest little

theatre group of its own.

Early reports on the drama activities of the Library describe

the Library's interest in encouraging the reading and production of

"better" drama. A few play reading groups had been established at the

branch libraries by 1921, and the Library was attempting then to meet

3-CPD, March 11, 1928, p. 1-Amusements.

^Interview with Stanley K. Anderson, Cleveland Press Drama Critic, June 29, I960.

3CYB: 1926Ca] , p. 239. 60 the demand for producible plays and to change the nature of that demand from predominantly popular material to plays of good literary quality.1 Sometime during 1921 the Library Flayers were organized.

During the year the group presented two plays cast principally from staff members to a staff-constituted audience.2

Later in the decade other Library drama services come to light. Book talks on playscripts were provided by Library staff members for local groups. On one occasion, for example, the Library

Editor reviewed for the Women's City Club five newly received volumes of single contemporary European plays.3 Lectures on aspects of the

drama were delivered, in one recorded instance by a staff member as a part of the Library's celebration of Drama Week,U another time by

Clayton Hamilton, his subject ’’Modern Taste in the Theatre,"5 and in yet another instance a talk entitled "Shakespeare and His Times" de­

livered by Judge Willis Vickery, a local authority on Shakespeare.^

And Eugene O'Neill, of coarse, received his share of talks. In

Chapter II the Library displays were described as having been ex­

cellent enough to have been toured around the country. A number of

these were related to the theatre. The American Tragedy incident has has already been described;^ in a considerably greater number of cases,

however, the Library was able to complete its drama exhibits. The

iCIBs 1921, p. 280. 2 c p d , January 29, 1922, p. 9.

3CPP', March 31, 1922, p. 17. 1*OTD, January 2$, 1923, p. 10.

%PD, December 6, 1921*, p. 13.

fy*PD, November U, 192U, p. 13. ?Above, p. 1*6. e&hibits related to the commercial theatre were mounted sometime before the arrival of the road company and remained up until the end of the run. Some especially significant displays were the ones prior to the arrival of the Moscow Art Theatre which contained 100 photographs of actors and a number of books on the theatre recommended for reading by

Oliver Saylor,^ another of sketches of famed Juliets of the nineteenth

and twentieth centuries in anticipation of Jane Cowl's Romeo and

Juliet.^ one that was composed of reproductions of famous paintings

and books of history and biography related to the Theatre Guild's production of Shaw's St. Joan,^ and one for the Otis Skinner and

Minnie Maddern Fiske production of The Merry Wives of Windsor.^ The

Library's collection of rare theatre books was trundled out for

National Drama Week in 1927,-* and later in the same year a epecial

v- showing of 200 volumes relating to plays for children was arranged honoring National Book Week.^ A. great deal of staff energy evidently

was absorbed by the compilation of playlists. Plain Dealer articles

dispersed throughout the decade describe Library drama lists of varied

composition, e.g., full-length plays available for production by

^CPD, March 31, 1921*, p. 2-Amusements.

^CPD, October 10, 1921*, p. 21*. 3q p d , January 30, 192£, p. 16.

bCPD, December 11, 1927, p. 2-Amusements.

^CPD, February 20, 1927, p. 2-Amusements. The collection included a playscript used by the "Gentlemen of Trinity College" in 1611* and a 1676 edition of Wycherly’s The Plain Dealer.

^CPD, November 13, 1927, p. 2-Amusements. 62 1 2 amateurs, books an actors and theatres, and texts on the subjects

"Understanding the Drama," "Contemporary Drama," and "Collections of

Plays."3 In 1926 it was reported that the Library had "staggering lists of plays according to number of actors, presence of music, for use with marionettes, masques," and so on.^ As early as 19 2U the branch libraries, particularly those which were not preoccupied with

settlement house responsibilities, were developing drama clubs for boys and girls (mostly girls) of junior high school and high school

age. These clubs produced "playlets," all of the recorded ones of obscure origin and nature, for themselves and for each other under the

overall direction of a volunteer library worker.^ They had such names

as "The Jolly Dramatic Club" or "The Get-Together Club," and towards

the end of the decade competed with each other for a loving cup in

play production contests sponsored and supervised by the Library

Players.^

The Public Library's influence is difficult to measure. Some

of the suburban libraries considered certain of the Cleveland Library's

activities worthy of imitation, the East Cleveland Library in bringing

into existence a Boys and Girls Shakespeare Club that produced scenes

lNovember 2$, 1923, p. 2-Amusements.

^February 7, 1926, p. l-Amuse^ents.

^March 17, 1929, p. 3-Amusements.

^CPD, November 21, 1926, p. 3-Amusements.

5CPD, October 31, 1926, p. 2-Amusements.

6CPD, May 19, 1923, p. 21. from the Bard's works1 and the Lakewood Library in sponsoring a

dramatic reading now and then.2 The fact that newspaper editors and

columnists considered the Library important enough to write about

adds to the estimate. Perhaps the evidence concerning the great number

of play lists and exhibits can be taken at face value and the con­

clusion reached (as the impression has been) that the Library was an

important source of drama material for the amateurs and of some con­

siderable general assistance in the development of the drama in

Cleveland during the twenties.

The earliest record obtained pertaining to the existence of

the Cleveland Center of the Drama League of America, a postcard

notice, fixes the date of the first annual meeting as April 27, 1915*

The program of the meeting according to the notice, was to include the

election of officers and directors, reports from the fifth annual con­

vention of the Drama League of America, and an address by Professor

Curtis Hidden Page of Dartmouth College.3 Similar notices indicate

other annual meetings prior to the war and general activity including

thepublishing of Playgoing Bulletins beginning as early as November,

19lU.k The earliest available full report on the Cleveland Center des­

cribes its pre-war status as follows: individual members, $2h» sup­

porting, Ulj clubs and libraries, U j number of bulletined plays in

ICPD, May 19, 1923, p. 21. 2CPP, April 23, 1926, p. 18.

•^Frorn a notice of the meeting signed by Mrs. Curtis Webster in the Vertical Files, Literature Division, Cleveland Public Library.

UVertical Files, Literature Division, Cleveland Public Library. town during the year, 20; number of study classes, 10— subjects:

American and English Drama; aid to amateurs: "ready with expert advice on plays Saturday mornings from 10:00 to 1:00 at the public library, each member of the committee serving in turn,” a list of teachers who coach amateur plays; lecture series at the Statler Hotel:

series acquired 350 new members for Center and provided yaar-snd financial surplus, speakers: Montrose J. Moses, Maurice Browne,

George P. Baker^ H. K. Moderwell, Clayton Hamilton; sold advertising

space for Drama League Monthly magazine; had lecturers to meetings

for member s.-*- The Cleveland Center was inactive during the war, 2 and none of its members attended, as registered delegates at any rate, the

1919 national convention. 3

In the fall of 1919 there began something of a revival of the

Cleveland Center. The new president, Karl Forming, sent out a notice

asking for new members (particularly because a number of old ones had

dropped out during the war) and setting forth the plans for the year:

"to produce one or more plays . . . and to do something with biblical

plays in connection with the churches as well as to arouse interest in

the Pilgrim Tercentenary pageants to b© held next year."^ The prin­

cipal venture of the year actually turned out to be "a most unusual

^"Reports from the Centers," The Drama League Monthly, II, No. 2 (May, 1917), p. 391*.

2CPD, October 12, 1919, p. 17-B.

3"A Brief Survey of the Convention," The Drama League Monthly, IV, No. 9 (May, 1919), p. 8 .

^CPD, October 12, 1919, p. 17-B. 65 and impressive11 pantomime production of Why the Chimes Rang, the

Christmas production recommended by the national organization. 3-

Evidently the event was an extensive affair involving the Cleveland

Center members and their children, the Cleveland Museum of Art, members of the Play House, "a Congregational minister with dramatic leanings,” and staff members of a local school of expression. Almost 2,000 children attended.^ Other activities included Playgoers Bulletin support of some of the plays of the eonmercial theatre, Walter

Hampden's Hamlet for one,^ a lecture, "The Artist, a Vital Member of the Community," by Harley Granville-Barker,^ and an annual meeting at which Rowland Haynes, Director of the Recreation Council, spoke.5

A report on the Cleveland Center for the next year, 1920-21, gave its membership at 200 and its purpose: "to stimulate interest in the drama; to encourage and support such plays as may be worthy and to disseminate information concerning the drama and its literature

The Center planned to devote this year to encouraging the production of good plays for children and to further this end brought Bougal

Stewart Walker to the city for a ten-day visit.? The recorded

l"News from the Centers," The Drama, X, No. 3 (December, 1919), p. 16U< The Cleveland production was the only one in the nation to have been produced in pantomime.

2l,Why the Chimes Rang: as Presented in Cleveland," The Drama, XI, No. 2 (November, 1920), p. 61*.

3cPD, November 20, 1919, p. 17.

IJCPD, December 16, 1919, p. 20. %PD, April 25, 1920, p. 6-A.

6pirectory of Community Activities, p. 197.

7CXB:1921, p. 279. 66 activities are meager, three lectures, one by Aras Kildal on modern

Norwegian literature,*- one by William Butler Xeats,2 and the last, on pageantry and little theatre, by Clarence Stratton.-* At the annual

spring meeting great enthusiasm characterized the announcement of the program for the coming year as the new officers proclaimed plans to

develop new interests in children's theatre "including the writing and producing of plays for children and the development of dramatic ex­ pression in children," amateur production of plays and pageants,

"active work with foreign groups," and a lecture program "presenting

prominent playwrights, writers, and actors." Dues were raised to $2

per annum.k

The year's plans for 1921-22 took a sharp turn, in a different

direction than planned it seems, for this year became the year of re­

ceptions. There were five of them. The first, for DeWolf Hopper and

Francis Wilson, both of the cast of the road show, Brmlnle, took place

in the lobby of the new Ohio Theatre; guests included an array of

notables from the Playhouse, the major Cleveland theatre school (The

Ohio School of Stage Arts), members of the cast of the other road show

in town, Miss Lulu Bett (William Hodge, Carol McComas), Clarence

Stratton, and members of the drama department of a Cleveland women's

group.^ The next reception was given for Tony Sarg's marionette

company, the president of which, Charles Searle, spoke on puppet plays.

1CPD, October 2U, 1920, p. 13-B. 2Rose, p. 788.

3CPD, June k, 1921, p. 12. ^CPD, May 23, 1920, p. 7-A.

5cpd, September 19, 1921, p. 1 3 . What must have been the most exciting adventure in receptions that year took place in November and was held in honor of Mrs. Fiske. After stating that she could talk about anything else more intelligently than she could about theatre, Mrs. Fiske proceeded to discuss the plight of the U,000,000 cattle and sheep left to starve each year on ranches in the West. From the distinguished company present she appointed officers of a Cleveland chapter of the National League to Conserve Food Animals and scheduled its first meeting for two days hence.1 Records do not indicate the results of her enthusiasm. The last two receptions took place without unusual incident, one for Ruth Gordon and Gregory Kelly, 2 the other for Peng Chun Chang, a lecturer and playwright who delivered a survey of the Chinese theatre.3

There are a few other items from this year's activities which merit attention, the first of which concerns what appears to be a change in or intensification of one of the purposes of the Cleveland Center.

The Plain Dealer reported that one of the activities "engaging the attention of the League" was "the censoring of current productions.

Although other Cleveland groups did threaten censorship of commercial theatre productions a few years later, no evidence during this year supports the existence of censorship activity on the part of the League or any other Cleveland group. The League did, however, continue some of its other functions during the year, to wit, the issuance of play bulletins recommending the commercial theatre productions Enter Madame.

1CPD, November 9, 1921, p. 17. 2CPP, August 9, 1922, p. 15.

3CPD, April 9, 1922, p. 23-A. ^September lU, 1921, p. 15. 68

Brock Pemberton* s first producing venture, and the Provincetown

Players' production of O'Neill's The Snperor Jones,^ and the amateur p productions at the Play House, the Play House program in general and mbst of the individual productions.3 The ohly reported lecturer,

Cosmo Hamilton, English author and dramatist, addressed a joint meeting of the League and the pupils of the Ohio School of Stage Arts.^

Following the 1921-22 season, evidence of the functioning of the Cleveland Center of the Drama League diminishes sharply. In 1920 a Plain Dealer article mentioned the cooperation of the Center in the presentation of a children's play,^ and in 1928 notice appeared that

"the vice-president of the Drama League, a former publisher," was to speak to the Lakewood Women's Club on "The Great Little Theatre.

This last piece, however, is ambiguous for our purposes since it does not indicate whether the speaker was vice-president of the Cleveland

Center or of the national group. If we can assume that the Cleveland

Center went out of existence sometime shortly after 1920, which seems more probable than not, then we can say that its demise preceded that of the New York Center by two years and the national group by four.

In conclusion, then, it appears that the Cleveland Center of the Drama League of America was most active prior to World War I and

iDPD, January 2, 1922, p. 7. 2CPD, April 1, 1922, p. 10.

3cYB:1922, p. 237I CPD, February 3, 1922, p. 10, and February 10, 1922, p. 13 .

kcPD, January 26, 1922, p. 1U. ^November 3, 1920, p. 17.

^CPD, October 21, 1928, p. 7-Society. 69 that its principal contributions to the drama in Cleveland were the sponsoring of a number of highly qualified lecturers, the support of a modicum of children's theatre programs, and the establishment of con­ tact between Clevelanders and a number of significant figures from the commercial theatre and from seme of the most active Cleveland amateur groups, this last kind of venture perhaps having been of assistance in breaking down the old barriers between the commercial theatre and the drama-interested amateurs. The Cleveland Center planned a lot more than it performed as the contrasts mentioned between some of the plans for the coming years' activities and the actual programs carried out have demonstrated. Though the Center was aware of the plans of the national group for the Pilgrim Tercentenary pageants and indicated interest in the project over a year before it was to take place,^ the

Cleveland group evidently did not have the strength to carry it out. A reading of The Drama's pages over a few of the years with which we are concerned, especially the columns entitled "News from the Centers," pro­ duces the clear impression that the Cleveland Center was not by any means as active as the centers in Chicago, New York, Detroit or St.

Louis. This unfavorable comparison might be related to the fact that the officers of the Cleveland Center do not seem to have been engaged in any significant part of the mainstream of Cleveland's dramatic activities. One of the officers, Mrs. John R. Stewart, appeared in

192U as director of a show for a YWCA girls' clubj2 the others were

^See above, p. 6U.

^CPD, May U, 192U, p. l6~Women's Magazine. I I

70 mentioned nowhere in the inspected sources. Perhaps the Cleveland

Center lost its raison d'etre as William McDermott, the Public

Library, and the general increase in theatre publications assumed the

Center's stated functions of "stimulating interest" and "disseminating information" concerning the drama.

So, Clevelanders' interest in the drama and the support of their interest by the Plain Dealer, the Public Library, and the Cleve­ land Center of the Drama League appear to have operated in seme sort of a circular manner in which the support and the interest fostered the growth of both. At any rate, whatever the developments in the work of the amateurs and in the support of the commercial theatres, the en­ vironment for theatre in Cleveland was such as to offer a potential for vigorous growth. CHAPTER V

CLEVELAND THEATRE IN THE TWENTIES

THE COMMERCIAL THEATRE

There were a number of conditions existing in Cleveland in the twenties that were conducive to the presence of commercial theatre operations* Cleveland's geographical location, midway between New

York and Chicago, the two largest theatre centers in the nation, and the network of railroad lines described earlier made it a relatively simple matter for shows to stop in Cleveland on their way to either of the other cities, to open in Cleveland and then move directly to New

York or to move to Chicago for a longer tryout period. The Shuberts set forth some other significant reasons in an interview with Ward

Marsh of the Plain Dealer? the more than a million persons of Greater

Cleveland who made up a good-sized potential audience, the variety of this population, the relatively new and well-equipped theatres, the amiable relations between the theatre managements and the labor unions, the fact that Sunday evening performances, forbidden in some other cities, brought extra incomes, and the fact that Cleveland, in the opinion of the Shuberts, was "a good show town."'*' A better environment for successful theatre business can hardly be imagined. Let us examine the decade as it actually proceeded.

J-CPD, June 5, 1929, p. 29.

71 The 1919-20 commercial theatre season was the first full one following the war. Cleveland theatres evidently had not been seriously affected by the war; during the emergency theatres (and golf clubs) had been closed briefly,-** but attendance had increased 10 to 1$ per cent after the institution of n0asle8s Sundays" in the fall of 1919.2 °n the first of October, 1919, about a week after the commercial season had gotten fully underway, ten commercial houses, all of them in the downtown area, were advertising some kind of live entertainment in the

Plain Dealert The Shubart-Colonial, The Opera House, The Prospect,

B. F. Keith'8 , The Priscilla, The Liberty, The Miles, The Star, The

Snpire, and The Grand. The last three were burlesque houses. The

Liberty, The Miles, The Priscilla, and, most grandly of all, B. F.

Keith'8, were variety houses presenting vaudeville acts, brief plays or sketches, and short films. Only three theatres of the ten listed above were at all concerned with full-length plays, and two of these occasionally lapsed by presenting a magician or featuring a pair of outstanding vaudeville stars.

The Shubert-Colonial, a structure something over sixteen years old, serviced the Shubert road shows during the winter seasons. The

Opera House, now twenty-six years old, was leased to the Klaw and

Erlanger syndicate. During the summer months both the Opera House_,and the Colonial were available to stock companies. The Prospect, a fifteen-year-old house, was normally rented to stock companies through­ out the year. These three houses carried almost the entire load of the commercial theatre productions in Cleveland.

lRose, p. 762 2lbid., p. 76k 73

The Shubert-Colonial opened its 19X9-20 winter season on

September first and closed it thirty-nine weeks later, on Hay twenty- ninth. With the exception of about one-half week in early September when the national strike of the Actors Equity Association closed it, the theatre was operating during each of these weeks. The usual schedule listed evening performances on Mondays through Saturdays and matinees on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Whenever the popularity of a show presented the opportunity, matinees were added on Thursdays and an Fridays. On remarkable occasions (not more than two or three during the season) a morning performance on Saturday would be added to the other two regularly scheduled for that day. A few openings took place on Sunday rather than on Monday evening. Road shows were normally scheduled for one week's performance; a few ran to two weeks.

The Shubert-Colonial presented thirty-five different pro­ ductions during its 1919-20 winter season. Twenty-four of them were light comedies, farces, musical comedies, or revues; three were spec­ taculars; and Julia Marlowe and E. H. Sothern appeared for a week in three of Shakespeare's plays. The five remaining productions may be classified as dramas.^ Although the season at the Colonial included the works of such authors as Eugene Walters and Rachel Crothers, of such composers as Victor Herbert and Rudolf Friml, and the appearance of such actors as Sothern, Marlowe, Nora Bayes, and Sophie Tucker, a typical bill would not contain even this concentration of talents.

iThe season also included one week of Thurston the Magician and a week of grand and light opera repertory by the San Carlo Opera Cora«n pany, a touring professional group. 7U

The bill for the five weeks beginning on November third; ran as follows:

39 East, a boarding house comedy, by ^achel Gr other s. Lombardi, Ltd, a comedy concerning a dressmaker who is in love with his favorite mannikin, loses her to a stock broker but finds his real love in his faithful assistant, by Frederic and Fanny Hatton* When a Man’s a Man, a drama of the north woods, by Willard Robertson and filbouro Gordon. Parlor, Bedroom and Bath, a farce by C. W. Bell and Mary Swan. fiie Passing £>how of 1918, the Shubert's Winter Garden revue from New York*8 previous season, music by Sigmund Romberg and Jean Schwartz.

The Opera House winter season corresponded exactly with that of the Colonial in length, opening and closing dates, and weekly schedule of performances. The Actors' Strike took a little larger bite out of the Opera House season; two weeks of films supplanted live productions during the strike. Forty-three different shows were pre­ sented at the Opera House. Thirty-three of them were farces, light comedies, or revues; there was one spectacular, Ben Hur, on its twenty- first tour of the nation^ Walter Hampden performed Hamlet for four matinees in the fall, and the Robert Mantell Company presented six

Shakespearean tragedies and Bulwer-Lytton1s Richelieu for oi?e per- O formance each during one week in March. The remaining item was a drama, the Theatre Guild's production of St. John Brvine's John

^Ben Hur opened in New York in late 1899 and was revived a number of times thereafter. (Bums Mantle and Garrison P. Sherwood (eds.), The Best Plays of 1899-1909 (Philadelphia, The Blakiston Co., 19UU], p. 357.) p ‘Mantell is described as "practically the last of the great Shakespearean actors in the old tradition." At the time of this per­ formance he was sixty-five years of age. (Bernard Sobel, The Theatre Handbook and Digest of Plays [New York: Crown Publishers, i9U0j, p. 517.) Ferguson, of which more later. Despite the slightly heavier schedule of Shakespeare, the Opera House program was even lighter than that of the Colonial. A typical month's schedule for the Opera House would run as follows:

Flo-Flo, a musical play by Fred de Gresac. tillie's Nightmare, a musical comedy, with Marie Dressier, a revival of the 1910 show. La La Lucille, a musical farce on return engagement from the previous season, music by George Gershwin. The Ed Wynn Carnival 8 a musical revue written, produced by, and starring Mr. Wynn.

The winter season at the Prospect, the theatre of the stock companies, was a different matter. Although its closing date was the same as that of the Colonial and the Opera House, May twenty-ninth, it did not open until September twenty-ninth, four weeks after the other two. During its thirty-five week season the Prospect offered one show each week. A principal difference between the Prospect's program and those of the other two theatres lay in the kinds of plays presented.

The Prospect scheduled fifteen dramas, no musical comedies, revues or spectaculars, eighteen comedies and farces, and two mysteries. These, as might be expected, were, with a single exception, reruns of old time and recent New York shows. The exception was a new play, The

Broken Wing, a romantic drama by Paul Dickey and Charles Goddard. The other dramas included Lawrence ■Whitman's The Road to Happiness, a rural affair? Eugene Walters' The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, which had opened in New York in 1912? Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, adapted by T. R.

Sullivan for Richard Mansfield in 1887? and «J. Hartley Manners' Peg O' My Heart (New Yorks 1912), A typical six-week's bill at the Prospect would look something like this:

The Brat, a farce comedy by Maud Fulton (New York: 1917)* The Roa3 to Happiness, comedy-drama (New York: 1915)* Here" Comas the Bride, a comedy by Max Marcin and Boy Atwell (iJew YorE'17I7T. Sinners, Owen Davis' comedy-drama of American life (New York: OTS). The Miracle Man, George M. Cohan's dramatization of a Frank Packard story concerning a faith healer (New York: 191U)• Paid in Full, Eugene Walters' melodrama (New Yorks 1908),

Another difference between the Prospect program and those at the

other two theatres lay in the admission prices charged. The Shubert-

Colonial, for example, advertised its evening and Saturday matinee

prices at fifty cents to two dollars and Thursday matinees at twenty-

five cents to one dollar.^ The Prospect boasted 1,000 seats at twenty-

five, fifty, and seventy-five cents, and one dollar.

The stock companies that played at the Prospect did not satisfy

the older stock company image of the group of skilled players, many of

them popular favorites over the years, in steady, year-long residence

as a compact and cooperative group. The Prospect Players, the company

that opened the season at that theatre, was the result of a partnership

between Henry Dyckemann, a theatre businessman who had obtained a lease

on the building, and Cecil Owen, the director of the Joel Players, a

group that had been playing at the Shubert-Colonial during some of the

previous summers. Owen recruited his basic company from New York

actors during a visit to that city and augmented the company with a few

lOPD, September 1, 1919, p. 12.

2CPP, October 9, 1919, p. 3. 77 left-over members of the Joel Players.^ Eight weeks later, on

November twenty-second, the Prospect Players were replaced by the

Payton Players under the management of Joseph Payton, in partnership with Dykemann, still the business manager. Payton hired some of the

Prospect Players to stay on with his company.^ Five months later, on

April twenty-sixth, the Payton Players were replaced by the Hall

Players under the direction of Thurston Hall, an actor-manager who had acquired a considerable popularity around Cleveland during the previous few years.^ Five weeks later, on May thirtieth, Hall dropped all of the Hall Players and hired a new group, which he named the Associate

Players, to start the summer season.^ No clear shifts In programming or critical comment indicate any significant differences among these eorapanies.

It can be suspected that the frequent changing of the stock companies indicated some dissatisfaction with the work being done.

Other reflections on the quality of the presentations at the Prospect derive from the Plain Dealer’s practice of placing its notices con­ cerning the Prospect’s offerings near or at the end of the Sunday articles that described the forthcoming shows at the Cleveland legiti­ mate theatres. Harlowe Hoyt very rarely made disparaging remarks in his reviews; his ratings usually ran from "superb" down to "not up to the usual standards," but some of his reviews of the shows at the

Prospect evaluated the performances as low as "very ordinary," and his

•kiPD, September 19, 1919, p. 18. ‘-CPD, November 20, 1919, p. 18.

3CPD, April 25, 1920, p. 1 -D. UcPD, May 2, 1920, p. 1-D. top rating for the stock companies during this year was "best in stock this season" or "pleasing performanceNo stock company production was included in Hoyt's selections of Cleveland's best productions.

Although Hoyt wrote a half page article each Sunday and quarter and half-column articles almost every weekday on the actors and plays ap­ pearing at the commercial theatres, he rarely wrote about the stock companies at the Prospect. Thurston Hall and his leading lady, May

Buckley, were the only stock company players to receive write-ups in these special articles. It would appear then that performances of the

stock companies at the Prospect were of lesser quality than those of the road shows at the Colonial and the Opera House.

The summer season for Cleveland's commercial theatres began on

May thirty-first at both the Opera House and the Prospect, the Colonial having gone dark for the while. Robert McLaughlin, local manager of

the Opera House who had been operating summer stock groups in Cleveland

for some years,2 assembled a company at the Opera House and produced

eleven plays during a full fourteen-week season. Of these five were

farces or comedies, two were musical comedies, and four were dramas

(sentimental or serious). Two of the plays were being produced for the

first time, The Fires of Spring by McLaughlin himself, and Cone Up in

the Haymow by Wilson Collison and Avery Hopwood. This last, a bedroom

farce possibly lacking a bedroom but containing the other principal

elements of this type of show, was found too suggestive by a local

ICPD, December 15, 1919, p. 18j December 29, 1919, p. 19| February 10, 1920, p. 18. 79 officer of the law. A conference of the management and local authorities was called, and the ensuing notoriety enabled the show to run for two weeks.1 This play, by the way, may stand as an example of one process by which shows worked toward New York from Cleveland. The play was performed a little less than a year later in Chicago as p Gertie’s Garter, returned to Cleveland as a Shubert show in May, 1921 with its original title, opened in New York on August 1, 1921, as

Getting Gertie's Garter, and ran fifteen weeks.^ The circle was com­ pleted when the show was revived in Cleveland in October, 1922, under its New York title by the McLaughlin winter repertory company.^

The summer season at the Prospect ran only four weeks. During that time Thurston Hall and his Associate Players presented one drama, one farce, one musical comedy and one mystery. During the run of the fourth play it was reported that the company had to close because Mr.

Hall had film commitments that made it impossible for him to continue in Cleveland.One week later > with his friend and fellow player, May

3-CPP, August 27, 1920, p. 10. The plot of the play concerns Gertie Darling, who has just married Teddie Darling, and a diamond- studded garter given to her a year before by a recently married former suitor, Ken Walrick. The pursuit of the garter is intensified by the necessity to prevent Mr. Darling and Mrs. Walrick from knowing of the situation. The action takes place in the lounging room and the barn of the Darling estate. (Burns Mantle, Best Plays of 1921-22, p. 390.)

^Percy Hammond, "The Season in Chicago," B u m s Mantle, Best Plays of 1920-21. p. 13.

3Burns Mantle, The Best Plays of 1921-22, p. 3.

k(3PB, October 1$, 1922, p. 2-Amusements.

*CPD, June 26, 1920, p. 18 . 80

Buckley, and a supporting company, he opened a nine-week season of farces, comedies and melodramas at the Shubert-Colonial. With the ex­ ception of a single performance of a musical show presented by a group of amateur players, the Prospect remained dark*

There were a few opportunities for Clevelanders to witness com­ mercial theatre performances other than those already described. After its first run at the Opera House, Hampden's Hamlet appeared at the

Masonic Temple-1- for two performances sponsored by the Cleveland Center of the Drama League, the Shakespeare Club, and the Cleveland Federation of Women's Clubs.2 Baring the winter Carlo Liten, the famous Belgian tragedian, and a supporting company from the French Theatre d'Art of

New York gave one performance of Albert Samian's classic drama,

Polypheme, at the Duchess Theatre,3 a twenty-year-old structure about sixty blocks from downtown. Maurice Schwartz appeared in a single performance of Tavie der Milchiger (material from Scholem Asch's writings gathered and dramatized) at the Shubert-Colonial in June,^ and two other Jewish companies visited the city, one in April to perform The Step Child of the World-* and the other two months later with

The Law of Life. This last Jewish group, which included Jacob and

Stella Adler, gave five performances and charged admission prices

iThe Temple auditorium had been completed only a few months earlier. It had an audience capacity of over 2,200 and one of the most completely equipped stages in the United States. (Rose, p. 77U- 775.)

2CPD, November 20, 1919, p. 17. 3CPD, February 18, 1920, p. 16,

hCFD, June 28, 1920, p. 2-Amusements.

^The Jewish Review and Observor, April 16, 1920, p. 7. 81 ranging from seventy-five cents to two dollars.'1' Both groups played at the Globe Theatre. During the early summer months the Percival

Vivian Players, a professional travelling group from New York, pre­ sented James Montgomery1s farce Nothing but the Truth at two suburban

Chautauquas, one in Lakewood, the other in East Cleveland.2

During the twelve months of the winter season of 1919=20 and the simaer season following it, Clevelanders had the opportunity of attending 138 different commercial theatre productions. Of this number ninety-six were revues, farces, comedies, musical shows or spectacu­ lars, thirty-two were dramas ranging in character from mysteries and melodramas to sentimental romances, and ten were Shakespearean tragedies, these last running for only a single performance each in most cases. During thirty-five weeks of this season theatre-goers could select from three different offerings on any day of the week except Sunday. During most of the remaining seventeen weeks there was a choice of two shows. The season added up to 136 show-weeks, this figure representing the sum of the total number of weeks each of the theatres was producing the kinds of shows described above.

Two kinds of evidence are available to assist in determining the particular shows of these 138 which Clevelanders preferred, the length of the engagement and direct comment. Length of engagement is not a totally reliable criterion since the runs seem to have been determined by the managers in advance of the arrival of the shows. No shows were advertised as "held over"} length of engagement, then,

3-Ibid., June 17, 1920, p. 6 . 2CPjj, June 10, 1920, p. 1$. 82 simply represented the manager's estimate of the probable Cleveland popularity of any particular show, a measurement worth considering but subject to error. Seven shows had two-week runs; three of these were musicals, Very Good Eddie, the four-year-old farce with music by Jerome

Kern, Oh Boy, a musical play by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse with music by Jerome Kern, and Jack 0* Lantern, a musical extravaganza with

Fred Stone; two were spectaculars, Chu Chin Chow, a lavish Arabian nights production, and Monte Gris to, Jr., a travesty with a cast of

150. Of the other two one was the war comedy-drama Friendly Enemies, appearing in Cleveland after a reasonably successful New York run, and the naughty farce described at some length above, Come Up in the Hay

Mow. The Plain Dealer printed comments on the special popularity of four shows j Rachel Crothers' comedy 39 East "played to capacity b u s i n e s s " Somebody's Sweetheart, a musical play by Arthur Hammer- stein, "was a great success";2 Kismet, appearing in stock for the first time, was labelled "a hit,"3 and Ben Hur, a spectacular (of course), was to "play to capacity houses.Thus, of the eleven shows that were probably the best supported by Cleveland audiences, four were musicals, three spectaculars, three comedies or farces, and one was a melodrama

(Kismet).

The Plain Dealer critic, Harlowe Hoyt, listed his choices of the six best productions of the 1919-20 Cleveland season as follows:

Hamlet, John Ferguson, Dear Brutus, Roi Cooper Megrue's comedy Tea for

•'■July lit, 1920, p. 12. September 12, 1929, p. 1 0 .

^July 27, 1920, p. 11. UApril 11, 1920, p. 2-D. 83

Threej The Unknown Purple (a melodramatic thriller by Roland West and Carlyle Moore), and Chu Chin Chow, the spectacular.'*' Hoyt des­ cribed John Ferguson as "first among modern tragedies" and deplored the fact that it "fell flat with the public because of the drab com­ plexion of its story and the tragic color of its plot.. . . It did not furnish what the [Cleveland public desired, sufficient happy relief to afford a pleasant entertainment.It is a cossaent on the nature of the Cleveland audience, too, that Hoyt hastened to explain, in an­ nouncing the arrival of this Theatre Guild production, that it was not being performed by amateurs. ^ At another time Hoyt pointed out that

Clevelanders wanted to be entertained rather than improved, that John

Ferguson "starved for lack of support" while the Ziegfield Follies prospered, and that Cleveland was considered the top city "outside of

New York and west to Chicago" for vaudeville listings.^ Clearly, then,

Clevelanders preferred the light to the serious, the musical to the

spoken, and the exciting to the thoughtful.

The outstanding events of the second season of the decade,

1920-21, were the openings of two new theatres, the Ohio and the Hanna.

The total number of stock company and road show productions and show-

weeks fell off slightly, principally because of diminished stock

activity, but the character of the offerings remained just about, if

not exactly, the same.

HJPD, January 2, 1921, p. 3. 2CPP, January 15, 1921, p. 12.

3CPD, February lli, 1920, p. 17.

^CPD, September 19, 1920, p. 1-Music. 8U

Sometime prior to 1916, Joseph Laronge, a Cleveland realtor, had conceived the idea of constructing an area of fine shops and theatres to be called Playhouse Square,'*' and to be located on Euclid

Avenue east and west of East Fourteenth Street, about five blocks east of the outer group of downtown theatres. The Stillman, a movie house, was the first to go up, in 1916. The Ohio and the Hanna were the first

(and last) legitimate houses to appear in the group. Some delay must have occurred in the construction of the Hanna, for although a March,

1920 newspaper article announced its opening for the early fall,2 no performances were given in it until March 28, 1921.3 The Ohio managed to open about six weeks earlier, on St. Valentine's Bay. The Ohio was constructed for the Erl anger interests, and Robert McLaughlin, Cleve­ land agent for Erlanger, became manager.*1 The theatre had a capacity of 1 ,21*1*, was unusual in that it provided facilities where women could smoke, and claimed the largest lobby of any legitimate theatre in the world. The interior was reported to be "beautifully decorated," and its opening was celebrated with a reception attended by the society figures of the city.-’ The Hanna, new home of the Shubert productions, was a memorial to Senator Marcus Hanna. It seated 1,535 persons,^ was distinguished by its simplicity of design, and was opened with little ceremony, a speech by William Faversham following the second act of the

^Rose, p. 7U5. 2CPD, March 3, 1920, p. 5.

3CPD, March 20, 1921, p. 3-A.

**CPD, September 16, 1919, p. 9.

5cPD, February 15, 1921, p. 1. ^ose, p. 806. 85 play being presented.1 The construction of the Hanna and the Ohio was part of a post-war Cleveland building boom in theatres which included a total of twenty-two new buildings, two legitimate, two vaudeville, and eighteen for motion picture showings. ^ A front page article in the

Plain Dealer declared that the presence of the new theatres would open a new era in the history of Cleveland theatre, e.g., that original rather than second companies would now make up the road shows,3 and

McLaughlin said he believed that the theatres would allow Cleveland to support two-week road show engagements.^ Although longer runs became more common towards the end of the decade, no immediate effects resulted from the opening of the two new houses.

The Erlanger circuit winter season, first at the Opera House and later at the Ohio, presented thirty-two shows: twelve musicals, ten comedies, four melodramas, six dramas, and seven Shakespearean plays and Richelieu for one performance each by the Robert Mantell

Company. George White's Scandals ran two weeksj the operetta Apple

Blossoms played one week and returned later for another; the rest ran one week each. Perhaps the most notable event of the aeason for this circuit was the arrival of Qrinkwater' s Abraham Lincoln, which played to capacity houses for twelve performances during its one-week stay.

Special matinees were added on Thursday and Friday afternoons and

Saturday morning, and an extra performance played Sunday evening. Hoyt

1CPD, March 29, 1921, p. 1. ^CPD, March U, 1920, p. 18.

3cPP, February 15, 1921, p. 1

frcPD, February 13, 1921, p. 1-Music. 86 explained that the popularity of the play vas related to the fact that

"the tragedy is relieved with homely incidents, quiet comedy, and moments of contrast.Other events of particular interest included the appearance of two plays of Borns Mantle's "ten best" of the 1919-20

Hew York season (besides Abraham Lincoln), Booth Tarkington1s comedy

Clarence and James Forbes' drama of American society, The Famous Mrs.

Fair. Other shows of interest were Belasco's revival of The Return of

Peter Grimm with David Warfield and the appearance of Fred and Adele

Astaire in the operetta Apple Blossoms, music by Fritz Kreisler and

Victor Jacobi.

The Shubert winter season at the Colonial and the Hanna offered thirty-seven shows: twenty-three musicals, five comedies, three farces, two melodramas, two dramas, and five single performances of four'Shakespearean plays and Charles Rann Kennedy's Servant in the

House by Walter Hampden and company. Five of the shows ran two weeks,

all of them musicals of one sort or another ranging from the musical revue Midnight Rounders with Eddie Cantor through the musical comedy

Irene to the spectacular Sinbad with music by Sigmund Romberg and A1

Jolson, the latter also the star of the show. One new play was pre­

sented, the drama Fools Errant by Louis Shipman, editor of Life maga­

zine. About a year later it opened in Mew York but closed after an o eight-week run.

The stock situation was a trifle less hectic this year than it

had been in 1919-20. Two rather than four companies operated at the

•*-CPDg January 15, 1921, p. 12, ^Best Plays of 1922-23, pp. 6 , UUO. 87

Prospect, the only theatre offering a winter stock season. The New

Prospect Stock Company led by George B. Leffingwell, well-known Cleve­

land stock actor, opened the year almost three months after the regular

season had begun, on November 20th. The company lasted a little over

two months during which time it presented sir comedies, four dramas and

a melodrama, most of them Broadway shows two or more years old. A week

after Leffingwell's company gave up production, a wealthy Cleveland

woman, Mrs. E. T. C. Miller, reopened the Prospect with the same com­

pany, including Leffingwell. She had purchased the Prospect "lock,

stock and barrel" in order to provide plays "of the more intellectual

sort,"3* but few of the plays she scheduled seemed to fall into that

category. She opened her program with a two-week run of Friendly

Enemies, the comedy-drama which had played for two weeks in Cleveland

the previous year.2 Following that she offered two weeks of the musi­

cal play Very Good, Eddie (New York: 1915), three weeks of the comedy

Daddies (New York: 1918), one week each of the comedies Grumpy (New

York: 1913) and Clothes (New York: 1906), and a new drama, The Master­

piece, written by the wife of the local Shuhert representative, and

two weeks of the musical farce La La Lucille. Kindling, the Charles

Kenyon drama mentioned in Chapter III as the play revived in Chicago

by the Drama League of America, was announced for a two-week run but

only played one as Mrs. Miller cut short the winter season because of

•j "internal conditions.The reason given comes as no surprise. Mrs.

^•Cleveland Press, April 26, 19U0. 2See above, p. 82.

3CPP, May 12, 1921, p. 16. 88

Miller evidently was not above intense disputation; during her twenty- year active career in Cleveland she became involved in a number of law­ suits and was cut off from her inheritance by her foster mother because she had "embarrassed herself through injudicious commitments."'*’

Mr. Leffingwell seems to have recovered rapidly from the effects of Mrs. Miller, for within a week and a half after the dispute he opened a summer stock company, George Leffingwell and Associates, at the Duchess on May twenty-seventh. After four shows, Adam and Eva, a

Comedy by George Middleton and Guy Bolton which had played the Colonial four months previous, Kindling, the old farce Potash and Perlmutter

(New forks 1913), and Uncle Tom's Cabin, the company was heard from no more.

In the meantime the McLaughlin Repertory Company was enjoying a most successful summer season at the Ohio. The fifteen-week program of fourteen shows was a light one further popularized by McLaughlin’s revival of the nineteenth century practice of using visiting stars.2 A two-week run of T&rkington's Clarence opened the season, which included a total of sis comedies, four melodramas, three farces, and one drama.

The latter, the first production of Cleveland playwright Robert Housura's

Winding Stairs, failed despite McLaughlin’s strenuous efforts to pro­ mote the show, e.g., admitting the public to the dress rehearsal.3

This failure was in great contrast to the rest of the season. An article in the Plain Dealer described the company as "the finest

^Cleveland Press, April 26, 19U0.

2CYB:1922, p. 23U. 3CPP, September 1, 1921, p. 16. 89

Cleveland has had in a long time,"^ and William McDermott, now the new drama critic for the paper, wrote near the end of the season that the O company was so good that it had realty no need for visiting stars.

The group played three matinees each week and occasionally added extra ones because of sellouts.3

Other commercial theatre activities of note during the 1920-21 season included a highly popular one-week run of George Hazleton's dramatic spectacle Aphrodite at B. F. Keith's vaudeville house. Even the vaudeville attendance records at Keith's were surpassed by this show.k A flurry of Yiddish theatre activity seems to have broken out at the Globe Theatre. Boris Thomasevsky, "the patriarch of Hebrew acting" according to Belasco,^ played in a four-performance run of his own work The Old Fashioned Melody in November. Max Gabel starred in his own Yiddish play Public Opinion for four performances during the same week. In December Rudolph Schildkraut appeared In The Gods of

Revenge and Silent Power, two Yiddish plays, on two consecutive days.

Later in the month the Yiddish comedy-drama Married Life by Samuel

Steinberg ran five performances. In January a group calling itself

The Globe Theatre Stock Company performed The Third Man by Samuel

Steinberg. The name of the company and a newspaper statement that the group "works out live current events and presents present day problemspique the researcher's curiosity with regard to the perma-

lAugust 2, 1921, p. 12. 2q p d , August 30, 1921, p. 12.

3CPD, August 11, 1921, p. 10. 1»CPD, October 10, 1920, p. 2-A.

^CPD, November 17, 1920, p. lii. ^CPD, January 19, 1921, p. 2. 90 nence of the company and the use of this form of drama, but no further information concerning the group was discovered. The last Yiddish group recorded during this season performed W. Sigel's The Wedding Gown five times in early February.^- An all-colored group, The Smarter Set, presented a single performance of the musical revue Bamboula in May;

Ruth Draper drew 200 to her readings in Aprilj a musical company, The

New Bostonians, offered Rudolf Friml's The Firefly and Oscar Straus's

The Chocolate Soldier for one week each at the Opera House in June; and the touring group the Mallory Players performed two unnamed plays in

July at the Lakeside Chautauqua.

The 1920-21 season seems to have been a reasonably successful one. Although the total number of show-weeks declined to 126, thirteen below last year's count, and there were nineteen fewer plays presented, no complaints of empty houses were recorded. There were four two-week runs of road shows (all musicals) and one three-week and six two-week runs of stock company productions (comedies, musicals, and sentimental drama). The most popular one-week runs seem to have been those of Abraham Lincoln and Aphrodite, an unusual and interesting combination, to be sure. The major slump in theatre business in the

East, which was reported in early July by the Plain Dealer, does not appear to have had a noticeable effect on Cleveland. Broadway was re­ ported in despair, more eastern theatres were closed than at any time in the previous ten years, New York managers were cutting plans for

^Except as otherwise noted, information concerning the above activities at the Globe is taken from the Jewish Review and Qbservor, September, 1920 to September, 1921. 91 productions by up to ninety per cent, Boston and Newark were practically down theatrically from lack of business but the Cleveland theatre year had certainly not shown any major change from the season it had followed.

The next year did show a change. In the 1921-22 season com­ mercial theatre activity in Cleveland dropped to ninety-three shows in ninety show weeks, a decrease of almost twenty-five per cent in show weeks and nearly thirty per cent in number of shows. There was no winter stock company and only one summer company, Robert McLaughlin's group. Although there were four legitimate theatre houses available during most of the year, the Ohio, the Opera House, the Colonial, and the Hanna, none of them operated without serious interruption. The

Ohio shifted to vaudeville for seventeen weeks between December and mid-April. The Hanna program was interrupted by four scattered dark weeks and four weeks of films in January. The Shubert-Colonial of­ fered seven shows, became a movie house for three weeks, went dark for four weeks, revived itself for five shows, and then had its Shubert lease cancelled by mutual agreement with the owners. The Opera House started out with two months of vaudeville, carried the Erlanger shows 2 shifted from the Ohio because of the Ohio's greater seating capacity, and then closed. During the first two weeks of April no legitimate theatre was playing in Cleveland. The Ohio was running vaudevillej the

Hanna had one dark week and another of Thurston the Magician} the Opera

House had been closed down for good} the Colonial lease had been

ICPD, July 9, 1921, p. 16. 2CPD, November 30, 1921, p. lU. 92 cancelled. The depression which had swept through the east in mid- season 1920-21, hit the Cleveland area in the fall of 1921. By the end of 1921 there were 125,000 unemployed in the city.-*- Obviously, the theatre business reflected general conditions.

There were public complaints related to both theatre attendance and tastes of Clevelanders this year. The Plain Dealer carried an article complaining that "many a splendid performance has been given to empty benches this year."** The Cleveland Year Book remarked on the situation as follows:

A number of fine new theatres have done a great deal toward giving Cleveland the metropolitan atmosphere it has acquired re­ cently} but the increased theatre capacity has not as yet greatly changed the taste of Cleveland's theater-going public. Vaude­ ville and farce play to crowded houses while drama too often is discouraged by empty seats, so that to date, it attempts weekly stands: only such dramas as "The Bat" and "Lightnin’" risk longer stays.’

But McDermott wrote that "a singularity of the present theatrical season striking enough to invite further note is the public pre­ dilection for genuinely superior plays,and some aspects of the season's program bear him out. Although the run-of-the-mill road shows were so interrupted by re-runs of productions already seen in previous seasons, e.g., Eugene Walters' The Easiest Way, Austin Strong's Three

Wise Fools, the drama The Masquerader, the musicals Tickle Me, Irene, and Maytime, and the perennial Hawaiian romance Bird of Paradise, that they lost even the sparkle of being new arrivals, the season contained a greater number of notable plays than had arrived thus far in the

lRose, p. 801;. 2CPP, May 28, 1922, p. 2.

3CYB:1922, p. 233. t o ) , December 1U, 1921, p. 1U. decade. The Ohio's winter season included Benavente's The Passim

Flower, a return engagement of Abraham Lincoln, Milne's Mr. Fin Passes

By, and Rachel Crothers' Nice People, as well as the less notable but historically interesting Wake Up, Jonathan by Hatcher Hughes and Elmer

^ice. The Hanna during the same months scheduled Stuart Walker's

Indianapolis Repertory Company in Artists* Life by Peggy Wood and

Samuel Merwin, and Owen Davis' first realistically characterized play

The Detour. The Opera House brought in Ethel Barrymore in Zoe Akins'

Declassee and the first Cleveland stand (three weeks long) of Frank

Bacon in Lightenin'. The Shubert-Colonial in its half-season schedule managed to present Zona Gale's Pulitzer Prize play Miss Lulu Bett,

Galsworthy's The Skin Game, and Charles Gilpin in the Provincetown

Players1 production of The Emperor Jones. Three new plays were intro­ duced during the season, The Skirt, a comedy by Howard Hickman which opened in New York about two months after its Cleveland showing, What's

In It for Me, a farce with Jack Norworth, and The Fires of Spring, a drama by Robert McLaughlin which was scheduled for later production in

London.-*- The season, then, was meager in quantity but somewhat im­ proved in quality over the two that had preceded it.

The 1922-23 season showed some increase in shows and show- weeks, eighteen more shows and twenty-five more production weeks than the previous season, but less in both categories than in the first two seasons of the decade. The winter programs at the Ohio and the Hanna

^CPD, May 17, 1922, McLaughlin's Decameron Nights was playing at the time to "the largest houses ever” in London' s Drury Lane Theatre. (Ibid.) were interrupted much less frequently than during the previous year.

Hie Ohio had only two dark weeks} the Hanna went to opera for three weeks and lost a week to the annual visit of Thurston the Magician.

The increases in shows and show weeks were the result, too, of the presence of two successful summer companies and twelve weeks of winter repertory. The program offered to Clevelanders shifted enough in kind to be worth noting. McDermott remarked on the sharp decrease in the number of road show musical comedies and revues, "only seventeen of

them, a relatively meager showing" and described the year as "ex­

ceptionally respectable."1 He was pleased to see satire appearing,

the joshing of the movies in Dulcy, the employees1 banquet scene in

To the Ladies, both Kaufman and Connelly shows, and the whole idea of

Maugham's The Circle, and felt that, by and large, the levels of in­

telligence and taste in the program were higher.2 For his "six best"

plays of the Cleveland season he selected Anna Christie, Lilioat, The

Circle, Frank Craven's comedy The First Year, Dulcy, and Porter

Emerson Brown's satirical comedy The Bad Man,3 all of them included in

Burns Mantle's "ten best" of either the 1920-21 or 1921-22 New York

seasons.

McDermott was not pleased with the two-year wait for the New

York hit shows which was imposed on Cleveland and suggested that more

than one company be sent out.^ He complained that among the best

plays that Cleveland had not seen were Rain, Loyalties, Merton of the

ICPD, May 13, 1923, p. 1-Amusements. 2Ibid.

3Ibid. ^CPD, April 13, 192U, p. 1-Amusements. 95

Movies. Mary th?> Third. The Old Soak, and Seventh Heaven.-*- Actually

Cleveland received this season more of the B u m s Mantle "ten best" than it ever had before. There were ten in all, the plays listed in

McDermott's six best and four more: The Dover Road, The Green Goddess,

He Who Gets Slapped, and William McGuire's comedy Six-Cylinder Love.

Another aspect of the season as a whole which may deserve attention is the presence of a number of important actors, some in the last few years of their careers, some in full bloom, and others just getting started. Many of them had visited Cleveland before; it is simply the concentration of them that marks the season. Lynn

Fontanne starred in Dulcy, Pauline Lord in Anna Christie, Jane Cowl in

Romeo and Juliet, Ethel Barrymore in Sutro's The Laughing Lady, and

Walter Hampden appeared in Shakespearean repertory. Lilian brought

Joseph Schildkraut and Eva LeGallienne, The Merchant of Venice, David

Warfield; Humoresque, Luther Adler and Laurette Taylor; To the Ladies,

Helen Hayes; Bristol Glass, Ruth Gordon; The Hairy Ape, Louis Wolheim;

The Circle, John Drew and Mrs. Leslie Carter; The Green Goddess,

George Arliss; and A1 Jolson, Fred Stone and Eddie Cantor appeared in musicals or revues. B. Iden Payne, known now more for his work with

Shakespeare in America, appeared as an actor in a romantic costume comedy, Dolly Jordan. This year more than any other in the decade sup­ ports McDermott's statement of a few years earlier to the effect that

-kjPD, May 13, 1923, p. 1-Amusements. These plays made their appearances in Cleveland on the following dates, respectively: March, 1925; October, 1923; never as a road show, as a suimner stock show, May, 1927; never; March, 192U; December, 1925. 96 more of the better New York actors than before were coming out on the road.*

Although McDermott indicated that theatrical attendance was 2 rising during the fall months of the season and, a few months later, that it was better in Cleveland than in some other cities and "best for good plays,"3 the Cleveland Year Book's annual report was much less enthusiastic. The report summed up the season as follows:

The theatrical season in the regular syndicated theatres opened with the usual flare of good plays. Many of the better plays given in New York last year came to Cleveland early in the season. The public, however, was not as responsive as the merits of the plays and the productions warranted. Such outstanding contributions as "Anna Christie" and "The Hairy Ape" by Eugene O'Neill, Galsworthy's "Skin Game," Andrlev's "He Who Gets Slapped," and "Romeo and Juliet" did only fair business. On the other hand, Molnar's "Lilian" scored a big success. Such pieces as Ziegfield's "Sally" and Fred Stone's "Tip Top" played two weeks to excessive business. Other such fortnight pieces as Frank Craven's "The First Year" and George Arliss's vehicle, "The Green Goddess”, were very popular.1*

The steady flow of plays to the road show houses during the winter

season, McDermott's comments of rising attendance in the fall months, and the Year Book's comments above seem to indicate that audience sup­ port of the commercial theatre had increased but that it had not shifted

significantly from the "entertainment" shows to serious drama.

During the summer preceding the season Robert McLaughlin an­ nounced that he believed that Cleveland was ready for a permanent

lSee above, pp. 21-22.

2CPD, September 2U, 1922, p. l-4rausements.

3CPD, November 5, 1922, p. 1-Amusements.

kcYB:1923, pp. 153-15U. 97 repertory company and that he planned to establish one which would present new and tested plays beginning in the fall.'*' On September l8th the McLaughlin Repertory Company opened with East is West, a Chinese comedy by Samuel Shipman and John Hymer which had played two years in

New York beginning in 1918. The group used the Metropolitan Theatre, a nine-year-old structure on Euclid Avenue about fifty blocks from downtown Cleveland. Rose has described the theatre as "an admirable playhouse, but its location was unfortunate."2 At any rate, at a one

dollar top admission price the company presented a varied bill of

eleven plays which ranged from the Pulitzer Pri*e play, Miss Lulu Bett,

to the multi-named bedroom farce discussed earlier, Getting Gertie's

Garter.3 The one new play offered was the comedy Polly Preferred by

Guy Bolton, which opened in New York (with a New York cast, of course)

in January of 1923, a few months after its Cleveland production.^

Following the notices of the opening of the eleventh play no other

material concerning the fate of the company is to be found. Evidently

the group was disbanded following the usual Saturday evening per­

formance at the end of the last play's run, on December ninth.

The two summer stock companies, as opposed to the winter

company, enjoyed very good business.^ The Robert McLaughlin Stock

ICPD, July 18, 1922, p. 3 .

2pp. 72U-720. Since Euclid Avenue was Cleveland's main east- west thoroughfare and eminently respectable, it can only be inferred that Rose was referring to the distance of the theatre from the downtown area in which the principal theatres were located.

3Above, pp. 78-79* ^Best Plays of 1922-23, p. 5l8.

5CYB;192U, p. 123. Company at the Ohio presented eleven shews* seven comedies, one musical, two farces, and a drama, during a full seventeen-week summer,

from Hay seventh to September first. The difference between the number

of shows and the number of weeks of the season is explained by the two- week runs attained by the Avery Hopwood farce The Gold Diggers and

Frank Craven's comedy The First Year, and the five-week run of Hopwood's

suggestive farce-comedy The Demi-Virgin. The Vaughn Glaser Players,

one of four companies located in different cities and run by Glaser,^

opened four weeks later than the McLaughlin Company and played, during ? its fourteen-week season, twelve shows* six comedies, three farces,

two melodramas, and one drama. The mixed but generally light program

included such diverse works as Drinkwater's Abraham Lincoln, Charley's

Aunt, and the melodrama St. Elmo, described as "belonging to the period

of Uncle Tom's Cabin."2

Information concerning Yiddish theatre activities is sparse

this year. An early notice announced the arrival of the Yiddish Dramat­

ic Company at the Duchess Theatre "for the season," and the opening of

its first production, An Eye for an Eye, on October second.3 The only

other article pertaining to Yiddish theatre during this season des­

cribed the presence of the Jewish Art Theatre of New York in a per­

formance of Revizor (The Inspector General) at Masonic Hall in January

The fact that the New York company played at Masonic Hall rather than

1CPD, June 1, 1923, p. 19. 2CPD, August 17, 1923, p. 16.

3CPP, September 30, 1922, p. 12.

^CPD, January 27, 1923, p. 3-Amusements. 99 at the Duchess suggests that the resident company may have been at the latter theatre still* On the other hand a Cleveland Year Book comment published a year later described the Duchess as one of the two first class theatres that had remained dark after several attempts to operate them with stock company engagements.1

The 1923-2U season was the first in the decade to demonstrate clearly the feasibility of long runs in Cleveland, a condition much

discussed when the Hanna and the Ohio first opened. ^ Although four fewer shows wdre offered than during the previous season (this year’s total, 107), the total number of production weeks increased by over

twenty-five per cent to li;6 . The presence of the long runs does not reflect much change in the runs during the winter season at the road

show houses, the Hanna and the Ohio; they presented five shows for runs

of more than one week, only two more than the previous year. The

Colonial, reopened after being dark for a year and a half, was prin­

cipally responsible for the long runs. Six shows in a forty-one week

seasons Abie's Irish Rose for twenty-eight weeks, The Bat for five

weeks, The Demi-Virgin for three weeks, two weeks each of Aaron Hoff­

man's prohibition comedy Light Wines and Beer and a Negro revue In

Bamville, and one week of the musical play Sometime by Rida Young and

Rudolf Frinl (New Yorks 1918), made up the Colonial's season. McLaugh­

lin's summer company at the Ohio added three two-week and three three-

week runs to the record. The last one of these, Bewitched, a dramatic

^CYB :1921s, p. 123. The Metropolitan, home of the unsuccessful McLaughlin Repertory Company, was the other. (Ibid.)

^See above, pp. 03-85. 100 fantasy by Eduard Sheldon and Sidney Howard, ran to capacity houses in

Cleveland.•*- One week after it closed in Cleveland it opened in New

York where it failed after only twenty-nine performances.2

The summer of the 1923-21* season was distinguished by the

simultaneous operation, during the early weeks, of four theatres: the

Ohio housed McLaughlin’s company as usual5 the Hanna continued its winter season through the last week of June} and the Colonial offered

The Deal-Virgin and then Sometime until just past mid-June. In ad­

dition, a musical comedy group, the Abora Players, presented a special

seven-week season of musicals at Keith's East 10£>th Street Theater, normally a vaudeville house.

Cleveland reports on the theatrical year characterize it as

one of increased attendance in general but marked by the usual poor

support of "good" plays. McDermott described the Hanna as having the

best year since its opening, the Ohio's attendance as "the best in

several years," aad the Colonial as "doing well" with Abie's Irish

Rose.^ The Cleveland Year Book was pleased by the fine public support

of John Barrymore's Hamlet but regretted again this year the fact that

"the legitimate drama of finer value meets with only moderate patron­

age" while the city is "a profitable market for musical comedy,

extravaganza and spectacular productions."k Abie's Irish Rose, the

lQuimn, p. 97 .

2B u m s Mantle, Best Plays of 192U-25 (Boston: Small, Maynard and Co., 1925), pp. U&3, 601}.

3CPD, February 10, 1921*, p. 1-Amusements,

UCYB:192U, p. 123. 101

Year Book noted, had run longer in Cleveland than in any other city outside of New York.-1- Attendance at the Theatre Guild in Repertory

company's one week stand with He Who Gots Slapped, The Devil's Dis­

ciple, and Peer Gynt, was poor enough to close down the group at the

end of the Cleveland, engagement.^ Probably the failure of the group

was not entirely Cleveland's fault} it had been supported poorly in

Chicago prior to its Cleveland run despite the fact that critics

there (as well as McDermott in Cleveland) praised the productions.-3

The character of the season not already established by the

preceding material may be described further by McDermott's reactions

to the publication of Burns Mantle's Best Plays of 1922-23. In an

article entitled, "We Can Read America's Ten Best Plays Even If We

Can't See Them," the Cleveland critic pointed out that only Loyalties

had gotten to Cleveland thus far (by December 23, 1923). Rain and

Charming Pollock's The Fool were expected, he wrote, but despite the

fact that many producers were trying to get into New York with plays,

"Cleveland suffers because business is bad elsewhere"1* (in the smaller

cities which would normally help to support road shows). Later in the

3-Ibid. The play had not yet reached Chicago where it ran over a year. (Frederic Donaghey, "The Season in Chicago," in Burns Mantle, Best Plays of 192lt-25 [Bostons Small, Maynard and Co., 19253 , p. 2J*,)

^Ibid., p. 12lt. This company, by the way, did not belong to the Theatre Guild though it used the Guild's name. (Frederic Donaghey, "The Season in Chicago," in Burns Mantle, Best Plays of 1923-21+ [Bostons Small, Maynard and Co., 19210, p. lB.)

^Frederic Donaghey, ibid.

1*CPD, December 23, 1923, p. 1-Amusements. season two "best plays" of 1922-23, The Old Soak and The Fool, and one from 1923-21+, The Changelings, did arrive, but the number is insuf­ ficient to constitute a rebuttal.

Fewer plays were presented in Cleveland during the 192U-25

season than any before it in the decade. Only seventy-five plays

opened in Cleveland, thirty-two less than in the 1923-21+ season and

eighteen less than in the lowest previous season, 1921-22 . The trend

toward a longer average run continued slowly upward even though the

number of production weeks decreased thirty-eight to a total of 108,

less than any other year of the decade except 1921-22. New Yorkers

during their 192l+-2f> season had the opportunity of seeing 230 plays,

an increase of thirty over the preceding year.'1'

There is only one apparent immediate cause for the sharp

decline in productions, the mild business depression of 1921+.2 The

number of New York shows that opened and ran for 100 or more per­

formances in 1923-2U is even a trifle greater than those satisfying

the same conditions in 1922-23, fifty-three as opposed to fifty.3 New

York support had not decreased. McDermott attributed part of the

change to "the breakdown of the rather absurd idea that one to two

weeks is the playing time Cleveland can support a performing play."

The theatre, he said, "is coming to the point where a good play can be

supported for long engagements," and he pointed out that the long runs

iBuras Mantle, Best Plays of 192U-25, p. 1$.

2see above, p. 8 ..

3Best Plays of 1923-2U* pp. UUU-W+7; Best Plays of 1922-23, pp. $83-$B^ 103 scheduled for the season ware more often for "better drama" than for

"music and girlie shows."1 A look at the winter season programs actually presented at the Ohio, the Hanna, and the Metropolitan (which housed three shows for a twelve-week season) bears him out. Of the eight shows that ran two weeks none made their principal appeal through sexual suggestiveness. Only three of them were musical shows, Irving

Berlin's Music Box Revue, the Zelda Sears and Vincent Youmans musical comedy Lollipop (an orphan falls in love with a plumber), and a Negro revue, Runnxn1 Wild. Three were comedies, Owen Davis' The Nervous

Wreck, Applesauce (a play about a "loudmouth" in love), and George

Kelley's The Show-Off. Two were dramas, Rain, on the road at last after 632 performances in New York,5* and Hatcher Hughes' Pulitzer

Prize play Hell-Bent for Heaven. Lightnin1 ran eight weeks in this, its first Cleveland appearance. Thomas Jefferson, son of Joseph Jef­ ferson, played the title role.-* Probably the decrease in road shows simply resulted from the factors operating since before the war, high costs and insufficiently increased audience support.^

The summer company conditions this year were somewhat unusual for Cleveland. This summer found Robert McLaughlin in his fifteenth consecutive year of summer stock production,^ operating two companies

ICPD, October 19, 192!*, p. 1-Amusements.

2lbid., p. UU7.

^CPD, August 30, 192U, p. 2-Amusements.

^See above, pp. 21-22.

%PD, May 17, 1925, p. 1-Amusements. 10U sinultaneously, one at the Ohio (as usual) and the other at the Hanna.

By this arrangement he provided himself with the freedom to shuffle shows from one theatre to the other as audience enthusiasm recommended a longer run. The success of Leon Gordon’s sensational jungle drama

White Cargo, however, limited this freedom during the last half of the season by attracting audiences that supported a thirteen-week run, nine weeks at the Hanna and four more weeks after its transfer to the Metro­ politan in order to allow the regular winter season to open on schedule at the Hanna.

Another attempt at a resident Yiddish company, the Yiddish Art

Theatre of Cleveland, took place in the fall of the year with the in­ tention of presenting a recognized Yiddish classic each week at the

Duchess Theatre.3- As in previous seasons information regarding the company is sparse. The only other piece of information collected is a notice of performances of The Three Brides and The Drunkard on the first three days of May, 192$, by "a Yiddish company” at the Duchess.2

Perhaps the most notable single theatrical event of the 192l*-2$ season (and perhaps of the decade in Cleveland) was the three-week run of Max Reinhardt's pantomime drama, The Miracle, at the Cleveland Public

Auditorium. An unnamed Cleveland citizen the physical description of whom fits McDermott,^ persuaded Morris Gest to bring the piece to

lCPD, September li*, 1921*, p. 2-Amusements. 2CPD, May 1, 192$, p. 20.

3"He looked like a well-groomed Irish jockey, or perhaps like one of those serious-faced English comedians, but there was a certain ele­ ment of finality in his bearing that did not warrant treating him like a piece of furniture." (Rudolf Kommer, "Morris Gest Capitulatesj Cleveland Gets 'The Miracle,'1' Hew York Times9 October 2li, 1921*.) 105

Cleveland; a group of prominent citizens raised $315,000 to underwrite the performance5^ the Public Auditorium was converted into a hugh cathedral, making the show more imposing than it had been in New York;2 and publicity was handled so effectively that by the show's opening date, December 22, 1921*, "street comment had taken on something of the proportions of a city's discussion of a World's Series in baseball, with the games to be played at h o m e . "3 At seat prices of one, two, three, and four dollars, the show had an advance sale of over $220,000 A

The headlines to McDermott's page one review of the production give some idea of the nature of the responses "'Miracle* is Mighty Magic of

Theater Woven with Poem; Spectacle Reaches Stupendous Heights Leaving

No Sense Untouched; Outdoing New York Offering in Its Tremendous Sweep."

During the run literary clubs discussed the play, and women's clubs gave a number of luncheons and receptions for the leading actors and groups of oast members. By the end of the run 136,99k persons from more than 170 cities had attended the show, and the underwriting com­ mittee had received unexpected profits of more than $20,000 on gross receipts of $1*01,000.^ On the day following the closing McDermott

described the affair as "the greatest and most significant adventure in

Cleveland theatricals.According to the Cleveland Year Book Gest had not intended any production of The Miracle outside of New York. The

ICPD, November 12, 1921*, p. 12. 2Rose, p. 828.

3CYBsl92£, p. 151*. - Ulbid., p. 155.

Slbid., p. 156. ^CPD, January 11, 1925, p. 1-Amusements. 106

Cleveland performances were followed within the next three years by runs in Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Boston.

The 1925-26 commercial theatre season was the first since the opening of the decade lacking the performance of any of Shakespeare's plays. No special notice has been taken of them in this work so far because they never represented at the most more than three weeks of

the season's total, but regularly each year something by Shakespeare

had been on the bill. For the first five years of the decade the

Robert Mantell Company appeared at the Erlanger house for a week of

Shakespearean repertory. In addition, Erlanger presented Walter

Haapden's week of Hamlet in 1919-20 and David Warfield's Merchant of

Venice in 1922-23. The 1925-26 season was the second during which no

play by Shakespeare had been booked for Cleveland by the Erlanger cir­

cuit. The Shuberte did not rely on any such company as Mantell's but

saw to it that Sothem and Marlowe and WaL ter Hampden (in repertory)

appeared alternately during the first four seasons. Jane Cowl appeared

in addition to Hampden in 1922-23 and as the sole representative of the

Bard in 192U-25. Barrymore's Hamlet carried the Shakespearean re­

sponsibility for 1923-21*. Comments have been made from time to time in

this work on the enthusiastic support given some of the Shakespearean

plays by Clevelanders, and there seems to be no apparent reason in

Cleveland at least for the absence of Shakespeare. New Yorkers saw

Henry IV presented by the Player's Club, Walter Hampden in two 107 productions, Hamlet and The Merchant of Venice, and another Hamlet in modern dress with Basil Sydney. ***

The season can boast of very little. The total number of shows declined to sixty-five, ten less than last yew's. Total production weeks were ninety-six, less than last year by twelve. The principal factors in the decline were the absence of any suiraner company besides

McLaughlin's and the short winter season at the Hanna, which had shifted to films by the first week in May. The character of the season did not change enough to be worth noting; musical shows, farces and comedies dominated the program as usual, and McDermott complained early in the season that Cleveland was not getting the "best and most interesting" of the New York plays.2 Attendance, however, was good; by mid-December McDermott described it as "never better."3 On two other occasions during the season he described audience support as having been very good, particularly for musicals, e.g., No, No- Nanette,

Blossom Time, Stepping Stones (with Fred Stone and daughter), and The

Student Prince,k so there appears to have been no decline in support of the plays by Clevelanders. The New York season increased by thirty

1-Burns Mantle, The Best Plays of 1925-26 (New Yorks Dodd, Mead and Co., 1926), pp. U69, 1*91, $23, 602.

2CPP, October 1 1 , 1925, p. 1-Amusements.

3CPD, December 13, 1925, p. 1-Amusements.

klbid.; CPD, January 10, 1926, p. 1-Amusements. McDermott noted that the war must be "very well over" when crowds enjoy The Student Prince. (Ibid.) Cleveland supported it for seven weeks. It came to Cleveland from a run of 608 performances in New York. (BeBt Plays of 1925-26, p. 610.) 108 productions over the previous season to a total of 260.^ Chicago p reported "an average season."*

Shows not mentioned so far and worth noting include three that arrived at or very near the end of the winter seasons of the two major houses, What Price Glory at the Hanna (one week) and They Knew What

They Wanted (one week) and Desire Under the Elms (three weeks) at the

Ohio.

A curious company of professional actors was formed in Cleve­ land this season, the Bradley Players, under the management of Samuel

Bradley, formerly an actor with Vaughn Glaser and May Buckley, veterans of Cleveland stock companies. The players were remnants from various professional companies.3 Though the organization had its headquarters downtown in the Hippodrome Building, it had no permanent theatre in which to operate. At various times during the season it presented its plays at the Ohio Theater (December 21, 192$), the Metropolitan

(November 9, 192$j January 31 and March 7, 1926), the Broadway (a movie house; February 20, 1926), the Detroit (a movie house; February lit,

1926), and at the Thimble Theatre, the private facility of a drama school (January 21, February lit.)• Nor did the group have a program by which it might be easily categorized. The plays these actors performed varied widely, from reasonably recent favorites of the road show houses, e.g., Enter Madame, and Adam and Eva, to original works by

iBurns Mantle, The Best Plays of 192$-26a p. 11*.

2 q . L. Hall, "The Season in Chicago," in The Best Plays of 192$-26, p. 17.

3gpd, October 1, 192$, p. 20. 109 local playwrights, e.g., Why the bachelor? by Bernard McOwen, a former

stock actor in Cleveland, Sugar Daddy by Ward Marsh, film critic of the

Plain Dealer, and two of Robert McLaughlin's previously produced works.

McDermott reviewed the group's first production, Enter Madame, and ap­

proved it as showing "a surprising amount of talent"! but did not

describe its work again during the season. By the time these actors

began to perform during the 1926-2? season they had diluted their ranks

with amateur players, and they soon disappeared from the professional

theatre seene.

By early December of the 1926-2? season McDermott could write

that the road show season in Cleveland was receiving "unprecedentedly

good" audience support while other cities were suffering from insuf­

ficient at tendance. ^ The number of road shows was actually less than

usual by that date in the season; the Hanna had opened at the regular

time, the first week in September, but the Ohio had begun the season

with eight weeks of the film Ben Hur and had offered no legitimate

drama until November first. No road shows were appearing at any other

theatre in the city. Chicago reported "more shows and plays of one

kind or another than in any previous stage year in the annals of the

city, and New Yorkers witnessed 26U new and revived playsthus poor

ICPD, November 16, 1925, p. 19.

2CPP, December 5, 1926, p. 2-Amusements.

3?red Donaghey, "The Season in Chicago," in B u m s Mantle, The Best Plays of 1926-2? (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 192?), p. 17.

^Best Plays of 1926-27, p. 16. 110 road seasons in other cities, Pittsburgh and Detroit, for example, may have been a financial factor that reduced the number of plays that could be brought to Cleveland. Actually, the total number of road shows visiting Cleveland during 1926-27 diminished only seven from the total of fifty-one offered in the previous season. The total number of commercial shows and of production weeks, assisted by the presence of a winter stock company and two summer companies, rose slightly, to

seventy-seven shows (up eight from last year) and 110 production weeks

(up fourteen). The composition of the season did not change, the

Hanna's thirty-two shows (two stock, thirty road), for example, con­

sisted of twenty musical shows, eight comedies, one melodrama, and four

dramas. Craig's Wife, the 1925-26 Pulitzer Prize play, visited the

Ohio for one week as did three of the Burns Mantle "best plays," The

Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1925-26), Young Woodley (1925-26)}v and the world

premiere of Maugham's The Constant Wife (1926-27). The Hanna offered

one Bums Mantle "best play," Michael Arlen's drama The Green Hat (with

Katherine Cornell, Leslie Howard, and Margalo Gillmore), and no

Pulitzer Prize winners.

The honors in stock company productions this year fell once

again to Robert McLaughlin. The Colonial Players, a group established

to try out a plan to develop a ten or twelve city circuit using New

York casts and visiting stars, opened at the Colonial in December and

presented during the following twenty weeks a standard stock program of

New York comedies and farces. The Manhattan Players, a new stock

ICPD, December 15, 1926, p. 20. Ill organization, planned a summer season at the Hanna but disappeared after playing two comedies of the 1925-26 New York season, The Patsy and Laff That Off, for a total of six weeks. McLaughlin's company at the Ohio started the season on May fourth with three weeks of Rain and the comment by Ward Morehouse that "the most exciting place, theatri­ cally, • during May and June will be the city of Cleveland, Ohio, for

Glenn Hunter [of the Theatre GuilcQ will appear in a repertory program such as John Barrymore might undertake."-*- On arrival Hunter reneged p on his promise to perform Hamlet and actually appeared in only two shows, Peter Ibbetson and Young Woodley. The change evidently affected the success of the program very little, for the company played two and three-week runs until well past the middle of September.

"What is the matter with the Yiddish Theatre in Cleveland?" wrote Leon Wiesenfeld in the Plain Dealer. "Year after year first class stock companies come but fail at the very beginning. The fourth greatest Jewish population in the United States resides in Cleveland, and everywhere but Cleveland the Yiddish Theatre prospers. "3 The article offered no explanation and ended with an appeal to the wealthier

Jews to help establish a solid Yiddish theatre company to assist the

Jews to maintain their ties with their own culture. The Yiddish stock company for the 1926-27 season lasted a bit longer than most of the others had, from September until the end of January,^ and a few touring

1CPD, March 30, 1927, p. 21.

2CPD, May 22, 1927, p. 2-Amusements.

3CPD, February 13, 1927, p. 3-Amusements. ^Ibid. ■f

112 companies cams through, in particular the Habima Players for a three- night stand of The pybbuk, The Eternal Jew and The Golem. This year for the first time McDermott reviewed some of the Yiddish productions, those of the Habima group, the acting of which impressed him as "power­ ful and skillful even though in a strange tongue,"^ and a production by the resident stock company which he responded to by restraining his comments to the nature of the playscript and to his surprise at how well 2 his mattering of German enabled him to follow the action of the play.

The changes in both nature and amount of the commercial theatre productions of the 1927-28 Cleveland season from those of the previous season were greater than between any other two preceding seasons of the

decade. The only aspect of the program which did not change appreciably was the number of road shows that visited the city. These increased to a total of 51, only seven more than in 1926-27 and the same number as in

1925-26, and retained approximately the same proportion of musicals,

comedies, and dramas as in previous years. The shifts that occurred in

quantity were the results of greatly increased stock company activities.

Three winter stock companies and one temporarily resident touring com­ pany as well as three summer companies raised the total'number of com­ mercial theatre plays in Cleveland to 122, an increase of almost 60 per

cent over the 1926-27 season. The number of production weeks rose to

182, 65 per cent more than the total of the previous theatrical year.

The number of shows was less than the number found in each of the years

1919-20 and 1920-21, sixteen and eight less, respectively, but the

lCPD, May 18, 1927, p. 23. 2CPP, December 25, 1926, p. 15. 113 number of production weeks exceeded the totals of any of the previous years and of the greatest previous year, 1923-21;, by thirty-six.

The changes in nature of the plays moved in both directions from the middle ground of the usual stock season, i.e., the standard revivals of comedies, farces and a few of the more sentimental dramas of earlier New York seasons. The Colonial Players, for example, of­ fered a series of sensational and sentimental shows. They opened their season with an eight-week revival of Abie1a Irish Rose, followed that with eight weeks of Kongo, a melodrama of jungle hatred, three weeks of

The Night Hawk, a drama described as "a sensational sex play,"l three weeks of Africans, a musical revue for which Ethel Waters was brought into town, Desire Under the Elms (its presence in this program is an

interesting comment on contemporary attitudes toward that play), and finished the season with two-week runs of two other melodramas, The

Noose and Jungle Fever. The Alhambra, a converted and newly redeco­ rated movie house, housed Robert McLaughlin's first fully successful winter stock company. His program was the usual for his companies and

therefore somewhat better than that of the average stock organization.

He presented thirteen comedies including The Show-Off, The First Year,

and Is Zat So, four farces, nine melodramas, e.g., The Gorilla, The Bat,

Aloma of the South Seas, and the like, and two dramas, Rain and Austin

Strong's Seventh Heaven, in accordance with his stated policy of pre­

senting recent Broadway successes.^

ICPD, January 7, 1928, p. 2-Amusements.

2cPD, January 29, 1928, p. 2-Amusements. lilt

The third of the winter groups, the Little Theatre, was the most remarkable of the three. The first unusual aspect of the organi­

zation was the fact that it was a producing center, that is, S. W.

Manheim, owner of about a dozen of Cleveland's movie houses, assembled

companies of professional actors, most of them from New York, rehearsed

and tried out his productions in his own theatre (a movie house named

the Priscilla and now called the Little Theatre), and sent the most

successful ones on the road to Detroit and Chicago.^ His announced

purpose was to produce shows that Cleveland had not seen,^ but he made

an exception to that objective in his next to the last play of the

season, Hell-Bent for Heaven. Records of the shows Manheim sent out

from Cleveland are by no means complete, but they do indicate that his

Shakespearean company did well in Chicago,^ and another, playing

Bourdet's controversial drama of Lesbianism, The Captive, was prevented

from playing a Detroit engagement by a court injunction.*4 The pro­

duction was also intended for Chicago and New York, but the records

available do not indicate any such performance.

The second remarkable aspect of Manheim's Little Theater was

the program it offered. He opened his theatre two weeks before

Christmas (at a time when Otis Skinner and Mrs. Fiske were playing The

Merry Wives of Windsor at the Ohio) with Fritz Lieber, formerly an out­

standing member of the Robert Mantell Company, and a miscellaneous group

■kjPD, June 3, 1928, p. 2-Amusements. ^Ibid.

3Virginia Dale, "The Season in Chicago," in Burns Mantle, Best Plays of 1927-28 (New Yorks Dodd, Mead and Co., 1928), p. 17.

**CPD, June 2li, 1928, p. 2-Amusements. of supporting professional actors, in Hamlet* He followed this with seven weeks of Shakespeare, one play per week, and another week of the plays in repertory, the first such concentration of Shakespeare that

Cleveland had ever seen.^ Attendance was poor for the first two weeks, hut after Manheim dropped his ticket prices to a one dollar maximum the shows played to capacity houses.^ Following his Shakespeare festival he gathered another company of supporting actors, called them

The Little Theatre Players, and brought in stars.3 After two in­ conspicuous plays he produced The Captive. Possibly because McDermott's review indicated that it did not become offensive, as the New York police had been convinced it was, possibly because the Shakespearean productions had blessed the Little Theater with dignity and prestige, and possibly because this was a Cleveland enterprise, The Captive was allowed to run, and run it did, breaking all records for attendance at that theatre,*4 for six weeks. "Those who came to laugh," wrote

McDermott, "stayed to cough. So acutely bronchial an audience I do not remember having previously observed in the theatre.There followed productions of the Tennessee mountains drama Rope, Patrick Kearney's tragi-comedy A Man's Man, Jacob Gordin's tragedy The Kreutzer Sonata with Bertha Kalish, Sudermann's Magda, Elmer Gantry (over which there

lCPD, February 12, 1928, p. 1-Amusements.

2CPD, June 3, 1928, p. 2-Amusements.

3CPD, February 12, 1928, p. 2-Amusements.

UCPD, March 18, 1928, p. 2-Amusements.

*CPD, March 5, 1928, p. 19. 116 was a censorship fuss conducted by the Federated Churches of Cleveland)-*- for three weeks, and then, in early June, a production of Paul Green's

In Abraham's Bosom by The Gilpin Players, an amateur group from the

Playhouse Settlement, known today as Karamu House. The Players were reviewed by the Plain Dealer's summer drama critic, Ward Marsh, who complimented them gently on their work, and they remained for another week. The last three shows, william Brady's sentimental drama The Good

Bad Woman, Hell-Bent for Heaven, and The %peror Jones, the cast of which contained Charles Gilpin and two of the Gilpin Players, ran one week each. The venture had been a successful one, and as the season ended in mid-summer plans were being made to reopen in the fall.

As the long runs at the Colonial and the Plain Dealer comments on the Little Theater have already indicated in part, business was very good in most of the theatres of Cleveland this year. The Hanna winter season included one four-week and four two-week runs, the longest be­ longing to Broadway, the realistic melodrama by George Abbott and

Phillip Dunning. McLaughlin's summer season at the Ohio was composed principally of long runs, five weeks of Broadway, four weeks each of the sensual melodrama Lulu Belle by Edward Sheldon and Charles MacArthur, and McLaughlin's own show The Pearl of Great Price, which played to standing-room-only for a great part of the run,^ and two weeks each of the drama The Barker and the farce The Baby Cyclone. Add to this the fact that McLaughlin was pleased enough with the success of his winter

3-CPP, May 18, 1928, Section 2, p. 1.

^CPD, June 30, 1928, p. 1-Amusements. 117 company at the Alhambra to sign a long term lease with the owners, and the prosperity of the season is reasonably well established.

The massive increase in shows and production weeks and the en­ thusiastic public support provided for this suddenly expanded program raises a difficult question: Why did this occur? Theatres had been available before this time. Managers had not been lackingj when

McLaughlin had wanted to in the past he had found it a simple matter to expand to two companies. The quality of the stock companies was evi­ dently good, but good companies had been around for some time. But why did this great expansion take place at this time and in this city?

Many of the Chicago theatres had suffered dark periods in mid-season and had closed up at the end of June.-*- Of the 200 new plays which opened in New York during this season, 136 were failures}2 of the fifty re­ vivals one did well.-5 It can only be assumed that the success of the

Cleveland season depended on a conglomeration of factors, some of them quite conjectural: the increasing national prosperity in which Cleve­ land shared; the fact that all of the stock companies were charging popular prices, the one dollar top} the great variety of offerings, from sex, sentiment, and melodrama to Shakespeare and O'Neill} the fact that these offerings were separated according to the type of company pre­

senting them so that the public knew what kind of show it was buying at a particular theatre whether it knew the name of the play or not} the fact that of the four companies operating three were "Cleveland-made,"

iDale, p. 11*. 2Best Plays of 1927-28. p. 12.

•^Ibid» j p* $ •

4t 118 the McLaughlin winter and summer companies and the Manheim company at the Little Theaterj and, lastly, the increasing interest of the public in theatre as a result of the amateur production and educational activ­ ities through the decade. Some evidence of this last may be inferred from the acceptance of the Gilpin Players on the regular bill of the

Little Theater and by the selection of the name The Little Theater for a professional company at a time when that particular phrase was widely used to designate amateur theatrical activities.

The most fitting single term with which to describe the nature of the 1928-29 season is "anti-climactic." The year started even more auspiciously than 1927-28. The Hanna and the Ohio were as occupied as usualj the Little Theater started the season with them; a new, unnamed stock company opened at the Alhambra a month later, at the end of Sep­ tember j and another new stock company, the Roberson-Smith Players, one of fifteen companies owned try a single management, began production in mid-September at the Gordon Square Theater, an old legitimate theatre more recently used for films and located on the kest Side about sixty- five blocks from downtown. The previous season had opened with only four operating commercial houses, the Little Theater not having entered the picture until just before Christmas.

The Ohio and the Hanna remained in operation throughout the winter season presenting their regular programs. The Ohio interrupted its road shows on two occasions with an empty weekj the Hanna played an uninterrupted season until early June and then added two more shows separated by two dark weeks. The Gordon Square group declared itself in­ dependent of its national organization in late November, went dark for three weeks, reopened a few days before Christmas, and played through the season. They advertised popular shows at popular prices1 and re­ mained true to their word; half of the thirty-four shows they presented had been on the bill of popular shows performed by the McLaughlin com­ pany at the Alhambra the year before. The stock company at the Alhambra this season evidently ran into some sort of trouble at the same time that the Gordon Square group reorganized. They were taken over by

McLaughlin at the end of November, continued to play until a week before

Christmas, and then disappeared. During the last weeks of the Alhambra group McLaughlin imported a touring production of a birth control drama,

Her Unborn Child, which played at the Colonial for three weeks, each performance accompanied by a lecture on the subject. The Little Theater after a busy summer developing a Little Theatre Guild of subscription memberships^ presented a fifteen-week program which included Maxwell

Anderson's Gods of the Lightning, two weeks of Fritz Lieber in Shake­

spearean repertory, three O'Neill plays (The Fountain, All God's Chillun,

and Anna Christie), Ten Nights in a Barroom, The Man Who Married a Dumb

Wife, and four other dramas and comedies. The Little Theater closed a week before Christmas and was not heard from again. After the holidays

1CPD, November 18, 1928, p. 2-Amusements.

^The memberships cost one dollar and entitled the owner to re­ duced prices on tickets and free admission to "special literary, dramatic, and social programs." A season of from four to six Shake­ spearean plays and occasional "eccentric or experimental" productions were announced. (CPD, July 19, 1928, p. 17.) The goal of the sub­ scription drive was 10,000, and a number of the major women's groups assisted in the campaign. (CPD, July 29, 1928, p. U.) 120 the theatre's name was changed to the Empire and the program changed to burlesque.

By mid-January only three commercial houses were open, the

Ohio, the Hanna, and the Gordon Square, and only the McLaughlin company operated during the summer, a state of affairs more like that of the

1926-27 season than any other. It is interesting to note, but difficult to derive conclusions therefrom, that New York and Chicago had both experienced a similar mid-season decline in the 1927-28 season,^ and that during the 1928-29 season Chicago reported good audience support for a meager supply of road shows2 while New York was experiencing "the worst theatre season within the memory of living playgoers."-3 Of the

22U productions, new and revived, that opened in New York in 1928-29, only U3 lasted for more than 100 performances.h Among other reasons peculiar only to New York, Burns Mantle stated that the failure of shows there might be related to three factors: poor production, high ad­ mission fees, and the rejection of profane and lascivious entertainments by the dependable theatre-goers.^ In applying these causes to Cleveland no evidence is found in this season of objections to the content of the plays, but the 1927-28 season had presented The Captive, Elmer Gantry,

and Desire Under the Elms.^ Admission fees do not appear to have been a factor in the demise of the companies. "Popular prices" were

iBest Plays of 1927-28, pp. 3, U*.

^Virginia Dale, "The Season in Chicago," in Burns Mantle, The Best Plays of 1928-29 (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1928), p. 11.

3Best Plays of 1928-29, p. 3. Ulbid., p. 10 and passim.

3Ibid., p. U. ^See above, pp. 113-116. 121 announced for the Alhambra group,1 and the Little Theater charged fifty cents to a dollar and a half for evening performances, regular price, and reduced rates to subscribers. Nor do poor productions seem to have been a cause of Cleveland's theatrical decline. Although McDermott criticized the script of the Little Theater's The Man Who Married a

Dumb Wife, he •wrote that the performance showed "taste, skill, and charm,"3 and other performances there and at the Alhambra received generally good reviews. One would think that the Gordon Square group might have failed, if theatres were to fail, because it presented so many plays seen not only in previous years on the bills of the Hanna and the Ohio but also (as mentioned above) as a large part of the Al­ hambra's program during the preceding season. Perhaps the blame for the decline of the 1928-29 season can be placed outside the theatre itself and on the "talkies" and radioj the details at least are obscure.

The particularly notable events of the season's offerings in­ clude five weeks of Theatre Guild productions, The Guardsman, Arms and the Man, riarco Millions, Volpone, and They Knew What They Wanted, the

George Tyler Company's one-week run of Macbeth with scenery by Gordon

Craig, the Morris Gest productions (in German) of Ghosts and Tolstoi's

Redemption by Alexander Moissi and company at the Hanna, and the five- week run of the Deane and Balderston thriller Dracula at the Ohio. The

Dion Boucicault melodrama After Dark, which had run more than thirty

^CPD, September 23, 1928, p. 2-Amusements.

^"The Little Theatre Guild," 1928 season brochure of the Little Theatre Guild.

3CPD, September U, 1928, p. 122 weeks in a Hoboken revival produced by Christopher Morley earlier in

the year,-1- ran for four weeks during the summer; Patrick Kearney's An

American Tragedy and the Bayard Veiller melodrama The Trial of Mary

Dugan each ran three weeks. Nineteen stock and road shows managed two-

week runs.

To obtain a sense of the trends in the amount and nature of the

commercial theatre in Cleveland during the decade, a few tables are set

forth below.

TABLE 2

ROAD AND STOCK COMPANY SHOWS IN CLEVELAND STATISTICS: 1919-20 TO 1928-29

Total Ave. No. No. of No. of Total Production Weeks Per Season Road Shows Stock Shows Shows Weeks Show

1919-20 79 99 138 136 .99 1920-21 72 98 130 126 .97 1921-22 67 26 93 90 .97 1922-23 98 93 111 119 l.Oit 1923-2U 77 30 107 1U6 1.36 192U-29 98 17 79 108 l.UU 1929-26 91 1U 69 96 1.U8 1926-27 hh 33 77 110 1.U3 1927-28 91 71 122 182 1.U9 1928-29 97 70 127 160 1.26

J-Best Plays of 1928-29, pp. 9-6. 123

TABLE 3

KINDS OF SHOWS, 1919-20 AND 1928-29

Road Shows Stock Shows Combined 1919-20 1928-29 1919-20 1928-29 1919-20 1928-29

Musicals 35 27 3 3 38 30 Comedies 20 11 2U 16 hh 27 Farces U 0 10 15 lii 15 Melodramas U 6 9 Hi 13 20 Dramas 16 13 13 23 29 35

Total Shows 79 57 59 70 138 127 Total Weeks 73 76 63 8U 136 160 Weeks/Show .92 1*33 1.07 1.20 .99 1.26

Table 2 establishes the points that over the decade the number of road shows per season decreased while the number of stock pro­ ductions increased, that the total number of shows decreased following, at about a year's interval, the lows in business cycles described earlier (p. 8), and that the average length of run of the shows in­ creased almost steadily throughout the decade regardless of the variation of the other factors. Table 3 indicates that if the 1919-20 and the 1928-29 theatrical years may be taken to represent in general the beginning and the end of the decade (and no broad shifts between these years and adjoining ones contradict this assumption), there were fewer musicals and comedies, the same amount of farces, and more dramas and melodramas programmed toward the end of the decade than at the be­ ginning. Furthermore the table suggests that while both stock and road shows depended upon comedies and dramas, the stock companies substituted farces and melodramas for the musicals programmed so much more often by the road shows. Table 3 also demonstrates by its weeks-per-show figures that while both the road show agents and the stock company managers lengthened the average run of their shows over the decade, the average road production run increased somewhat more than did that of the stock production. Most of this, of course, makes good common sense. The longer the run that a road show company made, the lower the pro-rated fixed costs of transportation and installation became. With regard to the overwhelming share of the musicals programmed as road shows, that they were popular has been established, that they require a large original investment, more likely to be available in New York than around the provinces, is understood, and the size of the stock company which would possess talent capable of both acting and singing well would be quite beyond the resources of most Cleveland stock company owners.

It may be interesting, before we leave the tables, to compare the com­ position of New York's opening and closing seasons of the decade with

Cleveland's. In 1919-20, in the group of forty-five New York shows which played 100 or more performances^- there were fourteen musicals, ten comedies, four farces, seven melodramas, and ten dramas. For the

1928-29 New York season the list runs: eighteen musicals, twelve come- dies, one farce, one melodrama, and eleven dramas. While New York figures show an increase in the proportion of musicals and a relative decrease in melodramas, the other categories remaining about the same,

iFrom Best Plays of 1919-20, pp. 335-337.

2Best Plays of 1928-29. pp. 352-512. 12$ melodramas increasing, dramas increasing, farces holding steady, and comedies losing some of their share of the program. The Table 3 figures show the same shifts for Cleveland stock shows and road shows com­ bined (last two columns).

Clevelanders' taste in drama may be determined in great part by the shows during the decade which played the greatest number of weeks.

Granted that effective publicity agents, exceptionally good or bad pro­

ductions, and special circumstances, e.g., the interest in a local author, or the accident of an actor's illness, may affect the length of a run, all things considered the long run shows should be a fair indicator of what the audience preferred. Abie's Irish Rose, the senti­ mental melodrama, turns out to be Cleveland's first choice with a total run of thirty-nine weeks during the decade. All of the performances

of Shakespearean plays come second with twenty-nine weeks total. Sen­

sational White Cargo is next with a total of eighteen weeks} the ro­ mantic musical Blossom Time and the homespun Lightnin' follow with

fifteen and thirteen, respectively. The romantic operetta The Student

Prince, the melodrama Broadway, and the suggestive farce-comedy The

Demi-Virgin come after in the nine-to-ten week class. At the five-

through-eight weeks level there are two musicals, two comedies, one

farce, three melodramas, and three dramas, two of the latter somewhat

sensational., Rain and The Captive.

There is evidence that the Cleveland theatre audiences had

difficulty with plays differing from the kinds described above.

Margalo Gillmore was curious about the undemonstrative audiences that watched her Cleveland performances in Marco Millions. In Pittsburgh 126 there had been no such numbnessJeanne Eagles could not understand why Clevelanders did not laugh at the French farce which she was per­ forming for them.2 McDermott received letters objecting to Fritz

Lieber's modern dress Hamlet.^ In response to some complaints he re­ ceived concerning the bad manners of Cleveland audiences McDermott wrote: "The plain fact is, I think, that the contemporary theatre is, at its best, ahead of the playgoers." He went on to say that the theatre of the time was undergoing sharper shifts than usual and that the audience was outdistanced. A few years before, he pointed out, practically all plays had been conventionally sentimental, farcical or melodramatic with no subtleties to tax the ordinary intelligence; "they were an escape of a simple and active people from the realities of life into a gilded and glamorous world where tears or laughter came with equal ease." Our audiences now, he said, "laugh when theyshould weep and weep when they should laugh and some comprehend only incompletely."^

It appears, then, that despite the perennial regrets of the

Cleveland Year Book for Cleveland's indifference to "finer drama" and the presence of a talented, respected, and articulate drama critic who consistently praised "the new dramas," Clevelanders, year after year, supported the sentimental and sensational drama presented by their commercial theatres in preference to the realistic and thoughtful plays,

3-CPP, November 11, 1928, p. 11-Society.

2CPD, January 21;, 1928, p. 27.

3CPD, February 5, 1928, p. 1-Amusements.

UCPD, March 11, 1928, p. 1-Amusements. 127

Shakespeare to the contrary notwithstanding. Cleveland audiences evi­ dently supported the new works more enthusiastically toward the end of the decade than at the beginning, as McDermott's comments scattered throughout this chapter have indicated, but the overwhelming number of their selections were not of this kind. CHAPTER VI

CLEVELAND THEATRE IN THE TWENTIES

THE AMATEURS

In the name selected for the Little Theater^ and in the appear­ ance of an amateur group, the Gilpin Players, at a commercial theatre, we have already seen bits of evidence disclosing interest in the drama on the part of persons not devoted to the commercial theatre. These few clues to the presence of amateur dramatic activity in Cleveland in the twenties are related to the actual amount of activity in about the same manner as an atoll is related to its massive and labyrinthine underpinnings. In 1900 a writer for a Cleveland social periodical ex­ pressed his surprise that Clevelanders had not taken up amateur theat­ ricals, especially since other cities had found "much pleasurable profit" in it.^ In 1917 a professor of sociology from the University of Wisconsin conducted a survey of the recreational pursuits of 160

"wholesome Cleveland citizens"-* from which he concluded that Cleveland adults ranked attendance at commercial theatre productions third behind

lAbove, pp. lli;-116, 118.

2"Varied Phases of Social Life," Town Topics, XXV, No. 9 (March 3, 1900), p. 11.

^The "wholesome" person, according to the sociologist, dealt honestly, was sociable, had concern for others, was able to support himself and his family, had control of his physical appetites, and the like. (John Gillin, Wholesome Citizens and Spare Time (Cleveland: The Survey Committee of the Cleveland foundation, 19183 , p. 117.) 128 129 dancing and reading as recreational activities indulged in during their high school and college years and participation in plays as thirty-eighth.1 In their estimates of time spent in various kinds of recreation during their college-to-marriage and after marriage years the Clevelanders did not mention amateur dramatics.^ By mid-1921, how­ ever, Harlowe Hoyt was moved to remark in the Plain Dealer:

It is a noticeable fact in these days when dramatics play so large a part in school curricula and in organization work, that where any number of red-blooded young people are gathered to­ gether the innate desire to impersonate something or someone, which lies dormant in most of us, inspires amateur dramatics, often of considerable merit.3

A year later the Cleveland Year Book devoted a number of pages of its

"Arts" section to elaborate description of amateur dramatic activity in schools, settlements, clubs of all kinds, foreign societies, welfare organizations, churches, drama schools, and independent production groups, which had come into existence as a result of dramatic interests which "have never been so great.In 1922 the Cleveland Recreation

Council sponsored a federation of eighty-seven "dramatics groups"^ and

in 1923 held an institute "for the purpose of supplying information to

the members of these various groups in regard to the problems of stage

production.The registration for the institute listed forty-four

teachers and principals, forty-one librarians, eleven social workers,

seven church workers, seventeen campfire guardians and girls, and

Ilbid., p. 131. 2Ibid., pp. 137-1U7.

3CPD, June 28, 1921, p. 17. HcTB:1922, pp. 235-239.

SCPD, May 28, 1922, p. 2. 6cYB;1923, p. 155. forty-three dramatic club members.^ Twelve months later the Year Book remarked that activity in amateur theatricals had “progressed over the preceding year."^ By 1929 the attention of the Year Book was attracted to the springing up of a number of dramatic groups,^ and in the same year Kenneth Macgowan, visiting Cleveland near the end of his journey to survey the amateur theatre in America, was telling Clevelanders that their city "leads the country in dramatics.

it is difficult to determine precisely what the various Cleve­ land sources just quoted meant by "amateur theatricals," "amateur dramatics," "amateur dramatic activities," "dramatic groups," and what

Macgowan meant by "dramatics" for that matter. We usually assume the staging of plays to be a part if not the whole of what we mean by amateur theatre or amateur dramatics, and Clevelanders certainly did involve themselves in this activity under a great range of circum­ stances and with a great number of different objectives. But there were other activities concerned with drama which were pursued both as a corollary to production and independent of it. Some of these were staging activities— living pictures, skits.and sketches, pageants, or puppetryj others, pursued in some cases as intensely as any play pro­ duction, were the establishment of study groups to examine dramatic literature, the procurement of lecturers to explain any or all aspects of the drama, the writing of plays, the presentation of dramatic readings, the promotion of commercial theatre ticket sales for benefits,

llbid. 2CYB;192i|, p. 121*. 131 and the improvement of the commercial theatre by either public outcry against vulgar plays or attendance at the "better kind of play." This great variety of aspects we mean to include under the term "amateur dramatic activities." Singly, as S. Marion Tucker pointed out,^ they amount to very little; together they make up a considerable part of the time and energy Cleveland amateurs spent in the twenties on their new-found interest, the drama.

The reasons offered by Clevelanders for their support of or participation in amateur dramatic activities were many and diverse.

Early in the decade interest in dramatics was attributed to "a desire to play after the strenuous days of war work. "2 The popularity of drama programs at the IWCA was the result, a director said, of the fact that

"girls love to dress up and play."3 The introduction of drama production courses in one of the high schools was to bring about, as its long- range effect, the improvement of the commercial theatre and the movies.^

The Literature Division of one of the largest of the women’s clubs was told by a lecturer that to gain knowledge of the theatre was to gain

"one of the greatest factors in a broad education."3 The purpose of dramatic activities in the church was stated to be "to make religion practical," "to teach symbolism and rewards for work well done."^ A settlement house justified its extensive program in dramatics as "a

1Above, p. 27. 2CYB:1922, p. 235.

3CPP, April 11, 1922, p. 11. ^CPD, September 22, 1921, p. 7.

3CPP, October 21, 1925, p. 19. 6CPP, September 30, 1927, p. 19. 132 splendid means for building strong character."^ Fred McConnell told the Women's Press Club that as Broadway exists only for profit, so the little theatre exists only for pleasure,2 and of course, play production groups existed for the pleasure of producing plays. Some of these groups were organized on the assumption that it was important to bring new plays to the world of dramatic literature and proceeded to do so by encouraging local authors through productions of their works. The

Drama League, the national organization and the Cleveland Center, as mentioned earlier,^ based a considerable portion of its activities on the need to improve the standards of the commercial theatre, and other

Cleveland groups were active in this area, too, e.g., the Theater Com­ mission of the Federated Churches of Cleveland^ and the Cleveland branch of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ.£

The kinds of organizations having to do with drama in Cleveland in the twenties were at least as varied as the concepts of the function of drama described above. There were, as may be expected, a number of short-lived and a few established groups whose sole purpose was the pro­ duction of plays. A far greater number of organizations, however, took up drama as a means of carrying out the non-dramatic purposes for which

l"Hiram House," Neighborhood, I, No. 2 (April, 1928), p. 35.

2CFD» April 11, 1922, p. 11. Mr. McConnell's many other statements concerning theatre would warn us against substituting "fun" for his word "pleasure."

3Above, pp. 38, 67.

^CPD, December 7, 192U, p. 1-Amusements.

5CPD, February 27, 1926, p. 16. 133 the group was founded (church drama, dramatization for teaching aca­

demic subjects) or as a portion of a more general concern, e.g., the study of literature or the development of recreational activities. The

Cleveland Year Book offers a sample of what was going on in 1922s

The schools, social settlements and I.W.C.A. and 7.M.C.A. have awakened to the value of the arts. Drama, the symbolism of color, the beauty of design are all being seriously studied and taught. Cther groups . . . are attempting to develop an appreciation of drama as well as to do creative work by studying and producing plays such as Lord Dunsany's "Glittering Gate" and Mollier's [sic] "The Doctor in Spite of Himself." Such groups do their own stage­ craft and make their costumes, thus applying the crafts to the arts.l

It is the non-dramatic groups which demonstrate most clearly

the eager embracing of the drama as an exciting new interest, the atti­

tude which so characterized the theatre in Cleveland in the twenties.

Women's clubs, religious organizations, educational institutions,

nationality groups, settlement houses, recreational programs, and other

less exclusive categories of group activities provided the great swarm

of programs and productions that typified Cleveland theatre in the

twenties.

Women's Clubs

In the records of this period at least eighty non-sectarian

women's clubs appear to have been engaged in dramatic activities of one

sort or another. These clubs, organized primarily for cultural, edu­

cational, professional, social, civic, or philanthropic purposes, were

significant principally for their support of drama study courses,

lecturers and dramatic readings, but a few of the larger or more active

lCYB:1922, pp. 235-236. ones developed play producing divisions. Many of the clubs had literature or drama departments whose responsibility it became to provide the programs mentioned and out of which the production units usually developed. The drama study courses were sometimes led by members of the faculty of the local collegesj Dr. Edward Howard Griggs of Western Reserve University, for example, delivered in the fall of

1921 for the Browning Society a series of six lectures on Shakespeare1 and a few years later a group of lectures on Ibsen.^ On a number of occasions the clubs organized their own study groups. In 1921;, for example, the South Side Women's Club was conducting for its members "a comprehensive study of the drama in all its phases." The study included a talk on the relationship of the drama to literature, a visit to the

Cleveland Playhouse, a discussion of the moral influences of drama, the study of current plays, and the production of an original play.3 The

Shakespeare Club for a number of years selected one of Shakespeare's plays, spent the fall studying the play with individual members giving reports, and completed the effort with a dramatic reading or enactment

of portions of the play. In 192l;-2$, for example, the Club was pre­

occupied with The Merry Wives of Windsorthe next year with Cymbeline,^

and a year later the subject was "The Life and Death of King John."^

ICPD, September 18, 1921, p. 6.

2CPD, November 29, 192$, p. 9-Society.

3CPD, October 29, 192U, p. 1$. UcPD, September 21;, 1921;, p. 17.

5CPD, October 2, 192$, p. 7-Society. November 1, 192$, p. 9- Society, November 30, 192$, p. 16.

^CPD, October $1, 1926, p. 7 - s o c i e t y . 13$

Lecturers for the women’s clubs came from what appear to have been almost all possible sources. Professional lecturers often made the rounds of a number of clubs. Clayton Hamilton spoke to six groups during December, 192U, on "The Sheridan Revival."1 Walter Pritchard

Eaton lectured on the future of the American theatre to the Women's

City Club, the Women’s Press Club, the Hudson Community Club, the

Business Women's Club, and a few men's clubs in the fall of 1928.^

John Drinkwater, actor William Faversham, Charles Rann Kennedy— the actor and author of morality plays, Charles Gilpin, Stark Young, John

Van Druten, Irvin S. Cobb, Elliott Nugent, Spring Byington, Dudley

Digges, Louis Bromfield, Cnarles Coburn, Fritz Lieber, and Mary Morris were among those who spoke at one time or another and on one or another aspects of the drama. Other speakers were obtained from Cleveland it­ self. Fred McConnell, director of the Play House, and Charles Brooks,

President, Clarence Stratton of the Public School System, Katherine wick

Kelly (later Mrs. Fred McConnell), play director at Glenville High

School, and the College for Women and Vice-President of the Play House,

Mrs. Glenna Smith Tinnen, one of the producing directors from a private drama school, and many other figures from Cleveland's major amateur theatre activities spoke to the women's clubs.

A considerable portion of the dramatic readings for the women's clubs were performed by members of the clubs themselves. Others were provided by the pupils or staff members from the local drama schools, and on occasion a student from one of the colleges (especially from the

•kiPD, December '10, 192U, p. 1. ^CPD, September U, 1928, p. 12. 136

College for Women, the drama students from which were noted for their excellent diction1), or a professional reader, Ruth Draper,2 for example, would be suggested.

A detailed look at the dramatic activities of a few of these clubs may provide a clearer picture than have the preceding descriptions

of the activities of this category. Perhaps the single aspect most in need of clarification is the actual extent of the program of any indi­ vidual group*.

Two years before the turn of the century approximately eignty

Cleveland women who were alumnae of various colleges organized the

College Club in order to fulfill their interests in literary, artistic,

and philanthropic enterprises.3 The dramatic section of the Club was

founded in 1911* by the chairman of entertainment for that year,^ and

soon afterwards a barn was renovated for the presentation of plays.3

By 1919 the membership had increased to several hundred,^ and the

dramatic activities of the group were shared by the main body of the

Club, which sponsored lectures and readings, and by the College Club

Players, who staged the plays. The Players group was described early

in the twenties as most successful in the staging of sophisticated

1CYB;1921, p. 280.

2CPD, February 5, 1922, p. 6-women's Section.

3CPD, March 28, 1920, p. 1-Women's Section.

^CPD, October 23, 1921, p. 7-women's Magazine.

5CPP, March 28, 1920, p. 1-Women's Section.

^Interview with Mrs. Leadley, Secretary, January 19, I960. 137 farces but lacking "a unified conception and a proper interrelation of parts" in performance. Curing this period no director was used; inter- p pretation was left to the individual actors, and men were not being used consistently for the male roles.3 The theatre year 1919-20 brought no announcements of the club itself but some concerning the work of the

Players. In mid-October an article appeared in the Plain Dealer an­ nouncing the Players1 plans to present a three-night run of three one- acts within a few days.^ About a week later notice was published that the Players' program of two plays had been "well-received.In late

November the Players gave "informal dramatic presentations" on their

Studio Night program,1-5 an annual "talent" affair for husbands and friends.7 In early December the three one-act plays were performed in 8 Akron for the College Club of Akron. About a week before Christmas a three-act play, Life's Lottery (origin unknown), was performed for the public at the Blessed Sacrament Auditorium,9 evidently a more commodious establishment than the College Club's converted barn. Probably their most important theatrical effort of the year was a production of Mrs.

Bumpstead-Leigh, a comedy by Harry James Smith which had opened in

1CYB:1921, p. 279. 2Ibid.

3 c P P , September 28, 1919, p. 7-A.

UcPD, October 19, 1919, p. 6-A. ?CPD, October 27, 1919, p. 15.

6CPP, November 21, 1919, p. 21.

^Cleveland News, April 21*, 19U5.

®CPD, November 23, 1919, p. U-A.

9CPP, December 19, 1919, p. l-^oaen's Features. 138

New York in 1911. The play was given one performance in April at the

Duchess theatre as a means oof raising funds for the construction of a new theatre. Seat prices ran from one to two dollars plus war tax.'*'

A full house of society folk saw the show,2 and the profit ran to

$2,100.3 The Players concluded the year with A "fantastical musical comedy” written by the members and produced at the Brotherhood of Loco­ motive Engineers’ Auditorium.^

The dramatic activities of the College Club during the 1920-21 season shifted in emphasis from production to readings and lectures.

Professor Clara Myers of the College for Women delivered a series of talks on recent English literature beginning with English drama.5 Miss

Virginia Weills of Boston, Massachusetts, "an impersonator of marked ability," presented a dramatic reading from James Barrie's Quality

Street.6 A member of the Club gave a dramatic reading of Maeterlinck's

Sister Beatrice,7 and the Oberlin College Dramatic Club performed a 8 group of one-act plays. The Players presented three one-act plays in

April-*1 and two short plays for children in May.-*-0

During 1921-22 Fred McConnell spoke on "Playhouse Plans,"H

a Mrs. Sift delivered a slide-lecture on "The Passion Play in Memory

•*-CPDt March 7, 1920, p. U-D. 2CPP, April 10, 1920, p. 17.

3CPD, April 23, 1920, p. 1$. UpPD, May 20, 1920, p. 7-C.

5CPD, October 3, 1920, p. 10-B. ^CPD, January 1, 1921, p. 6-A»

7CPD, March 20, 1921, p. 8. 8CPD, March 23, 1921, p. 8.

9CPD, March 20, 1921, p. 3-A. 10CPD, May 8, 1921, p. 6-A.

n CPD, October 9, 1921, p. 9-Women's Magazine. 139 and V i s i o n , a n d the Players produced three programs of one-act plays, p one of which was Susan Glaspell1s Trifles. This year saw the policy adopted of obtaining males for the male roles,^ and the funds raised from Mrs. Bumpstead-Leigh were evidently put to use in the purchase of new lighting equipment^- and the construction of a properties closet

Studio Night was less dramatic this year than the previousj the program consisted of a talk by one of the members on the Pilgrim Tercentenary

Pageant in Boston, an address explaining the aims of the Ohio School of

Stage Arts (a Cleveland drama school), a reading of Poe's The haven, and other readings by Ted Robinson, philosopher-poet of the Plain

Dealer.6

The yearly programs of dramatic activities of the College Club did not change significantly in quantity or consistency during the re­ mainder of the decade. Professor Myers returned for a few series of lectures} pupils of one or two of the local drama schools were invited in to give recitals} a playwriting contest for members was held and the winning play was produced on the Club's stage} members of road show casts were entertained} and the Club sponsored the opening night per­ formance of George Arliss's Merchant of Venice when it came to town.?

The plays staged by the Players were very predominantly one-acts of

1CPD, May 1, 1922, p. 1$. 2CPP, December U, 1921, p. 3.

^CPD, December U, 1921, p. 3. ^Ibid.

%PD, September 29, 1921, p. 17.

6cPD, October 13, 1921, p. 1$.

7CPD, February 10, 1929, p. 3-Society. lUo

some literary quality. The list includes Shaw's How He Lied to Her

Husband, St. John Hankin's The Constant Lover, Alice Gerstenberg's Ever

Young, George Middleton's A Good Woman, Harold Brighouse's Lonesome-

Like, Chekov's A Marriage Proposal, Galsworthy's Windows, Barrie'3 The

Old Lady Shows Her Medals, and a few short plays for children.

The nature of the dramatic activities of the other women's

clubs differed from that of the College Club principally in quantity,

although as the scope of the program became less than that of the

College Club, play production tended to disappear. The Cleveland

Sorosis, a cultural group formed in 1891 by approximately two hundred

Cleveland clubwomen,^ offered to its members dramatic activities very

similar to those developed by the College Club. The principal dif­

ference between the two programs lay in the lateness of the develop­

ment of play production by the Sorosis. A drama department existed at

the beginning of the decade2 and did produce plays but far fewer than

the number staged by the College Club. The Sorosis gained a new audi­

torium in the fall of 1925-5 and increased its production activities

thereafter. The Women's City Club, a civic welfare and social group

with a much larger membership than the two mentioned so far (3,000 in

TInterview with Mrs. George Bliss, Secretary, The Federation of Women's Clubs of Cleveland, January 19, I960. Membership in 19U6, 230 (Rose, p. $26). Records of 1920-29 not available.

2CPP, November 16, 1919, p. 7.

3c p d , September 13, 1925, p. 6-Society. lUl

19201j U,000 in 19292)j confined itself almost entirely to talks by theatre professionals and readings or monologues. The Women's Press

Club, a professional organization of about seventy members,-3 became particularly interested in the drama near the end of the decade. In

1927, 1928, and 1929 the Club gave luncheon receptions to over a dozen theatre professionals who returned the favor by delivering speeches.

The dramatic activities of the Junior League were an exception to those of most of the other clubs. Until 1927 the members of the League satis­ fied themselves dramatically with one musical revue each year. In

1927, however, the League members fell in line with the majority of their sisters in other cities and became interested in plays for children. In the next three years they produced four full-length children's plays, the last, Little Black Sambo, on a portable stage in order that the show might be presented at hospitals, orphanages, and other institutions for children.^ Possibly as a substitute for their own annual musical revues the League members began cooperating in 1927 with the Hermit Club, an all-male organization, in a series of original annual musical satires. Curiously enough, the Music and Drama Club, one women's club which we might expect to be at least half-dedicated to the drama, left newspaper records, at least, of only thirteen dramatic pro­ grams during the entire decade, all of which were readings. The Club

^-Directory of Community Activities, p. 72.

2CYB:1929, p. 281.

3Directory of Community Activities, p. 237.

^CPD, February 3, 1929 > p. 3-Society. 1U2 membership only increased from fifty-three to fifty-eight over the ten- year period.

The seventy-six women's organizations noted as active dra­ matically during the twenties were responsible for reports indicating

U23 different dramatic events of one or another of the kinds described

in this section. Over the ten-year period, then, the women's clubs

presented at least an average of almost six events each year. The

validity of the average is confirmed somewhat by the fact that although

the amount of the activity per year increased slightly during the

period, the change was not sufficiently large to make the average mis­

leading as a result of severely distorted distribution. The six events

per year of the various kinds of programs noted here do not constitute

in themselves a major contribution to the sum of all of Cleveland's

dramatic activities, commercial and amateur, but they are significant as

they represent a fairly steady flow of dramatic events adding constantly

to Clevelanders' awareness of and information about the drama.

Religious Groups

There were U76 recognized Christian churches in Cleveland in

192(P- and U6l in 1929.^ The average number of Protestant churches

recorded during the ten-year period was 3U7, of Catholic churches

-^-Directory of Community Activities, pp. 3U-37.

2CYB;1929, pp. 25U-272, U37. Shifts in the numbers of churches in individual sects were minorj the total number of Protestant churches decreased by forty-onej Roman Catholic groups increased by twenty-sixj the number of Jewish congregations remained constant. Seventeen organizations dedicated to spiritualism disappeared during the decade. H u eighty-four, and of synagogues thirty-seven. These churches and their associated lay groups, e.g., the Catholic Big Sisters Organization, the

IM and YWCA, and the YM and YWHA, were responsible for a significant portion of Cleveland amateur dramatic activities. The churches and their associations used the drama at one time or another as a means of carrying forward religious functions of the church, as a coexistent cultural activity, or as a means of entertainment.

The American Roman Catholic Church organizations show only a small amount of dramatic activities, and although some religious pro­ ductions appear, most activities seem to have been sponsored solely for entertainment. The Brooklyn Players, for example, the only non-nation­ ality Catholic dramatic group giving evidence of continuous activity over a number of years, presented the farce Stop Thief early in 1926,

Martin Flavin's Civil War drama Crossroads in May of that year, the comedy On the Hiring Line in November, the melodrama Within the Law in

May of 1927, and the farce Adam's Apple in November. This group began its career as the dramatic club of the Our Lady of Good Counsel Church in 1908^ and seems to have presented one full-length production each year until the fall of 1926 when, following the construction of a stage O and auditorium by the Brooklyn Catholic Club, it expanded its annual program to two major productions and an occasional one-act program.

R. D. Uelmage, the director of the group from its beginnings and through this decade, had been, in his early years, a professional actor.-5

-kiPD, January 16, 1927, p. 2-Amusements.

2Ibid. 3ibid. Other, short-lived Catholic dramatic groups presented similar or lighter and much less regular programs. The Knights of Columbus Council associated with St. Mary's Church produced George Ade's The College

Widow in 1922, Come Across (written by members) in 1921, and In Old

Mayo, an original play by an unidentified Clevelander, in 1927. The

St. Edwards Dramatic Club offered the unidentifiable play Two of a Kind

in 1920, the ccmedy So Help Me, Hannah in 1922, and a western comedy-

drama, T.N.T., later in the same year. Other examples are scattered

over the years and among a number of different groups from the same and

different congregations. To further their religious purposes members

of the Holy Name Church presented The Passion Play late in the decade.

A few years earlier the Sunshine Makers Club of the Catholic Big Sisters

Organization produced Percy MacKaye's The Christmas Quest. It is not

to be expected that newspaper publicity would be a very important aspect

of most church lay activities, including drama, but the sparseness of

material announcing Catholic dramatic events indicates many fewer of

them than programmed by the other religions.

Protestant church dramatic activities were greater both in

number and variety than those of the Catholics. The statement applies

to activities sponsored by groups closely related to the church

religious activities as well as to associated activities, the YM and

YWCA, for example. In church-connected dramatic events alone, the

Protestant items discovered total 150, the Catholic fifty-onej and the

Catholic Church had no such related association as the YM or YWCA at

the time. This might be expected in view of the considerably greater number of Protestant churches, but the expectation ought to be tempered by knowledge of the traditional opposition of most Protestant denom­ inations to dramatic ventures of any kind.^ Protestant church groups formed dramatic clubs, listened to lecturers and dramatic readers, and produced pageants. Accounts of the decade reveal the presence of the

Fairmount Players of the Fairmount Presbyterian Church, the Patchwork

Players of the Parkwood-Asbury Methodist-Episcopal Church, the Pilgrim

Players of the Pilgrim Congregational Church, the Kinsman-Union Players of the like-named Congregational Church, the P.A.P. Dramatic Club of the Phillips Avenue Presbyterian Church, and a number of groups of brief duration or of very skimpy description in other Protestant denom­ inations. These production groups for the most part offered programs for entertainment. The Fairmount Players, for example, produced Little

Women in 192$, George Kelly’s comedy The Flattering Word in 1926, and

The College Widow in 1929. In 192U they provided actors for a demon­ stration of pageant production for the mission study institute of the

Federated Churches of Cleveland and in 192$ were one of a number of church drama groups that presented scenes which made up the World

Service Pageant at Masonic Hall. The dramas produced as special events by church organizations not regularly producing plays were almost always instructive or Biblical. The Busy Ladies' Aid was performed at the Glenville First Methodist Church to inspire the Ladies' Aid members p "to help more with repairs for the Church." The drama Pobal, written

by the minister, was produced by and for members of the Bolton Avenue

ISee above, p. 33, footnote 1. ^CPD, May 2U, 1920, p. 8. 1U6

Presbyterian Church "to show how Christian ideals were permeating

Korean society."1 Christmas and Easter plays were taken from Biblical events as were occasional other productions, e.g., a February pro­ duction of Ruth at the Broadway Methodist-Episcopal Church in 192!?.

The lectures and readings given at the Protestant churches were small in number and did not often involve major figures of either the

amateur or professional theatre world. Newspaper accounts describe a

total of sixteen such events for all Protestant churches over the entire

decade. Julia Arthur, the only recorded personage obtained from the

commercial theatre, addressed the Wisucacehon Club of the First Divine

Church in 1929 on the subject "The Truth of the D r a m a . Alice Tucker

West, staff member of the Tucker School of Expression (Cleveland), gave

dramatic readings in a mixed reading-and-musicale program of the Women's

Association of the Mayflower Congregational Church. The remainder of

the readings and talks seems to have been delivered by members of the

organizations concerned.

Eighteen Protestant church pageants are recorded for the decade,

four of them sponsored by the Federated Churches of Cleveland: Ameri­

ca1 s Unfinished Battles (on Americanism, 1923), Into All the World

(1923), The Light of the World (192U), and The World Service Pageant

(1925). The rest were produced by different churches at different times

spread over the ten years; their titles suggest their subjects, e.g.,

The Challenge of the Cross (West Boulevard Christian Church, 1927),

1CPD, February 2k, 1921, p. 3.

^CPD, January 2$, 1923, p. 3-Bociety. 1U7

Beholdi A King is BornI (Tabor Evangelical Church, 1927), The Resur­

rection (Brooklyn Memorial M. E. Church, 1929), Search for the Light

(Epworth-Euclid M. £. Church, 1923), The Path of Service (Lakewood M. E.

Sunday School, 1921), and The Old Stone Church, an historical work

(Old Stone Presbyterian Church, 1920). As the dates and church sources

of the pageants suggest, they were used throughout the period and by a

number of different denominations.

The YM and YWCA, though not supported financially at this time

by the Protestant churches, were Protestant organizations; the develop­

ment of the YM and YWHA and the Catholic Youth Organization, if nothing

else, testify to that. Both Protestant organizations included drama in

some part of their programs, but the amount of YMCA dramatic activities

was minute, especially when compared to that of the YWCA. The examin­

ation of ten years of Cleveland newspaper and periodical articles,

reports, and books revealed only that the YMCA Social Activities Di­

rector announced in late 1919 that he "fosters dramatic performances,"-*-

that a group of Chinese students presented a Cninese-American drama in

1920 to raise funds for a Chinese library, that another group of Chinese

students presented a play in 1921 illustrating China's determination to

resist the Japanese, that no dramatic activity or instruction was listed

for any of the YMCA program descriptions printed in Cleveland Year Books

from 1920 to 1930, that an Armenian refugee produced a play in 1922

about his flight from the Turks in order to raise funds to support him­

self in college, that two revues were given by large casts of YMCA

-*-CPD, November 16, 1919, p. 1U. 11*8 members, one in 1923 and the other in 1927, and that what appears to be

the only instruction in drama offered at the YMCA was given by a vis­

iting lecturer from the YWCA.

All of the activities of the YWCA seem to have been infused with

an affection for the drama. Although only a few more than seventy items

which dealt with specific dramatic events at the YWCA were turned up in

the research covering the ten-year period, some of these items indicated

continuing programs, and the diffusion of the others among the multi­

tudinous activities of the YWCA suggested strongly that wherever the

drama could be applied, it was. Play production, lectures, pageants,

courses of study, readings, tableaux, playwriting, pantomime, and group

attendance at commercial and amateur theatre performances took place at

one time or another in one or more of the following YWCA activities,

groups, or branches: resident girls of the Central YWCA, Drama Council,

YWCA Department of Religious and General Education, YWCA Music and

Drama Department, YWCA Staff and Board meetings, Adult Education Depart­

ment, Americanization classes, Business Girls' Council, YWCA Commercial

Federation, YWCA French Dramatic Club, YWCA Junior Dramatic Club, the

Triangle Club, the Triangle Players, the Lakewood Branch, El Club

Espanol, Gym and Pool classes, Happy Go Lucky Girls Club, Industrial

Extension Department, Industrial Women's Club, Younger Industrial Girls

of the Central YWCA, the YWCA International Institute, Jolly Junior

Clubs, YWCA Junior Council, Community Fund Plays, YWCA private drama

lesson pupils, the Merry Workers Club, YWCA summer camps, and more to a lit? total of forty-one. In 1920 YWCA membership was 9>200j1 in 1929 it was

10,808, and over 16,000 girls and women were enrolled in regular groups 2 or programs.

A Plain Dealer Women's Page feature writer described dramatic

activities at the YWCA in 1921 as follows:

While school and settlements have miniature stages, and are de­ signing costumes and rehearsing parts, the Y.W.C.A. has been quietly providing a dramatic outlet for thousands of girls whom it has recruited from office, store and shop, and who are as ready to say "let's play" when their day's work is over. The dramatic department of the "Y" under the lead of Miss Emily Maps has been a happy hive of industry this winter, with the designing and making of costumes one of its main industries.3

The writer went on to say that eleven plays had been performed by YWCA

girls and women during that year among which were: Zona Gale's

Neighbors, the Egyptian play Sumurant (a Christmas pantomime), Two

Crooks and a Lady, The Flower Shop, and The Rector. At the time of the

article the YWCA School of Educational Dramatics was offering courses

for college credit in public address, story-telling, stagecraft,

rhythmic dancing, English, costume design, pantomime, pageantry, appre­

ciation of literature, debate, makeup, and the history of literature and

drama, through a staff of eight instructors.^ The School's purpose was

"to develop coaches for plays and instructors and teachers for other

groups who are anxious to work in co-operation with the Music and Drama

Departments."5 The School was described as the "most popular and keenly

•^•Directory of Community Activities, p. 2$0.

2CYB:1929, p. U09. ^CPD, May 1, 1921, p. 1-Women's Section.

^CPD, October 2, 1921, p. 7.

^CPD, November 6, 1921, p. 9« 150 appreciated department in the entire YWCA.In 19 2U it reported a registration of 175 The School, which had been sponsored by the YWCA

Department of Music and Drama, was re-organized in 19.23 and its work taken over directly by the Department. It continued as such through the

decade.

Finally, there are a few other items which characterize the

YWCA's work in drama: the fact that the head of the Drama Department

after 1923, Miss Aleetha Willard, spent the summer of 192k in New York

studying with Richard Boleslavsky,-5 the hiring of Fred McConnell of the

Play House to direct the teaching of stagecraft in 1923,^ the pres­

entation of the old English plays St. George and the Dragon, Pyramus and

Thisbe and Robin Hood for an English May Day celebration,^ and the list

of qualifications of an instructor hired in 1926. The latter was a

graduate of Western Reserve University and of the Carnegie Institute of

Technology School of Drama, had worked at the Play House in Cleveland,

and had experience of some kind on the professional stage.^ The scope

and quality of the YWCA program in the dramatic arts, then, made it one

of the more important institutions concerned with amateur dramatics in

Cleveland in the twenties.

Neither of the other religious sects can approach comparison with

the Jewish congregations insofar as the quality of dramatic activities

llbld. ^CPD, October 5, 192U, p. 8-Society.

^CPD, August 21, 192U, p. 13.

kcPD, September 12, 1923, p. 12. 5q p d , June U, 1922, p. 1-3.

6CPD, February 7, 1926, p. 10-Society. 1SL is concerned. In quantity, reports describing Jewish dramatic events closely approximate the sum of Protestant church and YWCA items (218 to

221*, respectively), and Jewish dramatic activities follow those of the other religions generally in nature with lectures, dramatic readings, and play productions as the principal dramatic preoccupations. The literary level of the plays selected for attention, the professional stature of the lecturers, and the qualifications of the leaders of

Jewish dramatic activities, however, far outrank those found in the other religions.

The forty-six Jewish religious organizations reporting dramatic activities during the twenties were consistent in their choice of plays of high literary quality for study, dramatic readings, and production.

Some of the plays selected for study were: Oscar Wilde1s A Woman of No

Importance (Literary Circle of the Euclid Avenue Temple Sisterhood,

1923), Shaw's St. Joan (Euclid Avenue Temple, 1921*), Beggar on Horseback

(Euclid Avenue Temple Drama Study Group, 1921*), Heartbreak House

(Kehillah B'noth Y'aroel Dramatic Circle, 1921), Hauptmann's The Weavers

(K.B.Y. Dramatic Circle, 1921*), Sutton Vane's Outward Bound (Temple

Women's Association, 1921*), Ibsen's The Wild Duck (Literary Group,

Temple Women's Association, 1923), and Van Druten's Young Woodley

(Literary Group, Temple Women's Association, 1926). Dramatic readings

(usually accompanied by discussion) were selected from the same level

of dramatic literature as the plays studied, e.g., Owen Davis' Icebound,

Synge's The Playboy of the Western World, Ansky's The Dybbuk,

A. E. Thomas' The Witching Hour, Zona Gale's Miss Lulu Bett, St. John l£2

Ervine's Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary, Lessing's Nathan the Wise, Gals­ worthy's The Skin Game, and so on. Many of the plays staged were no exceptions Wilde's An Ideal Husband, Andreyev's He Who Gets Slapped,

Sudermann's Johannesfeuer, Ibsen's A Doll's House, Bennett and Knoblock's

Milestones, and the like. These last were interspersed with shows of less literary significances Mary Tally's farce Mary's Ankle, Rachel

Crothers' Mary the Third, the comedy of reincarnation The Road to

Yesterday, and similar plays.

The importance that the Jewish religious organizations placed on their dramatic activities may be gauged by the quality of the figures they brought in to direct, lecture, or perform for them. From the world of theatre professionals they obtained Maurice Schwartz, Charles

Rann Kennedy and his wife Edythe Wynn Matthison, Jacob Ben-Ami, Louis

Anspacher, Walter Pritchard Eaton, two members of the Habima Players company, and a number of others. From Cleveland they procured

Professors Myers and Barnard of Western Reserve University and Professor

S. H. Clark of Chicago University, Fred McConnell, Max Eisenstadt, and

K. Elmo Lowe of the Play House, Helen Haiman Joseph— nationally known

Cleveland puppeteer, Samuel Bradley of the Bradley Players, Katherine

Wick Kelly,^ Stella Adler, and outstanding persons from Cleveland's

amateur organizations.

There were a number of additional dramatic activities which brought distinction to the Jewish groups. A children's theatre program was begun in 1926 "to do for children what the Play House does for

ISee above, p. 139. adults.1’-*- A writing contest for a play to be produced as a part of the

1926 Purim festival was held. An annual lecture series which included talks on art, drama, travel, and the American scene was instituted in

1927 and by the end of the second year was averaging an attendance of

1,200 per lecture.^ Jewish women's groups were active in the promotion of subscription sales to the Little Theatre Guild. For a few years the

Hillel Players of Ohio State University were brought in to perform,

Houghton's Hindle Wakes in 1928, for example, and The Dybbuk in 1929.

A Young Men's and Women's Hebrew Association, which included dramatics as one of its activities, was created in 1919 and had developed a mem­ bership of 1,600 by 19203 but was discontinued in 1923.

The Jewish religious groups supported their dramatic activities with staging facilities. A commodious auditorium was part of the Jewish

Center when it opened in 1922. The Euclid Avenue Temple added a new auditorium to its buildings in I92I4, and the Temple on the Heights buildings, which were dedicated in 1926, included a 1,200 seat "fellow­

ship hall" to be used "for dramatics and other activities."*4-

The last and possibly most significant single aspect of Jewish

dramatic activities to be noted in contrast to those of the Protestants and Catholics was the close relationship between Jewish amateur dra­ matics and the American commercial theatre. The plays and guest

artists named in the last few pages already have suggested a considerable

■kiPD, October 3, 1926, p. 2-Amusements. 2CYB;1928, p. 126.

3Directory of Community Activities, p. 2l±9. 15U awareness of the dramatic literature of the contemporary American and

European theatres. In addition, examination of the Jewish scheduling of readings and discussions revealed that in enough cases to make it appear intentional these took place during or very close to the Cleveland visit or the New York run of the play concerned. Molnar's The Play's the Thing (New York;1926-27) and Pollock's The Enemy (New York:1925-26), for example, were running in New York when they were used for dramatic readings and discussions by the Literary Circle of the Euclid Avenue

Temple Sisterhood. Lonsdale's Aren't We All was being presented as a coached reading by a cast from the same Literary Circle during the play's Cleveland run in 1925. The K.B.Y. Dramatic Club performed a reading of The Skin Game a few months after its Cleveland run and of

Desire Under the Elms about a month before its arrival in the city.

The Literary Study Circle of the Temple Women's Association presented their reading and discussion of He Who Gets Slapped a few weeks after its Cleveland appearance. Furthermore, the Drama Association of the

Euclid Avenue Temple gave as its reason for producing Clyde Fitch's play from American history, Barbara Frietchie, the fact that the com­ mercial theatre production of Drinkwater's Abraham Lincoln had obtained such a "universal public response.

Returaing for a moment to the repeated failure of Yiddish stock companies to obtain sufficient support in Cleveland to establish them­ selves, 2 the possibility comes to mind that these companies failed because the concern of the Jewish community was for the best of the

ICPD, May 1, 1921, p. 2-B. 2See above, p. 111. l # contemporary drama of the Western world, not for the folk and national drama of their countries of origin nor for the drama common to their faith. Some productions in Yiddish and a few English translations of

Yiddish plays were produced by the Jewish religious organizations, but these composed a very small minority of the dramatic events recorded for these groups. It seems more just to laud this portion of the Jewish population of Cleveland for its assimilation of the best aspects, theatrically at least, of its adopted environment than to lament its failure to support the culture which its members had chosen to leave behind them.l

Settlement Houses

In 1919 ten social settlement houses were serving Cleveland's

"depressed areas," the immigrant and negro neighborhoods of the city very much in need of the educational, recreational and, in many cases, moral assistance offered them. The settlement houses had been serving in some instances since before the turn of the century (Alta House,

Goodrich House, Hiram House, and Council Educational Alliance) and in another for only a few months (Merrick House). Two more came into existence during the decade (University Center and Christian Community

Center). Most of them had been founded by Cleveland churches, five of them by Protestant denominations, one by the National Catholic War

lit is pertinent to note here that with the exception of the dramatic activities at the Jewish settlement House, the Council Educa­ tional Alliance, to be dealt with presently, no Jewish dramatic activity is recorded for any other groups than the temple-associated organi­ zations already mentioned.

2Christian Community Center, Goodrich Social Settlement, Play­ house Settlement, West Side Community House, and Social Mission Settlement. 156

Council (Merrick House), and one by the Federation of Jewish Charities

(Council Educational Alliance). These agencies served a great number of people; the aggregate attendance in 1925 at Alta House was reported to have been 137,262, at Council Educational Alliance 216,155 (2,500 individuals enrolled), at East End Neighborhood House 16U,835, at

Playhouse Settlement 135,868 (1,616 individuals enrolled), and at

Hiram House 336,000.^

Although the evidences of dramatic activities at these agencies are fragmentary, the material that does exist indicates continuous, many-levelled, and numerous dramatic endeavors, all of them play pro­ ductions or instruction leading to that end, at most of the settlements.

By the end of the decade seven of the thirteen settlements described in the Cleveland Year Book listed dramatics as one of their activities, and the casual organization of some of these dramatics in addition to what we know of the recorded activities lead us to believe that very probably dramatics in one form or another existed at all of the settle­ ments without concurrent public notices of such. For example, of the ten settlement houses listed for 1920 in the Directory of Community

Activities only two mention dramatics as one of their regular activities yet a list of recommended plays published in 1918 in the bulletin of the

Cleveland Settlement Union reveals that nine of the ten settlements had produced plays from that list. The material available concerning Hiram

lCYB:1926, pp. 310-313.

2"List of Recommended Plays,1' Bulletin of the Cleveland Settlement Union, III, No. 7 (April 30, 19l8), pp. 6-7. 157

House which published its own periodical, Hiram House Life, may serve as an example of conditions very probably existing at the other agencies in Cleveland.

A simple notice in the Eleventh Annual Report of Hiram House published in 1907 is the first available evidence of dramatic activity there. That there existed more than a smattering of it is suggested by the testimony in 1921 of Samuel Bradley, then Director of Bradley

Feature Films, Inc., who said that he owed everything he had accom­ plished in dramatics to his early training at Hiram House.^ The

December, 1919, issue of Hiram House Life listed dramatics as an activity in columns titled "Women and Girls' Work" and "Men and Boys'

Work," and as part of a section describing activities that did not meet every day. In this last box, meetings were listed for a group called

The Pantomime Players and for activities labelled "Italian Dramatics."

This issue also stated that 110 persons had been enrolled in Dramatics in 1917-18 and 157 in 1918-19.^ A 1926 issue of this publication offers evidence of the scope of the uses of the drama by settlement house clubs and groups. The Monday afternoon drama group had presented The Three

Bears. The Thursday afternoon drama group was scheduled to produce The

Selfish Princess. The Marlowe Club had performed The Maker of Dreams at the first evening meeting of the girls' group, diamonds and Toads had been given by the Tuesday drama class at the second children's entertainment, this play having been followed on the same program by

-LCPP, June 5, 1921. Also see above, p. 108.

^Hiram House Life, December 1, 1919. 158 the Chiiseppi Verdi Singing Club's production of The Shoemaker's Shop,

The Hiram House social club was planning to have its play In India ready by February, the same month in which the Skylarkers would present

Rings in the Sawdust. Seven Hiram House boys were in the cast of the play Fingers which was to be a part of the program at the Big Brother convention at the end of January. A patriotic play, The Treason, was to be performed in honor of Washington's Birthday by the Italian-American

citizens clubs. The Ideal Circle, an organization of young men formed

for dramatic, musical, and social purposes, was rehearsing an unnamed

play for presentation in January. The Christmas pageant, Christ Was

Born in Bethlehem, the result of the efforts of the Hiram House Dra­ matic Club, had attracted an audience of over 900 persons.^ Sven the

preceding description does not cover all of the Hiram House dramatic p activities. The Cleveland Year Book noted special projects in puppetry,

and a later issue of Hiram House Life described a series of plays by

some of the different nationality groups served: Russians, Macedonians,

Balkans, and Italians.-3 The fact that newspaper notices of these

activities and those of the other settlement houses are sparse may be

explained partially at least by a notice which appeared in Hiram House

Life: "Persons wishing to form dramatic clubs or to take part in plays

this winter will please see Miss Noble or Miss Winter."^ The statement

^Hiram House Life, "30th Anniversary Issue" [December, 192^1 .

2Pirectory of Civic and Welfare Activities, p. 282.

3Ibid., "Spring Festival 1928" (May 10, 1928).

k m i , No. 2 (October 20, 192?). 159 suggests both the ephemeral and casual nature of the dramatic clubs at the settlement houses and, further, the improbability of the development of large or strong organizations with correspondingly effective publicity committees.

A further understanding of the nature of settlement house dramatic groups may be acquired from comments made by Fonrose- Wain- wright, Chairman of the Dramatic Division of the National Federation of

Settlements. At the Nineteenth Conference of the Federation he felt it necessary to emphasize the fact that drama is an art and should be treated as such. He described typical settlement house casting as the process of fitting the number of roles in a play to the number of people available and decried such practices as faces peeking through slits in the main curtain, agonized voices from behind scenes hissing stage commands, poor makeup, the absence of blocking, and the consistently tardy opening curtains. The settlement house worker, he said, considers the individual player rather than the audience the important aspect of the experience. He advised the group that the individual will only benefit as he learns to practice the art form with skill and pointed out that the selection of good leaders and good plays would help the individuals and improve the general stage of settlement house dra­ matics.^

Two settlement houses stand out as exceptions, at least in part, to the dramatic chaos described above, the Council Educational

Alliance and the Playhouse Settlement (now Karamu House). The quality

■^•Fonrose Wainwright, "Settlement Dramatics," Neighborhood, IV, No. 3 (September, 1 9 3 1 ) , pp. 2 2 6 - 2 3 0 . of the dramatic groups and the leadership at Council Educational

Alliance seems to have bourne the same relationship to that of the other

settlements (Playhouse Settlement excepted) as the Jewish organizations

discussed a few pages back bore to those of the other sects. This equivalence of quality follows naturally from the fact that many of the

same leaders directed or advised the drama programs for both, e.g.,

Fred McConnell, K. Elmo Lowe, Katherine Wick Kelly, and Mrs. Martin

Heydemann (the former Lily Carthew, professional actress). Although

its name was changed two times, a principal dramatic group— the Amici

Club, the Players, or the Drama Workshop— represented the settlement

throughout the decade and presented such works as Pinero's His House in

Order, J. Hartley Manners' comedy The House Next Door, Lennox Robinson's

The White-Headed Boy, Moliere's The Doctor in Spite of Himself and a

number of one-acts. Additional clubs and classes in drama were offered

for adults and children, a children's theatre program being formally

established late in the decade. The playlets were given at the main

settlement house and the more ambitious productions at public school

and Public Library auditoriums and at two of the local movie theatres.

Council Educational Alliance's dramatic program was evidently strong

enough and well enough staffed as early as 1923 to be able to accept

the charge of the Cleveland Recreation Council to organize the Cleve­

land Association of Amateur Dramatic Clubs and to run the Recreation

Council's Dramatic Institute.-*- The members of the settlement house

dramatic staff took pride in their program as being "an excellent

1-See above, p. 129. 161 training school for those who have continued drama as a hobby or as a business" and held up as an example a former participant who had won honors with the Western Reserve University Debate Team and was in demand as a director in little theatre groups.1 Audience support was such that by 1926 the drama program was almost self-supporting, an unusual state of affairs for a settlement house.2

An early event in the history of the Playhouse Settlement draws attention to the agency immediately, the decision of Rowena and Russell

Jelliffe, founders and directors of the agency, to shift from the usual

settlement curriculum of games, athletics, and classes in the practical

arts to the fine arts.

Cautiously they [the Jelliffes} noted what seemed unmistakable signs on all sides of the artistic impulse-snatches of song, fleeting jigs, bits of superb make-believe, shy efforts to decorate the premises. Aimless and untutored efforts, to be sure, but the real thing nevertheless. They noted, too, that such standard programs as sports seemed to bring no lasting satisfaction and did nothing in a positive way to improve the future for the partici­ pants. Above all, they noted that Negroes encountered less opposition and got quicker recognition in artistic pursuits than in most other careers.3

Mrs. Jelliffe decided to try theatre first and, despite her inexperience

in the field, began a children's dramatic group. By 1920 this group

had inspired interest on the part of the adults, and during the winter

of that year a group of six of them began meeting to organize a drama

club. Little progress was made until late in 1921 when Mrs. Jelliffe

was requested by the group to become its director. She reduced the

ICPD, November 28, 1926, p. 2-Amusements. 2Ibid.

3Clayton Fritchey, "Karamu," Junior Red Cross Journal, XVIII, No. U, Part I (December, 19Ul)« social side of the club's activities, led the members toward the serious study of drama, and commenced a production schedule that began with three productions per year of groups of one-act plays1 and included an increased number of productions and of full-length plays as the decade progressed. In mid-January of 1922 the group, then calling themselves the Dumas Players, visited with Charles Gilpin who was O playing the leading role in The Emperor Jones at the Shubert-Colonial.

Following an inspirational talk and a gift of fifty dollars from him, they renamed themselves the Gilpin Players. For the next five years they produced their programs, consisting almost entirely of one-act plays, in schools and halls and even old beer halls around the neighborhood. During the last part of this period, however, they were able to purchase an empty saloon-poolroom^ and to convert it to a

120-seat theatre. They named it Karamu (Swahili: "house of enter­ tainment") and opened on February 2U, 1927 with a program of-three one- act plays, Medicine Show by Stuart walker, Simon, the Cyrenian by

Ridgeley Torrence, and Off Nag's Head by Dougald McMillan. Once in this home of their own they began to present six productions, including one revival, per year and to supplant their groups of one-act plays with full-length shows. By the end of the 1928-29 season two-thirds of the

^•Frorn a talk delivered by Mrs. Jelliffe to the Library Club of Cleveland, March 5, 1930.

2Above, p. 93.

3possibly the outstanding contribution of Prohibition to the dramatic arts. 163 plays of the season were full length and they had achieved a production record of seventy one-act and three-act plays since their beginnings.

The Gilpin Players' early productions were of contemporary plays such as any perceptive little theatre group might select:

Tarkington's Clarence, Charles Brooks' Aappin* Wharf, The Bishop's

Candlesticks, The Monkey's Paw, Sham, Suppressed Desires, and the like.

As the decade proceeded, however, more and more folk plays and negro

life plays began to fill their programs. Ridgeley Torrence's Granny

Maumee, Simon, the Cyrenian, and The Rider of Dreams, Lulu Vollmer's

Sun Up, Willis Richardson's Compromise, and Paul Green's The Field God,

In Abraham's Bosom, The No 'Count Boy, White Dresses, and Old wash

Lucas, and Arthur Hopkins' Moonshine appeared on their later programs.

The success of their productions is established partly by the growth of

their program, partly by the run of In Abraham's Bosom which as men­

tioned earlier played to crowded houses for two weeks at the Little

Theater in 1928^ after its run at Karamu, and partly by the reviews

given their productions of Wappin' Wharf and In Abraham's Bosom. Grace

Kelly of the Plain Dealer described the former as "a smooth, full per­

formance, with lots of animation and no spots that dragged."2 Ward

Marsh wrote that the Gilpins' performance of the Paul Green play was

"amazingly smooth and sympathetic" and that the players had "little of

the amateur flavor about themselves."-3

The presence of the Gilpin Players did not prevent the

l3ee above, p. 116. ^CPD, May 6, 1927, p. 18.

3CPD, June 12, 1928, p. 21. ^CPD, January 19, 1929. 16H development of other dramatic activities at the settlement. The small size of the group, six in 1920 and U7 in 1929, would tend to prevent that. The children's theatre program grew to such an extent that by late 1929 a formal organization for children was performing weekly.1

Moreover, there were other drama clubs for both youngsters and adults.

The significance of the dramatic program at the Playhouse

Settlement as a part of that settlement1s contributions to the further­ ance of good race relations is well known and not our subject here, but the importance of the dramatic program alone is attested to by the

Rockefeller Grant given to Ridgeley Torrence for study of the program.

Torrence pointed out the unique contribution of the Playhouse Settlement in tne Negro dramatic talent it had developed and the potential it had demonstrated for producing even more. "The Negro has made a peculiar and distinctive contribution to the field of art," Torrence said, "He nas not expressed himself in drama as yet."2 Nine years after the end of the decade under examination Mrs. Jelliffe pointed out that Karamu

Theatre had encouraged Negro groups in other parts of the country to write plays and to set up their own theatres. "Now," she said, "Negroes in the most obscure mining towns, on plantations, in villages are writing and producing plays, seriously and conscientiously."J Of the settlement houses serving the drama in Cleveland in the twenties, then, the Playhouse Settlement was without doubt the most significant

ICPD, January 19, 1929. ^Ibid.

3cieveland News, January 3, 1939. . - 165 nationally and at least as important as any other to the growth of amateur drama in Cleveland itself.

Nationality Groups

In addition to the dramatic activities of the Cleveland nationality groups which came into being at the settlement houses there existed a number of ethnic dramatic activities which were independent of the settlements. The Germans and the Czechs in particular, the

Lithuanians and the Poles to a lesser extent, and a few other groups had performing theatrical societies. The range of offerings was wide; some of the organizations were dedicated to the presentation of the drama of the homeland; others played light or sensational material selected from the offerings of American commercial theatre. The Cleve­ land Year Book described the nationality group theatres generally in

1920:

Among some of the foreign groups there is a spontaneous interest in dramatic performances. There are foreign speaking clubs formed with the sole purpose of the presentation of national­ istic plays and comedies in a lighter vein. These productions, however, must be considered more in the light of recreation than of art, except that enthusiasm has persisted for years and occasion­ ally gropes toward something higher. For the most part, wherever these foreign groups create anything artistic, it is folk-art, for the majority of them are of the peasant class.1

Only three cities in the world surpassed Cleveland in the size

of its Czech population in 1919, Prague, Vienna, and Chicago, and the

Cleveland Caechs possessed a higher literacy rate (98.5$) than that of

1CYB:1921, pp. 280-281. 166 the native American population.1 Although English language reports of nationality group dramatic events were rare, the Czech activities were copious enough to attract the attention of writers concerned with

Cleveland in general (in the Cleveland Year Book) and those interested in the Czechs as an immigrant group (Ledbetter's The Czechs of Cleve­ land) . These reports state that Czech drama in Cleveland began in 1863 and that by 1920 almost every Czech organization had a branch concerned with play production— churches, lodges, and cultural societies. Dances were almost always followed by the performance of a drama. The Sokol, the Czech cultural society, used dramatic training as a means towards achieving sound minds. The Bohemian Socialist Party organizations, nine in all, often had dramatic sections. The Czech language schools used

Czech dramatic literature, principally folk plays, as a means of language teaching. The adult groups produced plays dealing with their national

history for the most part but were also interested in Shakespeare and

English language plays, some of which (The Count of Monte Cristo, The

Two Orphans) they translated into Czech and revived frequently. In

1921 there were six Czech dramatic organizations that produced a total

of fourteen productions during that year. A single issue of a Cleve­

land Czech newspaper in 1919 contained announcements of fifteen different

dramatic performances to be staged within a period of two weeks in

various Czech centers about the city.^ In the same year the sixty mem­

bers of the dramatic society Tyl were producing a drama monthly from

^Eleanor E. Ledbetter, The Czechs of Cleveland (Cleveland: The Americanization Committee, 1919), pp. 7-8.

^Ibid., p. 13. 167 October to May. Another group presented one Shakespearean play each year. The Boleslav Joblosky Dramatic Society presented plays "regu­ larly" on the stage of the parochial school connected with St. Prokop's church, a stage large enough to hold 300 children and provided with several sets of scenery. The Antonin Dvorak Dramatic Society's 300 members produced plays "at frequent intervals."

At the beginning of the decade there were theatre facilities in five Czech national halls in Cleveland. The Bohemian National Hall had

a small theatre for children's entertainments and a large theatre of

1,000 seats with accompanying checkrooms, retiring, refreshment, and

dressing rooms. The Bohemian Sokol Hall had a pavilion for stage presentations. The Bohemian American Hall boasted a stage and dressing rooms and a fine drop curtain. Another, the Jan Amos Komensky Hall, possessed a set of scenery costing $700. The Bohemian Lodge Hall members had constructed for themselves a transformable stage, gym and

meeting hall. A number of Czech groups owned ampitheatres in the countiy

where they put on dramatic performances in the summer.

Whether these Czech dramatic productions were more recreational

than artistic, as many of the nationality group productions were said to

have been,l is not reported. The Czech singing societies, which appear

to have been closely associated with the dramatic groups and occasion­

ally joined them in productions, had a reputation for excellence. One

native American visitor to a Czech production of Blossom Time pronounced

it "equal, and in some respects superior, to the professional performance

Above, p. 163. 168 given at the Hanna Theater."*' It would seem probable, though by no means established, that the long production records of Czech drama societies, the number of Czech groups with dramatic programs, the ex­ tensive facilities dedicated to serving this Muse, and the excellent quality of the work of their associates in the singing societies would tend to develop higher standards of dramatic production for the Czechs than is reported for the Cleveland nationality groups as a whole.

Programs in dramatic production among the Cleveland German groups appear to have been extensive but less so than among the Czechs. r\ The first German amateur productions in Cleveland began in 1872.

Three years later a dramatic section of the Social Turn Verein began to present three to four German language plays each year and continued to

do so until 1926 when they became the Turner Players-3 and shifted to a mixed program of popular English language plays and old and new plays in

German, e.g., Sudermann’s The Good Repute, the American farce Nearly

Married, and a German play concerning a disastrous flood, Per Strom.

Bach year this group and its predecessor toured a dramatic production to one other Ohio city.^ The vola Club, a dramatic organization

associated with the Ninth Reformed Church, presented annually a farce or light comedy, most of them from the Bolton-Middleton type of light

drama. The Walther Leagues produced a number of light dramas at inter­ vals scattered over the decade, most of the plays of the quality

lHarry F. Payer, "The Czechs and the Bohemians,11 manuscript of a speech delivered at the Jewish Temple, February 19, 1928.

^Cleveland Press, October 20, 1950.

^CPD, December 12, 1926, p. 2-Amusements. ^Ibid. 169 inferred by the title of one presented in 1928, The Mummy and the

Mumps. Other groups, the Jewel Dramatic Club, the Transylvania Society, the dramatic club of the German Beneficial Union, and the Inter-Nos

Club, some of them organized for the production of plays, some of them branches of organizations formed for other purposes, offered plays ranging in type from The Doll's House (in English) to Namenlos, a new

German language play written by a Clevelander.

Polish, Lithuanian, Hungarian, Irish, Danish, Slovak, and

Slovenian societies produced similar if not as many dramatic activities as the Germans and the Czechs. The Poles and Lithuanians appear to have been almost as active dramatically as the Germans; the other nationalities were much less concerned with the drama. The Lithuanians were noted for their Theatrical and Choral Society which began to present weekly performances during the winter seasons following the construction of their new hall in 1922. Their most popular dramas in­ cluded Rut Vil, the story of the Lithuanian Joan of Arc, and a

Lithuanian translation of East Lynne composed by one of their sixteen- year-olds.

Although there were programs established to promote the welfare

of the immigrants in Cleveland, e.g., those of the settlement houses, the Americanization classes and activities of the YM and YWCA and of the Public School System, and the work of the Public Library branches,^

the immigrant communities were little appreciated or understood. Their

dramatic activities, likewise, seem to have had little if any effect on

^Above, pp. 13-lU. 170 those of the native American Clevelanders. Raymond Moley, Chairman of the Cleveland Americanization Committee, explained the isolation of the nationality groups as follows:

The surprising lack of knowledge among Americans of the peoples who have sought homes in this country may be the chief reason why assimilation has been so long delayed. When sympathy and under­ standing were not to be found among Americans the newcomers sought it among their own kind. Hence "foreign colonies" and the widely- heralded failure of the melting pot.1

Frederick C. Wolfe, who arrived in Cleveland from Czechoslo­ vakia in the early years of the decade, stated in a recent interview that in the twenties the members of the Cleveland immigrant groups simply did not feel themselves a part of the commercial theatre audiences nor were they invited into the amateur, sometimes society-led, groups.^ Consequently the dramatic activities of the immigrant amateur groups proceeded through the decade on a path quite separate from and little affected by those of the native American Clevelanders.

Educational Institutions

The educational institutions of Cleveland were no exception to the wide interest in amateur drama which took hold of the city in the twenties. Furthermore, these institutions were notable for the growth which occurred in their dramatic programs during the decade as well as for the part their activities added to the total picture of Cleveland

amateur dramatics. The colleges and universities, the professional

3-In Eleanor Ledbetter, The Jugoslavs of Cleveland (Cleveland: The Cleveland Americanization Committee,'1918)',' p. 3.

^Interview, July 1$, I960. Hr. Wolfe is the present owner and manager of radio station WLOK in Cleveland. 171 schools, the public secondary and elementary schools, and the private schools, sectarian and otherwise, all contributed to the general activity in various amounts and through various kinds of dramatic activities: play production, courses of study, special lectures, pageants, and so on.

Adalbert College (men) and the College for Women, each a part of Western Reserve University, were by far the most outstanding of the

Cleveland institutions of higher education in the development of inde­ pendent student dramatic clubs, faculty-supervised dramatic productions, and courses of instruction in dramatic literature and aspects of play production. In the school year 1919-20 Adelbert offered academic work in the field of drama only through courses in dramatic literature.

Ur. Arthur F, White of the Department of English taught "Shakespeare,"

"The English Drama from the Beginning to 1780," and "Modern Drama," and

the Department of Romance Languages offered reading in dramatic liter­

ature at the advanced levels.^ In 1922-23 a course called "Speech

Making and Dramatic Interpretation" was added to the English Department's

catalog section. A year later the title of the course was expanded to

"Speech Making, Dramatic Interpretation and Production." By 1925-26

the drama aspect of the course had been freed from the speech section; a

full-fledged course dealing with the production of plays, "Dramatic

Interpretation and Production," taught by Mr. Barclay Leathern of the

English Department entered the curriculum. By 1927-28, two years later,

Mr. Leathern's academic program offered "Elementary Play Production,"

IWestern Reserve University Bulletin, XXII, No. 1, pp. 82, 83, 89, 9U-951 172

"Advanced Play Production," and a comprehensive course entitled

"Introduction to the History and Technique of the Stage," a two-term course consisting of lectures and observation of rehearsals at the

Cleveland Play House and taught by five members of the Play House staff including Fred McConnell, Directorj Max Eisenstadt, Technical Director; and Richard Rychtarik, Designer. The 1928-29 courses in drama,

"Dramatic Interpretation and Production" and "Stagecraft and Direction," were listed under the newly established Department of Speech.

Student theatricals at Adelbert in 1919 operated independently of the curriculum as the Adelbert Dramatic Club. The records indicate that the students presented one production a year, in 1919-20 a three- act play written by a member of the club, and in 1920-21 a group of four one-acts: The bonder Hat, A Might at an Inn, Free Speech, and

Brink of Silence. In 1921-22 the Club produced four original one-act plays written by members of Professor White's "English UO" class and, under the direction of Barclay Leathern (then a law student at the

University), a bill of three one-acts, The Game of Chess and two comedies, In 1999 and Barbara. Like other dramatic clubs at colleges for men the Adelbert group toured their shows to other towns and sponsored the productions of visiting male college groups. Unlike the dramatic clubs of the other colleges, the Adelbert Dramatic Club did not originate and tour musical productions. In 1922-23, for example,

Adelbert took the full-length farce Stop Thief (New York: 1912) to

Warren and Akron, Ohio during the Christmas holidays and planned a tour 173 of the .Bast for the spring vacation.This production was especially notable for being the first of a growing number of occasions on which students from the College for Women were used, the circumstance having been made possible by the presence of Mrs. Barclay Leathern as chaperone and prompter.

During the next two years the Adelbert players, now calling themselves The Sock and Buskin Club, presented the farce A Fair of

Sixes (New Yorks 191U) and Booth Tarkington's Tweedies. In 192^-23 the group increased its program to five shows including Galsworthy's

Justice and Milne's The Dover Road as well as commercial theatre farces, continuing its new policy of casting women students in the female roles.

As the decade went.on, the number of productions per year remained about the same but improved somewhat in literary quality as such works as

Rostand's The Romancers, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and

Hughes' Hell-Bent for Heaven increasingly supplanted the commercial theatre farces and melodramas of the earlier programs. Three events of particular interest occurred during the last five years of the decade5 the remodelling in 1926 of Eldred Hall on the Western Reserve

University campus to provide a 137-seat theatre, the agreements with four Ohio and Pennsylvania colleges to exchange performances of major productions, and the appearance in 1929 of a Speech Department in­ structor as director, in addition to Barclay Leathern, of some of the dramatic club plays. An indication of the interest in the dramatic

^-CPD, December 2ij, 1922, p. 6-Women's Magazine.

2CPP, April 29, 1923, p. U. 17U

club was obtained from a 1928 newspaper article which stated that normally about 100 students tried out for each play.1

The dramatic activities at the College for Women developed more slowly than those at Adelbert and never became as extensive. Four

dramatic literature courses, "Shakespeare," "Shakespeare and Elizabethan

Drama," "The English Drama from 15>80 to 161*2," and "Modern Drama," and

foreign language advanced reading courses (French, Italian, German,

Greek, and Latin) in dramatic literature, were offered throughout the

decade by the departments of English, Foreign Languages, and Classics

respectively. In 1925-26 Mildred I. Throne, the new instructor in

speech and dramatics, introduced three courses, "Fundamentals of Ex­

pression," "Argumentation and Debate," and "Oral Interpretation of

Literature" to the English Department curriculum. Two years later Miss

Throne added two new courses, "Play Production" and "Advanced Inter­

pretation and Acting."

The production activities of the dramatic club at the College

for Women were fewer in number and more decorous in nature than those at

Adelbert, decorous in the sense that almost no contemporary commercial

theatre farces or melodramas were presented, and more vintage works,

e.g., The Trojan Women and Ralph Roister Doister, were programmed. The

number of public presentations rose slowly through the decade from one

a year at the beginning to three or four at the end, depending on the

productivity of the stage production or writing classes. The literary

quality of the usual public production may be typified by the following

ICPD, December 30, 1928, p. 8. 175 plays which the group performed: The Admirable Crichton, Alice Sit-

By-the-Fire, Borneo and Juliet, and Mr. Pim Passes By.

Comment on the production quality of the club's performance was limited to a compliment received early in the decade on the skill in diction demonstrated by the student actors.^- In 1928 the club had eighty members and, according to Mildred Throne, a group of approxi­ mately 200 aspirants at the beginning of each year.^ Many of the directors of the dramatic club's plays were obtained from the Play

House. Verda Stewart, an active member of the Play House in its pre-

McConnell days (before 1921-22), Jeanette Geoghigan, Play House actress of the early McConnell era, and K. Elmo Lowe of the Play House staff, at one time or suiother were responsible for producing the club's plays. Soon after her arrival (1925-26) Mildred Throne began to direct most of the plays, and in the last year of the decade Alpha Roth, a new instructress in drama at the College for Women, assumed directing duties. A number of short plays, particularly those produced by writing or production classes, were directed by students.

Other dramatic activities than those of the College for Women and Adelbert College drama clubs and curricula existed at Western

Reserve University. The language departments of the last-named colleges presented annual productions of foreign language one-act plays.

The Department of Religious Education produced a few pageants. The

College for Women students took part each year in a "Stunt Night" at which prizes were given for the best original skits depicting events of

■kAbove, pp. 135-136. ^CPD, December 30, 1928, p. 8. 176 campus life and in "Tree Day" for which an original full-length play was written each year, as well as in other miscellaneous productions by, for example, the sophomore class or the Department of Physical Education.

Toward the end of the decade the students of the School of Education formed a dramatic club, Scandrama, and produced a play each year. A few outside lecturers, Zona Gale for one, spoke to special groups on special occasions, and the McBride Lecture Foundation brought four tneatre figures of national importance to its annual series of public lectures at the University, Percy MacKaye (1923), Barrett Clark (1926),

Fred Koch (1927), and Thomas Dickinson (1927).

The other Cleveland colleges, all of them smaller than Western

Reserve University, offered generally less inclusive programs. Cleve­ land College, an institution for adult education which became affili­ ated with Western Reserve University in 1926, opened in 1923 with course offerings in drama closely approximating those at Adelbert and, with Barclay Leathern on its faculty, continued to offer these courses through the end of the decade. A drama production group came into ex­ istence there in 1928. Notre Dame College and Ursuline College, small

Roman Catholic schools for women, taught dramatic literature and possessed student dramatic groups but did not give stage production courses. St. Ignatius Jesuit College, which became John Carroll Uni­ versity in 1923-2U, opened the decade with course work in dramatic literature very similar to that at Adelbert and added no production courses. A student drama club became active in 1928 and recruited its female cast members from Notre Dame and Ursuline Colleges. 177

The dramatic activities of Cleveland's professional schools are worth a passing note. The Cleveland Kindergarten Primary Training

School produced a scattering of masques and miracle plays in the first three years of the decade, four of them recorded by the newspapers.

The Cleveland School of Art was concerned with pageants and tableaux

for a few of the early years. A notable aspect of the school's 1921

pageant was the use of a new lighting effect supplied by the General

Electric Company, glass caps substituting for gels as light coloring

devices. This was the first time such a device had been used for a

public event according to the Company.^- As the decade passed, the

reports of Art School productions shifted to those of shadow plays and

marionette shows produced for children by the students of the sec­

ondary education section of the school. The Cleveland School of Edu­

cation dramatic activities ran the gamut from a pageant which incor­

porated 200 children into its cast to annual productions of such full-

length plays as Tarkington's Penrod or Barrie's Alice Sit By the Fire.

Somewhere in between lie the production of Moliere's The Learned Ladies

by the French students of the school, a Thanksgiving pageant "patterned

after the festivals of the Ancient G r e e k s , and a reading of The Passion

Play by Professor Woodward, the Professor of Speech at Western Reserve

University. Scattered reports of activities at the Cleveland Institute

of Music, the Cleveland Normal School, and the Schauffler Missionary

Training School indicate occasional ventures into the dramatic arts but

no established programs.

icPD, June 2, 1921. 2CPD, November 23, 1921, p. 13. 178

A comparison of the state of the dramatic programs of the leading Cleveland colleges with those of the several American colleges and universities discussed earlier^" shows the Cleveland institutions of higher education far behind the field in the development of their programs. No Cleveland college or university had a department of drama even by the end of the decade. No Cleveland institution approached the average number of productions scheduled by Cornell, North Carolina,

Northwestern, Iowa, Carnegie Institute of Technology, or Yale. No

Cleveland institution was granting Bachelor of Arts degrees in drama to

say nothing of offering graduate programs in the field. Certainly the

dramatic programs of Cleveland colleges contributed to the sum of amateur

dramatic activity in Cleveland, but any rating of tneir national

standing would be of little account.

The deficiencies of the dramatic programs of the Cleveland

institutions of higher education were thoroughly compensated for by

the activities of the secondary and elementary schools. Kenneth

Macgowan's statement concerning Cleveland's nationwide lead in dra- 2 matics was accompanied by the intimation that the schools were greatly

responsible for- tnat eminence. In an appendix to his report on the

American amateur theatre groups, Macgowan listed the one-act and full-

length plays produced during the school year 1928-29 by the high schools

and junior high schools of Cleveland. The total number of productions,

lAbove, p. 37. 2Above, p. 130. 179 not performances, was 1+03-1 There were productions by the elementary schools, and these, of course, would increase that sum.

The basic decisions that produced this amount of dramatic activity were made, naturally, by the board of Education, but the imple­ menting force behind the development was undoubtedly that of Dr.

Clarence Stratton, Head of the English Department of the Cleveland

Public School System, who was appointed to that position in 1921 and held it well beyond the end of the decade. Dr. Stratton had obtained a Ph.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania where he had been elected to Phi Beta Kappa. After extensive travel and study in Europe and America he began to produce plays with amateurs in St. Louis while an instructor of English at a high school in that city. During his fifteen years in that position he produced high school plays, designed settings for them, and also managed to write a number of one-act plays.

His arrival in Cleveland at the beginning of the decade presaged the great development of dramatic activities in the public schools.

The Cleveland Year Book described dramatic activities in the public schools in 1920-21 as follows:

There is no department of drama in the Cleveland Public Schools, although there are departments of music and art. Oc­ casionally a stimulating play is presented at one of the high schools but such dramas are produced primarily with the idea of education or recreation and are the results of the individual enthusiasm of some teacher, not part of an organized plan.2

Dr. Stratton's influence was felt almost immediately. In the fall of the year of his arrival, Katherine wick Kelly, drama instructor at

iFootlights Across America, pp. 369-372.

2CYB:1921, p. 280. 180

Glenville High School initiated a course in dramatic appreciation, and by the school year 1922-23 two of the city's high schools had es­ tablished departments of "dramatic expression." The Year Hook covering that period stated that "all of the high schools in the city have been putting more stress upon sincere dramatic expression.""*' The two de­ partments of drama were described as "supervised by special teachers and supplied with reasonably good stage equipment."2 By 1929 the Year

Book could say:

Twelve out of fourteen large high schools in Cleveland have en­ thusiastic groups working in drama. These particular schools have modern stages in connection with their auditoriums, a sign that high school dramatics have made a distinct place for them­ selves in the curriculums< of today.-3

Clarence Stratton stated that by the year under discussion every Cleve­ land high school had a production course in drama.^

The literary quality of the plays produced,by the schools, as indicated by Macgowan's list and contemporary newspaper reports, was generally good and sometimes excellent. Works by G. B. Shaw, Shakes­ peare, Sudermann, Dunsany, Yeats, Oscar Wilde, as well as Barrie,

Quinteros, Milne, Kaufman and Connelly, Totheroh, Kreyraborg, Millay and

Lady Gregory appear frequently in both sources, but the sources also in­

clude American commercial theatre shows of less than fine quality:

Captain Applejack, Peg O' My Heart, Nightmare, Green Stockings, Eliza

Comes to Stay, His Uncle's Niece, and such, in addition to plays not

even up to the standards of the commercial theatre: Spinster's

1CYB:1923, p. 155. 2Ibid.

3CYB:1929, p. 173. ^In Macgowan, p. 172. 181

Convention, Bachelor's Club, and Six Sharps, One Flat, for example.

William McDermott stirred up quite a fuss in 1923 when he wrote: "The lack of any apparent connection between the schools, particularly the

secondary, and the respectable drama is something that has given us

cause for reflection before.The headline of the article read:

"Belasco Seems to be More Educational Than Schools in Production of

Plays." His essay had been prompted by his reaction to a pronouncement

from Equity Magazine concerning the popularity of three plays, Aaron

Slick from Pumpkin Creek, Deacon Dubbs1 Second Wife, and Fascinating

Fanny Brown, the ones most frequently produced by 300 Ohio high schools

according to a survey made by the magazine. A number of Cleveland

teachers protested the application of his criticisms to their programs, but others certainly could not stand on solid ground. The major play

program presented by East Technical High School from 1919-20 to 1923-2U,

for example, consisted of Beau Brummel, the melodrama Under Cover, The

Bells of Beaujolais, Clarence, and Kobin Hood, according to newspaper

announcements.

One aspect of the drama of which we hear less today, the use of

dramatization as a teaching device, was the subject of some enthusiasm,

particularly in the early years of the decade but to some extent through­

out the period. Foreign language teachers then, as they do today, used

foreign language plays as an oral teaching device, but these teachers of

the twenties also had their students dramatize, for example, Roman

events and characters as a means of vivifying the historical aspects of

iCPD, October 19, 1923, p. 18. 182 classical studies.1 It was reported that during the years between

1916 and 1923 a great deal of time formerly spent on the mechanics of reading and literature had been used in dramatization of the same.2

In 1926 the Cleveland Year Book remarked on the growing emphasis in the

Public School System on "activity programs," e.g., preparing dramati­ zations, and making dresses or cooking, which furnish "valuable correlations in arithmetic, geography, history, language, and other subjects.Lillian Collins, teacher of English and Drama Coach at

Thomas Jefferson Junior High School spoke to the Members of the Cleve­ land Federation of Women's Clubs in 1929 on "Teaching English Dra­ matically.

The passion for the drama exhibited by the public schools evidently left no one associated with them untouched. The Parent-

Teachers Associations presented plays at their meetings perhaps once a year, some of them by the students of the related school but most of them by the adults. The Assistant Superintendent of Schools composed a pageant, The Light, which depicted the dire results of cutbacks in school appropriations. It was performed for the National Education

Association Convention in 1920 and later that year at B. F. Keith's

Theatre for Clevelanders. The Board of Education members in 1926 wrote and were responsible for the directing of a massive pageant, "a history

IcPD, December 19, 1920.

2Raymond Moley, A Review of the Surveys (Cleveland: The Cleve­ land Foundation, 1923), p. 36.

3cYB:1926[b] , pp. 75-76.

^CPD, March 17, 1929, p. 5-Society. 183 and fairy fantasy,'1-1- which used throngs of children (1,300) as cast members.

This same Board of Education promoted dramatic activities in the recreational programs it sponsored about the city. Airing each summer of the ten-year period from seventy to eighty playgrounds were maintained, about two-thirds of them by the Board of Education and the rest by the City. Each summer's playground program included work in

some form of dramatics from play production to puppetry or a climactic pageant or both. During the winters the Board promoted neighborhood

recreational activities through a number of "community centers," some­

times ten, sometimes twenty. Under the aegis of elected community

executive officers to whom the Board delegated some funds, school

facilities were made available evenings and Saturdays for many kinds of

social, athletic, craft, and dramatic classes and activities. During

the last five or so years of the decade community center drama groups

were particularly active; they exchanged performances, established a

theatre circuit among themselves,2 and participated in production

contests arranged by the Board through its Supervisor of Dramatics. A

few months before the financial panic of 1929 great plans were afoot

for the establishment of a dramatic institute to provide instruction for

community center Thespians in makeup, scenery and properties construction,

iCPD, August 26, 1926, p. 5.

2It may be important to note, as a comment on the nature of other theatre groups, that -toe announcement of the community center theatre circuit was accompanied by the statement that this development made the Little Theatre Movement "no longer the plaything of the rich." (CPD, November 11, 1926.) 18U and acting. At one point (1926) the Board itself supported a dramatic club, The Makeup Box, which toured the community centers giving per­ formances from a repertory of a few short plays. There can be little doubt but that the Board of Education of the Cleveland Public School

System was responsible for an amount of dramatic activity far greater than that of any other organization in Metropolitan Cleveland.

Girls' Groups

One other category of the non-dramatic organizations deserves mention before this section of theatrical amateurs is brought to a

close, the girls' groups. The Girl Scouts, Girl Reserves, Campfire

Girls, Girls' Council, and to a lesser extent the Girls' Friendly

Societies, Friendship Clubs and the Rainbow Girls contributed a steady

flow of dramatic events, principally playlets, many of a didactic

nature, to Cleveland amateur dramatics. The Cleveland Year Book pub­

lished just before the middle of the decade counted U,900 Girl Re­

serves, 1,U00 Girl Scouts and 1,000 Camp Fire Girls meeting in clubs

weekly, 20U girls' clubs meeting monthly in the settlement houses, and

3ixty Girls' Council groups, 2$1 YWCA girls' clubs, and ten clubs of

the Phyllis Wheatley Association (a home and training center for colored

girls), meeting weekly.In the summer most of these organizations

operated summer camps. Their reports of tableaux, pageants, skits,

puppet plays, "milk fairy" and other health plays totalled 3hl in a

fairly even distribution over the decade. Rarely did units of these

1CYBsl92U, p. 230. groups present either full-length or well-known short plays. Such plays as Joint Owners in Spain and Six Vino Pass While the Lentils

Boil were announced on a few occasions, but most of them bore such telltale titles as Resolutions of a Club Girl, The Budget Play, Big

Sister's Christmas Dream, The Road to Health, The Call, Princess

Chrysanthemum, and so on. To those concerned with the drama as an art

form these efforts mean very little, but they were regarded as an

activity important enough to be worth the obvious amount of effort put

into them and, in 1928, into a dramatic institute of six weeks'

duration sponsored by the Girls' Council in which were enrolled repre­

sentatives of the Phyllis Wheatley Association, settlement houses,

Junior Council, of Jewish Women, churches, libraries, and all of the

girls' groups mentioned here. There is little question about the fact,

too, that these girls' dramatic activities were a means of learning at

least a little bit about the nature of the drama, and, as has been

pointed out, these "little bits" added up to a considerable amount of

dramatic activity over the ten years being considered.

Who can fail to surmise that the quantity (and therefore the

quality) of the dramatic activities of the many, many non-dramatic

organizations considered here must have affected the individuals who

participated in them and those who witnessed them? Whether the nature

of this effect is precisely determinable or not, it would seem that an

awareness of the existence and nature of these groups would be im­

portant to anyone attempting to understand fully the theatrical develop­

ments of that time and of the years that followed. 186

Play-Producing Groups

As may be expected, Clevelanders supported during the twenties a number of amateur organizations whose principal concern was the pro­ duction of plays. Some of these groups burst on the scene full of enthusiasm and plans for extensive programs only to vanish shortly thereafterj some proceeded quietly along a more modest path gradually accumulating strength as the years passed; one of the many, the Play

House, started the decade as a small, struggling group and ended it as

one of the most successful civic theatres in the nation. The actual number of these organizations is not easy to establish. Their pub-

libity committees, when they possessed them, varied a great deal in

activity and reliability. The short life and changing names of others prevent accurate counting or extensive description. There are, how­

ever, enough clues to establish some impression of their numbers and

their programs. The Cleveland Association of Amateur Dramatic Clubs,

for example, which held the drama institute mentioned earlier,^ in­

cluded eighty-seven groups as early as 1923, and by 1929 the Cleveland

Year Book could state that dramatic organizations were "appearing in

almost every part of Cleveland.”2 That their programs varied con­

siderably the descriptions which follow will indicate.

The PlajT House dominated the amateur theatre scene almost without interruption throughout the entire decade. For a few critical

years during the first half of the period two theatrical organizations,

The Ohio School of Stage Arts operated by Robert McLaughlin and Chronicle

2CYB:1929, p. 173. 187

House, one of Mrs. E. T. C. Miller's^- projects, challenged the Play-

House, but neither of these lasted longer than two years.

The life of the Play House up to and through the twenties may be considered to have been divided into three phases: the early, art theatre period, the middle, little theatre years, and the last, the achievement of the status of a resident professional theatre. The art theatre period began in 191ii with an informal gathering at the home of Charles S. Brooks at which was presented a shadowgraph performance of presently unknown title. A year later the performance was repeated.

There followed the offer by Mr. and Mrs. Francis Drury of the use of an empty residence known as Ammon House on the third floor of which was produced a marionette performance of Maeterlinck's The Death of

Tintagiles and the group's first stage production, Strindberg's

Motherlove. In 1916 the Play House Company was formed for the purpose of establishing an art theatre. The persons who composed the group were, for the most part, Cleveland professional people, lawyers, artists,

doctors, musicians, and literateurs. For the next four years they pro­

duced "purple light and misty figure" plays, four productions a year

for three or four performances each, as a means of reforming the pub- 2 lie's theatrical tastes; Goldoni's Mistress of the Inn, Maeterlinck's

Pelleas and Melisande, Andreyev's The Sabine Women, Kalidesa's

Sakuntala, and a number of one-acts by Kreymborg, Strindberg, Von Hof­

IPreviously mentioned in connection with the Prospect Theatre; above, pp. 87-88. 2 Charles Brooks, in Frederick McConnell, "The Inner Quality of a Work," Ten Talents in the American Theatre, ed. David H. Stevens (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1957), p. 128. 188 mannsthal, Yevreinoff, and Ghekov typify the program offered. This group was "arty." according to Fred McConnell, but not Bohemian, sincere but certainly amateur.'*' Box office income was minimal; in 1919, for example, only a little over twenty per cent of their operating cost

($8,721) was met by admission fees; dues and gifts from supporting members covered the rest.^ In 1917 a church building on Cedar Avenue was acquired through gifts and sponsor-guaranteed loans. The audi­ torium was converted to a 200-seat house, the altar area to a stage, and the basement to shops, storage and dressing rooms.3 A series of power struggles beginning in 1919 between the "business men" and the

"artists" of the organization led finally, in 1921, to the resignation

of Raymond O'Neil, Art Director since 1916, and the hiring of Fred

McConnell and his assistants, K. Elmo Lowe and Max Eisendtadt. With these events the art theatre period of the Play House ended.

The next six to eight years of the Play House's development can be described as the little theatre stage principally because the box

office was made the primary source of income, membership was open, and

though the core of the theatre was its professional staff, the greatest

number of participants were amateurs. The function of the theatre was

not to provide its members with a means of self-expression but to pro­

duce as skilfully as possible plays of high literary quality. On his

llnterview, January 26, 1961.

2William A. Allman, "An Investigation of a Successful Civic Theatre as Exemplified by the Cleveland Play House (unpublished Master's thesis, Ohio University, 1951)> p. 13*

^Ibid., p. 10. 189 arrival McConnell announced a program of productions "intended to appeal to wider audiences and to offer wider scope for the acting talent of

Cleveland.”^ He went on to explain that he planned to produce "modern plays which call for acting ability far above the ordinary amateur or dramatic club character." A week later he set forth his aim for the theatre, to make it the first American repertory theatre, and three means by which he intended to accomplish his end: to assemble gradu­ ally a full-time professional group of actors and technicians, to organize a school for the inexperienced who wish to participate in the p Play House work, and to obtain a new and more fully equipped theatre.

All of these ambitions he achieved before the end of the decade.

Although he received an occasional protest from some of the old

art theatre members,3- his program was startlingly superior to that of

any organization, commercial or amateur, in the area. The 1921-22

program of eleven productions included The Importance of Being Earnest,

Candida, Beyond the Horizon, Charles Brooks1 new play V/appin' Wharf,

.Hosmersholm, The Devil's Disciple, The Mollusc, Marlowe's Doctor

Faustus, Milne's Belinda, and two programs of one-acts, seven plays in

all, by Schnitzler, Tanaquil, Synge, Shaw, and others. The program was

received so well that by February plans were changed and the productions

so scheduled that theatre played continuously for seven weeks and the

3-CPP, September U, 1921, p. 2-Amusements.

2CPD, September 12, 1920, p. 3-B.

^Leonard Smith, President of the Play House during McConnell's first year, wrote him a note in mid-season crying: "For God's sake, when are you going to do something arty?" (Interview with McConnell.) 190 total number of productions was increased from eight to eleven.3- The

Cleveland Year Book reported that the number of performances of each production had doubled that of the previous years (to eight or more) and that even the extra performances usually played to crowded houses.2

The number of plays, performances, staff members, subscriptions, and facilities increased continously daring the remainder of the decade.

A completely new theatre building housing two theatres, the Brooks with a capacity of 160 and the Drury seating 522, with technical and admin­ istrative facilities lying between and serving both, was opened in

April, 1927, following a gift of land from the Francis Drurys, a public campaign for funds led by Charles Brooks which brought in $175,000, and a bank loan of $100,000. By 1928-29 the number of plays presented per

season had risen to twenty-five of which six were new plays, ten were new productions, and the remainder revivals of works presented pre­ viously. By this time, too, the runs had increased in length, a number

of the shows playing for four and five-week runs during this season,

the permanent staff had grown from the original three to a total of

seventeen, and the total company to thirty. Annual attendance had

risen from ii,000 in 1921 to 100,000.3 The staff, by the way, had been

recruited in large part from Clevelanders who had started as theatre

volunteers, become involved in the work, and acquired skills sufficient

to make them eligible for staff or acting company positions. The nature

iCPD, February 3, 1922, p. 1U. 2CYB;1922, pp. 236-237.

3CPD, May 5, 1929, p. 2-Amusements. 191 of the program did not shift significantly during the period. The

1928-29 plays demonstrate that.-*-

The training programs had begun as early as September, 1922, when Saturday morning dramatic instruction for high school students was initiated. In the fall of 1927 the Play House School of the Theatre came into existence. Students from colleges, drama schools, and art schools were allowed to affiliate themselves as apprentices with the

Play House for a minimum period of one year. No fees were charged, and in some cases scaolarsnips were granted. The apprentices supported the productions with their help and received in return theatre experience and lectures and discussions as well.^

TABLE U

PLAY HOUSE PRODUCTIONS, 1928-29

Pinero - Trelawney of the Wells Chekov - The Cherry Orchard Pirandello - Right You Are If O'Neill - The Great God Brown You Think You Are Kennedy and Dean - The Constant Dukes - The Man With a Load of Nymph Mischief Andreyev - He Who Gets Slapped O'Neill - Beyond the Horizon Milne - The Truth About Blaydes Neumann - The Patriots Masefield - The Faithful Vollmoeller - Turandot Guitry - The Illusionist Akins - The Texas Nightingale M. Anderson - Outside Looking In Kaufman and Connelly - Beggar Rice - The Adding Machine on Horseback Totheroh - wild Birds O'Casey - Juno and the Paycock Davies - The Mollusc Langer - Peripherie G. B. Shaw - Candida Shakespeare - Twelfth Night Mowatt - Fashion Coward - The Marquise

Surprising as it may seem in the light of the heavy program just described, there were other, peripheral activities which the Play

ISee Table U, below. ^CYB:1929, p. 173. House company members supported. The Puppet Players Guild, a group of professional and amateur puppeteers surrounding Helen Haiman Joseph

associated themselves with the Play House in early 1922, developed a

Saturday morning series of programs for children that lasted through the decade, and may have been the basis of the children's theatre

formally organized by the Play House a year after the decade closed.

In 1928 a group of about twenty persons interested in writing plays be­

gan to meet regularly at the Play House. These and others interested

in the art composed the audience for a special Play House performance

in June, 1929, of a script written by an Akron resident. From 1921 on

McConnell, Lowe, and Eisenstadt, and other members of the staff in­

volved themselves in a great many projects around the city. A number of

occasions wherein they acted as consultants, directors, or lecturers

for women's groups, church groups, schools and colleges have already

been mentioned. These represent only a very few of the many instances

in which they provided assistance. In a few circumstances they sup­

plied properties or costumes to producing groups, the Gilpin Players for

one. Often they made available to theatre-interested organizations one

or the other of the Play House auditoriums. They took part, too, in a

few special events at the Play House each year: dinners, play pro­

ductions by amateur members of the organization, costume balls, and

what not, as a recognition of their debt to the individuals who sup­

ported the work of the Play House.

The author was not able to obtain from Fred McConnell agree­

ment with the suggestion that the point at which the Play House became most clearly identifiable as a professional resident company occurred at the opening of the 1927-28 season. That year saw the company in its new theatre for the first full season, a sharp increase in the number of scheduled productions (from 19 shows to 27), the opening of the

School of the Theatre, and the addition of a number of new company members. Although K. Elmo Lowe concurred with the author's suggestion,

McConnell stated that the evolution took place most rapidly during the years following 1927 and reached its first full development in 1930.

Certainly the difference is not worthy of great argument, and perhaps the most significant event related to the matter occurred in May, 1929, when the Play House engaged Jacob Ben-Ami to appear as guest performer in He Who Gets Slapped. Kobert McLaughlin evidently felt the Play

House to be enough of a threat to his commercial activities to merit protest against the use of a union actor in a non-union theatre, and the stagehands' union threatened hostilities against Actors' Equity if

Ben-Ami were allowed to play.2 (The stagehands had been trying vainly to unionize the Play House for years.) After an agreement was obtained whereby Ben-Ami's engagement was limited to three weeks, the matter was dropped. Its importance, however, lies in the recognition of the Cleve­ land commercial theatre (for McLaughlin was certainly its chief repre­ sentative) that the Play House was a theatrical enterprise of such scope and quality as to be a competing member of the theatrical world.

Arthur Hopkins wrote in 19U8 that the hope for the American theatre lay in the development of professional community theatres,

^Interview, January 26, 1961. ^CPD, May 11, 1929, p. 2. 19h theatres underwritten by their own locales but operated by profession­ als and cultural in purpose. He suggested a program of modern plays and classics, no federal subsidy, no influence by patrons on production standards, a drama school attached to the theatre, organizational com­ mittee representatives from various civic groups, and entrance to the active group possible only by meeting certain qualifications of fitness and character.Arthur Hopkins came from Cleveland. Perhaps that had nothing to do with it, but at any rate Cleveland nad his ideal theatre by 1929.

The Play House excepted, perhaps the most successful amateur theatre producing group, not so much for its activity as its duration, was the Shaker Village Players, known today as the Shaker Players.

This organization appears to have been the only one (besides the Play

House) to have remained in existence during the whole decade. It began in 1919 when the Plymouth Players, a group of young adults from the

Plymouth Church, presented a production of the Harvard hi Workshop play, The Price of Orchids, for the benefit of the church. The occasion was successful to the extent of a ninety-dollar net profit which was turned over to the church. Curing the next year the group moved to the

Shaker Heights High School, renamed itself the Shaker Village Players, and presented Lady Gregory's Spreading the News. In 1922 the group offered its first three-act play to the public and received an enthus­ iastic enough response to merit a repeat performance. By 1927 three full-length productions made up the yearly schedule and the opening

iReference Point (New Yorks Samuel French, 19U8), pp. 23-25. 19$ nights were imbued with the formal glitter of an opera performance.'*'

This same schedule was in existence when the decade closed. The mem­ bership of the group, nineteen when it took its second name, had in­ creased to 100 by the end of 1929. The plays selected by the group were neither rankly commercial nor startingly avant-garde; a typical sample would include Milne's The Dover Road, Clyde Fitch's The Truth, and Barrie's Quality Street. These were directed by guest directors brought in from other Cleveland sources, e.g., Barclay Leathern;

Benson Sargent, dramatics instructor at Shaker Heights High School;

Virda Stewart of the Flay House company; or 1'rofessor P. B. Sherman of

Oberlin College, Members of the group directed the one-act plays often performed at the monthly meetings. It may be that the modest ambitions, middle-of-the-road program, and reasonably stable population conditions were responsible for the fact that today the Shaker Players is Cleve­ land's oldest dramatic group.

The Cleveland Players, later the Tryout Players and after the

end of the decade the Roberts Players, were another sort indeed. It might have been more appropriate had the group been named the Ina

Roberts, for Mrs. Roberts authored a great many of the plays, directed

others, and acted in a number of others. No other member of the company

seems to have equalled her feats. These players appeared on the Cleve­

land scene at the YWCA auditorium in April, 192?, with an original play

written by Mrs. Roberts in collaboration with another member of the

company. The members of the cast of the play were described as of

^Cleveland Press, September 10, 19U9. 196 varied experience acquired at the Play House, with the Library Players, or at Western Reserve University.'*' The company opened in the fall of

1927-28 with the aim of presenting tryouts of new plays (preferably by

Clevelanders and preferably comedies or farces), offered four new plays, mostly comedies, and broadcast a few radio skits. Tom Taggart, some of whose short plays appear today in the catalogs of plays for amateurs, authored two of these. The last program of the season an­ nounced ambitions to produce an original play each month during the

1928-29 season and solicited manuscripts of full-length plays for stage p presentation or one-act scripts suitable for broadcasting. Available records indicate that the 1928-29 season brought increased activity but not nine new productions. As the decade ended, the group was still very much alive, anxiously seeking new plays and new members.3

Announcements appeared here and there throughout the decade that indicated the existence of other groups whose principal interest was the production of plays. Few of them, however, presented any con­

tinuing record of the work of a particular group.. It must be assumed

that, like today, groups came and went in the twenties and that those that existed for any amount of time got at least some of their notices

to the newspapers.

The dramatic interests of Cleveland amateurs during the twenties were reflected in the activities of tneir drama schools. The schools

lCPD, April 17, 1927, p. 2-Amusements.

2Program, The Clay's the Thing, June 13, 111, 1928, The Cleve­ land Tryout Players.

3CPU, August 18, 1929, p. 2-Amusements. 197 that had been in existence for some time expanded their programs, new schools came into existence, and music and art schools widened the scope of their usual concerns to include courses in dramatics. The notable aspects of the general expansion of the activities of the drama schools in the twenties were the inclusion of training for adults, the programming of a number of lectures by figures from the commercial theatre, and the scope of the play productions undertaken. These activities occurred in addition to the normal preoccupations of such schools: dramatics classes for children, recitals, and the production of plays on a limited scale.

The Haroff School of Expression, Elocution and Literature and the Tucker School of Expression represented the steady, middle core of the dramatics schools. The Haroff School nad been open since 1903;

Mrs. Anna Moncure P. Tucker, head of the Tucker Schools, had been teaching elocution and expression in Cleveland since 188U. The offerings of the schools were somewhat inclusive; Harroff advertised Elocution,

English, Literature, Drama, and Civics;^ Tucker listed English, Liter­ ature, Effective Public Speaking, Oratory, Elocution, Dramatic Art,

Psycho-Physical Culture, Parliamentary Law, French, and Interpretive

O Dancing. The Haroff School seems to have operated the more modest production program of the two; most of its public events were recitals consisting of dramatic readings. Its production of The Trojan Women in

1920 was the exception rather than the rule. The Tucker School

^CPD, September 18, 1922, p. 2-Amusements.

^CPD, September IB, 1919, p. 13-B. 198 presented an average of one masque and one bill of one-act plays each year during the first half of the decade. Following the installation of a little theatre in the school building in 1921; the play production program was considerably enlarged. Five full-length plays were scheduled for the 192U-29 season and occasional dramatic sketches or one-act plays were inserted into the schedule. A tradition was estab­ lished of producing one of Shakespeare's plays each year, and the

selection of plays was usually made from those of good literary quality, e.g., Dierdre of the Sorrows (1921;), The House of Rimini (1929), The

Piper (1926), and Clarence (1928). Towards the end of the decade re­ ports of play productions decreased and the plays selected tended to be more diverting than inspiring, e.g., The Arabian Nights of 1929 and

Adam and Eva.

The particularly exceptional developments in the dramatics

schools began in 1921. The establishment of the YWC.A School of Edu­

cational Dramatics during the fall of this year has already been dis­

cussed. At the same time Robert McLaughlin opened in the Ohio Theater

Building the Ohio School of Stage Arts. He invested $90,000 in the

construction of the Thimble Theater, a small auditorium located on the

fourth floor of the building with a seating capacity of 2Q8, an eighteen

by twelve foot proscenium, and a stage floor constructed of "three-foot

wooden cubes" designed by McLaughlin himself to make the stage capable

0 of obtaining "all modern stage effects." The aim of the school was to

lAbove, pp. ll;9-15>0.

2"Marionettes at Thimble Theatre," Cleveland Topics, October 8, 1921. 199 develop the talents of persons interested in the theatre and to "give students interested in general culture an opportunity to develop beauty and individuality by a course designed to instill poise.For these purposes a staff was assembled which consisted of Clarence

Stratton; Frank Zimmerer, former designer for Stuart Walker's pro­ ductions j Glenna Smith Tinnen, producer of two dancing acts touring the

Keith circuit and lecturer on dancing; Katherine S. Brown, formerly one of the directors and producers of the Washington, D. C., Little

Theater and author of articles on acting and art; George Fox, actor from McLaughlin's various stock companies; and Constance Kenyon, pro­ fessional actress who had also been a member of a McLaughlin company.

Miss Kenyon was executive director of the organization. The project caused a considerable stir in Cleveland. McDermott indicated that it was well worth Cleveland's attention, and a Clevelander active during that time said that this organization appeared to have more promise p than the Play House. In addition to the classes the students were offered opportunities to act as extras with road shows and stock com­ panies, to attend a series of lectures by Clarence Stratton on dra­ matic theory, play-writing, and literature, to act in a number of regularly scheduled one-act plays, to present plays for children, and to visit with or listen to figures from the commercial theatre. The

school was successful enough to continue for a second year, but after

1CPD, July 7, 1921, p. 11.

2Mrs. Oscar Steiner, as quoted by Leif Anker, July l$s I960. 200 the end of the 1922-23 season the Ohio School of Stage Arts disappeared.

In the fall of 1928 George Fox attempted to revive it with a smaller staff and a new course having to do with the "talking movies," but by the end of the twenties it had regained very little of its former glory.

A few months after the opening of the Ohio School of Stage Arts,

Katherine Brown resigned from the staff and opened her own organization,

The School of the Theater. A single production, Josephine Preston

Peabody's The Wolf of Gubbio, marked the passage of this organization

before it dissolved and its staff shifted, in the fall of 1922-23, to

a new and elaborate organization called Chronicle House. This last was

another of the numerous projects of Mrs. £. T. C. Miller, who with

Katherine Brown and Glenna Smith Tinnen (obtained from McLaughlin's

staff at the Ohio School of Stage Arts) developed what was probably at

the time the most extensive of any dramatic program in Cleveland and

possibly in the nation. Chronicle House was composed of the Repertory

Players Club, a ten-member professional company; the Play House, the

workshop and producing arm of the students; the School of the Theater

to train experts in all the arts of the theatre; the Chronicle House

Press for the publication of bulletins, plays and articles of interest;

and the Studio Building to house workers in allied arts and crafts.-*-

Guest artists were to be engaged for special productions, and Bgon

Brecher, formerly of the Municipal Theatre of Vienna, was a member of

the staff. Various "names" from the professional theatre were obtained

as "Senior Counselors": Cosmo Hamilton, Charles Rann Kennedy, Stuart

1Directory of Civic and welfare Activities, p. 190. Walker, Julia Arthur, Lord Dunsany, Whitford Kane, and a few others.

The production program did not get underway until January but was pur­ sued vigorously from there on. The schedule during the next five months included eight full-length plays, two of them, Hedda Gabler and A Doll’s

House, running for three weeks each. Tne other productions were of

Galsworthy’s The Pidgeon, Samuels' The Flame of Love, Davies' Cousin

Kate, a Polish play— The Morals of Mrs. Polska, She Stoops to Conquer,

Percy MacKaye's A Thousand Years Ago, and an evening of three one-act plays. While all this was going on, Egon Brecher left the staff and started his own school, The Egon Brecher Theatre Workshop. Neither his school nor Chronicle House was heard of again after the close of the

season. By June of 1923 the great surge of activities begun in the

Cleveland drama school field less than two years before had almost com­ pletely receded. The Haroff and Tucker Schools and their less prominent co-workers were left to carry on.

It may be worthwhile to consider how much the development of

Cleveland's multitudinous dramatic activities depended upon an unusual

amount of cooperation among almost all of the numerous dramatic and non-dramatic groups described here. The fact that the dramatic

activities of the nationality groups burst into the public eye in the

early thirties can be of little comfort to us at the moment; during the

twenties they were kept to themselves. But the other organizations must have benefitted to considerable amount from the numerous occasions

on which personnel were borrowed or loaned and the less frequent ones on which facilities were offered. The loan of properties to the Gilpin Flayers has already been mentioned. The Thimble Theatre was used for a number of outside events. The Play House's cooperation with Western

Reserve University was so unusual that it became a great part of the basis of a Rockefeller Foundation Grant given to the Play House some years later.^ Staff members and students of the drama schools pre­ sented programs for other groups and sometimes directed plays for them.

Samuel Bradley directed plays for a number of different kinds of groups ranging from the professional Little Theater to his own students at a short-lived drama school he attempted later. Clarence Stratton lectured to women's groups as well as to the students of the Ohio School of

Stage Arts. K. Flmo Lowe directed a pageant for a church as well as a play for a small private school. Public School System teachers directed plays for amateur dramatic groups. A portion of the career of Katherine

Wick Kelly will amplify our point. While dramatics director at Glen- ville High in 1920 she was acting at the Flay House. In 1923 she directed two shows for the College for 'Women dramatic club. In 1923 she assumed the directorship of the Players Workshop of the Jewish

Center, lectured on the history and development of the theatre to children at the Museum of Art, and was appointed to the Play House staff.

In 1926 she gave dramatic readings for the Shaker Heights Neighborhood

Guild, and, during the summer, took time to marry Fred McConnell. A person of less auspicious offices but wider activity was Miss Virda

Stewart. Her travels about the Cleveland dramatic scene during the decade included directing plays at the College for Women, dramatic

llnterview with Frederick McConnell. readings for the xxeights Music and Art Society, directing a one-act for the girls of the Normal School, acting at the Play House, assistance in training the members of the Hoys and Girls Shakespeare Club, directing a pageant for the Federated Churches, lectures on stage production to

YWCA leadership groups, dramatic readings for the Grasselli House (for the blind), judging a one-act play contest for a suburban college, pro­

ducing a pageant for the East Cleveland Women1s Club, directing a play for the Shaker Village Players, chairing the program committee for the

Women's City Club, and much sore. Miss Stewart may have held some kind

of record for her activities, but there were many close runners-up.

These kinds of contacts must have been of great effect in making the

spread of interest in drama among the non-professionals as pervasive and rapid as it was in Cleveland in the twenties.

The growth of the dramatic activities of Cleveland amateurs followed a perceptible pattern. The first few years after the end of

the war appear to have been ones of slow recovery, established programs

such as those of the Play house and of the College Club regrouped and began to supplement themselves. In the fall of 1921, however, some­

thing of a miracle occurred. The Public School System hired Clarence

Stratton; the Play House re-formed itself with its new professional

staff; the YWCA began its School of Educational Dramatics; McLaughlin's

Ohio School of Stage Arts and Katherine Brown's School of the Theatre were opened; Barclay Leathern was appointed to the faculty of Western 20U

Reserve University? and William McDermott began his first season's writing for the Plain Dealer. The effects of most of these events were evident immediately, and the progress of the amateur drama in Cleveland became a steady rise from that point through the end of the decade. CHAPTER VII

CONCLUSIONS

Some general conclusions remain to be drawn concerning aspects of Cleveland drama as a whole during the twenties. The nature of the support for Cleveland's ventures in the dramatic arts, the manner in which the "new theatre" was introduced to Cleveland, a summation of the accomplishments of the decade, and the implications of these accom­ plishments deserve our attention.

There is no question about the fact that the theatre of the twenties in Cleveland existed because women wanted it to exist. In an article entitled "It's the Girls That Keep the Drama Going the Way It

Should Go" William McDermott wrote that women were responsible for getting men to attend the plays at the commercial theatres. The women go, he said, and take the men with them.-*- The extra performances of

Walter Hampden's Hamlet in 1919 support McDermott's statements; without the sponsorship of the Shakespeare Club and the Cleveland Federation of

Women's Clubs, the performances almost certainly would not have taken place.^ A few years later McDermott pointed out that his inquiries from men usually were concerned only with the dates of performances while those from women were the result of curiosity about particular

l£PD, October 16, 1927, p. 1-Amusements.

2gee above, p. 80.

209 playwrights, the inner meanings of dramatic works, or the nature of such organizations as the Theatre Guild.-1- The Cleveland amateur activities were even more clearly the result of the interest of women. All of the drama schools were run by women with the exception of the short-lived venture of Egon Brecher and the Ohio School of Stage Arts, which in­ cluded a number of women on its staff (in particular its executive director). It was, of course, the YWCA, not the YMCA, the woman's

clubs, not the men's clubs, and the girls' groups, not the boys', whose

dramatic activities motivated the greater part of the discussion of the previous chapter. The church dramatic activities were largely sponsored by women; the staff of the Public Library was principally female; and

the public school drama instruction was supervised by women in all but two circumstances. The outstanding work in puppetry was led by Helen

Haiman Joseph; Mildred I. Throne produced the College for Women drama program; and Rowena Jelliffe directed the Gilpin Players. Robert

McLaughlin, Barclay Leathern, Fred McConnell, William McDermott, and

Clarence Stratton may have stood at the head of most of the outstanding

developments in Cleveland drama, but women were responsible for some of

the others and for by far the greatest per cent of the support that made

these developments possible.

The "new theatre," the works of the European playwrights, the

new American dramatists, and their corollary, the new staging, came to

Cleveland largely through the efforts of the amateurs, the Play House

in particular. The commercial theatre, largely through the productions

iCPD, March 2, 1928, p. 17. 207 of the Theatre Guild road companies, the brief visits of the Moscow Art

Theatre and the Habima Players, and Manheim's program at the Little

Theater, contributed somewhat to Clevelanders1 dramatic education, but the principal part of the contribution came from Cleveland's amateur activities. The Gilpin Players were greatly responsible for Cleveland's introduction to folk plays. The women's clubs discussed the new works; the Jewish groups produced them. The colleges and public schools offered little of significance in this area, nor did the settlements other than that just mentioned, the nationality groups, the Protestant or Catholic groups, the amateur producing organizations or the drama

schools. William McDermott's attitudes and comments certainly must have encouraged the interest in the new drama, but he could not bring it into existence by his writings.

What did Cleveland have at the end of this ten-year period of

dramatic activity? First of all, Clevelanders' outlook toward the

theatre had changed. Clarice White wrote in the Plain Dealer in 1927:

A most gratifying change in the attitude of the conservative public toward the drama has come about in the last few years, during which people who had been reared to look upon theatre in all its phases as the headquarters of iniquity have progressed through the stage of tolerance to acceptance and study, and last of all to promotion of things dramatic.^

A number of experienced leaders had emerged to organize and develop

theatre activities, and programs had been established with the potential

of producing more. Curricula of drama study and supervised dramatic

productions were well developed in the colleges and the public schools.

The club programs, the YWCA, the Plain Dealer, and the Public Library

3-CPP, August 1U, 1927, p. U-Society.

4 were offering kinds of education or support that fostered interest in and knowledge about the theatre. The basis of stable amateur producing groups was being established gradually in neighborhoods about the city, partly by the dramatic aspects of the Board of Education's recreation programs and partly as a result of the experience gained by the amateurs in the attempts to form these kinds of groups during the twenties. And the city possessed two major producing groups, one already of national note and the other soon to be, the Cleveland Play House and the Gilpin

Players of Karamu Theatre. The results appear to have been worth the effort, and the credit for almost all of the effort belongs to Cleve­ land's amateurs.

Probably the most important aspect of this study lies in the

interpretation it supports of the influence of this period on the

theatrical developments which followed it. Adult Clevelanders of the thirties and forties could hardly have avoided acquaintanceship with

the drama at some or all levels of their school, church, or social lives

during their younger days. Even if they had not attended the commercial

theatre shows, if they had never known of the Cleveland Play House, they

most certainly would have been involved in or witness to the dramatic

productions, courses of instruction, lectures, study groups, pageants,

dramatic readings, skits, or sketches of the public or private schools,

colleges or universities, religious groups, community centers, libraries,

playgrounds, girls' clubs, women's clubs, drama schools, or producing

groups of Cleveland during the twenties. The conclusion may be safely

drawn that these adults came to their maturity more acquainted with the drama and more prepared to appreciate it and produce it than any

Cleveland generation before them. It may be stated, then, that possibly the principal function of the Cleveland's dramatic activities of the twenties was the theatrical education of the numbers of its citizens who brought forth the community and college theatres and supported what remained of the commercial theatre's road shows during the years that followed, and that these citizens represented economic, educational, and social strata not previously cnaracterized by activity in the dra­ matic arts. Furthermore, no evidence has been discovered as this study has proceeded which has suggested significant differences between dra­ matic developments in Cleveland and in the other major American cities during the period. The Karamu group was unique but only in its particular concern with the Negro} other settlement houses in Cleveland and in other cities developed effective producing groups, other cities supported the Theatre Guild, watched the decline of the "road," par­ ticipated in the work of the Drama League, witnessed The Miracle, listened to lecturers, and a few, e.g., Chicago and Pasadena, developed resident non-commercial, professional companies. Pending a detailed investigation of the dramatic activities of these other cities, it may be tentatively concluded that a principal function of the American drama in the twenties was the familiarization of a great and new section of the nation's population with the nature and value of the dramatic arts. A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

Anderson, John. Box Office. New York: Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith, 19291

Bellinger, Martha F. A Short History of the Drama. New York: Henry Holt and Co., WT.

Cheney, Sheldon. .The Art Theatre. 2d ed. revised. New York: Knopf and Co., 1925.

Collins, Lillian F. The Little Theater in School. New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1930.

Cook, Huldah F. The Magyars of Cleveland. Cleveland: The Cleveland Americanization Committee, 1919.

Coulter, Charles to. The Italians of Cleveland. Cleveland: The Cleveland Americanization Committee, 1919.

______. The Lithuanians of Cleveland. Cleveland: The Cleveland Americanization Committee, 1920.

______. The Poles of Cleveland. Gleveland: The Cleveland Ameri­ canization Committee, 1919.

Davis, Jed, and Watkins, Mary Jane. Children's Theatre. New York: Harper and Bros., I960.

Downer, Alan S. Fifty Years of American Theatre. Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 195l.

Eaton, Allen H. Immigrant Gifts to American Life. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1932"!

Gagey, Edmond M. Revolution in American Drama. New York: Columbia University~Press, 19U7.

Hewitt, Barnard. Theatre U.S.A.: 1665-1957. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1 9 ^

Hopkins, Arthur. Reference Point. New York: Samuel French, 19U8.

210 211

Houghton, Norris. Advance from Broadway; 19,000 Miles of American Theatre. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1^1*1.

Ledbetter, Eleanor S. The Czechs of Cleveland. Cleveland: The Cleveland Americanization Committee, 1919.

______. The Jugoslavs of Cleveland. Cleveland: The Cleveland Americanization Committee, 1918.

______. The Slovaks of Cleveland. Cleveland: The Cleveland Americanization Committee,1918.

Macgowan, Kenneth. Footlights Across America: Towards a National Theatre. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1929.

Mackay, Constance D'Arcy. The Little Theatre in the U.S. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1917.

Mantle, Burns (ed). The Best Plays of 1919-20 (to 192U-2$. Annual publication). Boston: Small, Maynard and Co., 1920 (to 192$).

______. The Best Plays of 192$-26 (to 1929-30. Annual publication). New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1926 (to 1930).

Mantle, Burns, and Sherwood, Garrison P. (eds). The Best Plays of 1899-1909. Philadelphia: The Biakiston Co., 19UU.

. The Best Plays of 1909-1919. New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1933.

McCleery, Albert, and Glick, Carl. Curtains Going Up. New York: Pitman Publishing Co., 1939.

McDermott, William F. The Best of McDermott: The Selected Writings of 'William F. McDermott. Cleveland: The World Publishing Co., 19F9T

Overton, Grace S. Drama in Education: Theory and Technique. New York: The Century Co., 1926.

Perry, Clarence Arthur. The Work of the Little Theatres. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1933.

Playground and Recreation Association of America. Community Drama. New York: The Century Co., 1926.

Quinn, Arthur Hobson. A History of the American Drama From the Civil War to the Present Day. 2 vols. New iork: Harper and Bros., 1927. 212

Rose, william Ganson. Cleveland: the Making of a City. Cleveland: The World Publishing Co., 1950.

Saylor, Oliver Martin. Our American Theatre. New York: Brentano's, 1923.

Smith, John Talbot. Parish Theatre. New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1917.

Sobel, Bernard (ed). The Theatre Handbook and Digest of Plays. New York: Crown Publishers, 19U0.

Stevens, David H. (ed). Ten Talents in the American Theatre. Norman: The University of Oklahoma Press, 195?.

Stratton, Clarence. Producing in Little Theatres. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1921^

. Theatron: An Illustrated Record. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 192b.

Wise, Claude Merton. Dramatics for School and Community. New York: Appleton and Co., 192$.

Young, John Wray. The Community Theatre and How It Works. New York: Harper and Bros., 1957.

Reports

Andrica, Theodore. All Nationalities Directory. Cleveland: The Cleveland Press, 1955.

Bellamy, George A. A Historical Report-of the Sixteen Years Work at Hiram House. Cleveland: Hiram House Printery, 1912.

Carter, Leyton £., and Levy, S. A. A Study of Public Recreation in Cleveland. Cleveland: The Cleveland foundation, 1936.

The Cleveland Foundation. The Cleveland Year Book: 1921 (to 1926. Annual report). Cleveland: The Cleveland Foundation, 1921 (to 1926). The 1926 report of this series referred to as CYB:1926 [a] .

______. The Cleveland Year Book: 1926 (to 1930. Annual report). Cleveland: The Cleveland Foundation, 1927 (to 1931). The 1926 report of this series referred to as CYB:1926(b] .

♦ Directory of Civic and Welfare Activities of Cleveland. Cleveland: The Cleveland Foundation, 1923. 213

______. Directory of Community Activities. Cleveland: The Cleveland Foundation, 1921.

The Federated Churches of Cleveland, Ohio. The Federated Churches of Greater Cleveland. 1932.

Gillin, John Lewis. Wholesome Citizens and Spare Time. Cleveland*. The Survey Committee of the Cleveland Foundation, 1918.

Hiram House. Eleventh Annual Report of Hiram House. Cleveland; Hiram House, 1907.

Moley, Raymond. A Review of the Surveys of The Cleveland Foundation. Cleveland! The Cleveland Foundation, 1923.

Proceedings of the Conference on the Drama in American universities and"Little Theatres. Pittsburgh: Carnegie Institute of Technology, 1926.

Periodicals and Articles

Bulletin of the Cleveland Settlement Union. Vol. I, No. 1 - Vol. V, No. 2 (.October 26, 191!? - November 2$, 1919).

Bulletin of the Playgoing Committee, the Drama league of Cleveland. Nos. 3-17 (.February 1, 1915 - April 3, 1916).

The Cleveland Plain Dealer. 1919-1929.

Crafton, Allen. "1913 and the Little Theatre Movement," Encore, I, No. 2 (November-December, I960), pp. 23-23.

The Drama, a Monthly Review. Vol. I, No. 1 - Vol. X, No. 3 (February, 1911-1920). The Drama League of America.

Drama League Monthly. Vol. I, No. 1 - Vol. IV, No. 1 (April, 1916 - Hay, 1919). The Drama League of America.

Hiram House Life. Cleveland: Hiram House. April, 1918 - April, 1923.

The Jewish Independent. 1919.

The Jewish Review and Observor. August 22, 1 9 1 9 - December 3 1 , 1921.

Kommer, Rudolf. "Theater Notes of the Ohio Metropolis,11 New York Times, October 26, 1921*. " 211*

Neighborhood. Vol. I, No. 1 - Vol. IV, No. 3 (January, 1928 - July, 1931). Bostons National Federation of Settlements.

Proceedings. Vols. I-V. The Drama League of America.

Unpublished Materials

Allman, William A. "An Investigation of a Successful Civic Theatre as Exemplified by the Cleveland Play House." Unpublished Master's thesis, Ohio University, 19$1.

Burns, Sister M. William. "The Community Theatre of Cleveland, Ohio. 1920-193$." Unpublished Master's thesis, Catholic University, 1951.

Drama League of America, Cleveland Center. Notices of annual meetings: April 27, 191$; May [(., 1916; May 2, 1918.

The Dramatic League of Cleveland. "First Subscription Season, 1931- 32." Brochure, October 8, 1931.

Payer, Harry F. "The Czechs and the Bohemians." Manuscript of speech delivered at the Jewish Temple, February 1$, 1928.

Schoell, Edwin R. "A Quantitative Analysis of the Contributions of the Community Theater to the Development of the Drama." Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Denver, 19$1.

Interviews

Anderson, Stanley K. June 29, I960.

Davis, Eugene C. June 19, I960.

Gebauer, Mrs. Emmanuel. September 21, I960.

Kukura, Rudy. July 20, I960.

Leathern, Barclay. June 23, I960.

Lowe, K. Elmo. January 27, 1961.

McConnell, Frederic. January 27, 1961. 215

Other Sources

Cleveland Press Clipping Files

Cleveland Public Library. Reference Division Clipping Files, Literature Division Clipping and Program Files, Fine Arts Division Clipping Files. t

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

I, Irving Marsan Brown, was born in Somerville, Massachusetts, on April 15, 1922. I received the principal part of my secondary school education in the public schools of Arlington, Massachusetts, and ray undergraduate training at Otterbein College, Denison University, and Antioch College, the latter of which granted me the Bachelor of

Arts degree in 19U8. From the State University of Iowa I obtained the

Master of Arts degree in 1950. Following two years' employment as

Instructor in the Department of Speech at the University of Connecticut

I entered the Theatre Arts graduate program of the Department of Speech at Ohio State University during which time I held a number of graduate assistantships. From 195U to the present, while completing the re­ quirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree, I have been employed as a faculty member of Lake Erie College.

216