John Gassner

John Gassner: An Inventory of His Collection at the Harry Ransom Center Descriptive Summary Creator: Gassner, John, 1903-1967 Title: John Gassner Papers Dates: 1894-1983 (bulk 1950-1967), undated Extent: 151 document boxes, 3 oversize boxes (65.51 linear feet), 22 galley folders (gf), 2 oversize folders (osf) Abstract: The papers of the Hungarian-born American theatre historian, critic, educator, and anthologist John Gassner contain manuscripts for numerous works, extensive correspondence, career and personal papers, research materials, and works by others, forming a notable record of Gassner’s contributions to theatre history. Call Number: Manuscript Collection MS-54109 Language: Chiefly English, with materials also in Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish Access: Open for research Administrative Information Acquisition: Purchases and gifts, 1965-1986 (R2803, R3806, R6629, G436, G1774, G2780) Processed by: Joan Sibley and Amanda Reyes, 2017 Note: The Ransom Center gratefully acknowledges the assistance of the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, which provided funds to support the processing and cataloging of this collection. Repository: The University of Texas at Austin, Harry Ransom Center Gassner, John, 1903-1967 Manuscript Collection MS-54109 Biographical Sketch John Gassner was a noted theatre critic, writer, and editor, a respected anthologist, and an esteemed professor of drama. He was born Jeno Waldhorn Gassner on January 30, 1903, in Máramarossziget, Hungary, and his family emigrated to the United States in 1911. He showed an early interest in theatre, appearing in a school production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest in 1915. Gassner attended Dewitt Clinton High School in New York City and was a supporter of socialism during this era. He earned two degrees at Columbia University, a Bachelor of Arts (1924) and Master of Arts (1925). Shortly after graduation, Gassner married Mollie Kern in 1926; the couple had one daughter, Caroline, born in 1929. After earning his masters, Gassner first lectured at the Labor Temple School (1925) and the Columbia University Home Study Division (1927) before teaching different aspects of literature, theatre, and drama at Hunter College (1928-1945), Queens College (1948-1956), and the School of Dramatic Arts at Columbia University (1949-1956). He was appointed Sterling Professor of Playwriting and Dramatic Literature at Yale University in 1956 and remained there until his death in 1967. He served as a summer faculty member at the prestigious Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference (1937-1941) and was also head of Playwriting and Theatre History at Erwin Piscator’s Dramatic Workshop at the New School for Social Research (1940-1950). He also lectured at John Hopkins University (1946), the University of Montevallo (1953), the University of Michigan (1954), Harvard University (1965), and at many other American, British, and international colleges and universities. While Gassner was working in the world of academia, he also embarked on a prolific and successful writing and editing career, starting as a book reviewer at the New York Herald-Tribune (1925-1928). Gassner contributed regularly as a critic or editor to a number of publications including New Theatre Magazine (1934-1937), The Forum (1937), Time Magazine (1938), Direction (1937-1941), One Act Play Magazine (1937-1941), Forum and Column Review and Current History Newsletter (both 1941-1949), The Survey (1951-1952), Theatre Arts (1951-1954), Educational Theatre Journal (1951-1967), and Tulane Drama Review (1957-1967). Gassner was also in-demand as a critic and reviewer in other media and served as a drama critic for the radio shows Broadway Talks Back (1945-1948), Author Meets Critic (1945-1948), Invitation to Learning (1947-1963), Books on Trial and reviewed New York plays for WQXR radio (1947). He also appeared on the television shows Camera 3 and Accent (both 1959) and was an editorial advisor for Omnibus and Excursion (both 1952-1954). John Gassner’s efforts as an author, co-author, anthologist, editor, and co-editor led to a lengthy and distinguished publishing career. His works included A Treasury of the Theatre (with Burns Mantle, 1935, enlarged and revised in 1951 and 1960), Twenty Best Plays of the Modern American Theatre (1939, the first of nine volumes of his Best American Plays series), Masters of the Drama (1940, revised and enlarged in 1945 and 1954), Producing the Play (with Philip Barber, 1941, 1953), a popular college textbook, 2 Gassner, John, 1903-1967 Manuscript Collection MS-54109 Our Heritage of World Literature (with Stith Thompson, 1942), Twenty Best Film Plays (with Dudley Nichols, 1943, plus two later volumes), Best Plays of the Modern American Theatre (1945), Twenty-Five Best Plays of the Modern American Theatre (1949), The Theatre in Our Times (1954), Form and the Idea in Modern Theatre (1956; revised as Directions in Modern Theatre and Drama, 1965), Twenty Best European Plays on the American Stage (1957), Four Great Elizabethan Plays (1959), Theatre at the Crossroads (1960), Ideas in the Drama (1963), Introducing the Drama (with Morris Sweetkind, 1963), The Nature of Art (with Sidney Thomas, 1964), Theatre and Drama in the Making (with Ralph Allen, 1964), and Best Plays of the Early American Theatre (1966), among other writings. Gassner also worked as a play reader, editor, and finally head of the play department for the Theatre Guild (1929-1944) and headed up the Bureau of New Plays (1938-1944) with Theresa Helburn, which gave early sponsorship to Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller, among other playwrights. He also created and managed a play department for Columbia Pictures (1944-1947). He himself adapted several plays over the years, including Versailles by Emil Ludwig (produced by the Theatre Guild as Peace Palace, 1931), Jeremiah by Stefan Zweig (1939), Minnie and Mr. Williams, which he also co-produced on Broadway (1948). Gassner was also a playwright in his own right, penning The White Whale (1934) and dramatizing Robinson Jeffers’ Tower Beyond Tragedy for a California production starring Dame Judith Anderson (1940). Additionally, Gassner served as a judge for many awards, most notably on the Pulitzer Prize drama panel from 1957-1963, encountering controversies when the advisory board passed over their recommendations. This occured with both Lillian Hellman’s Toys in the Attic (1960) and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee (1963), causing Gassner and his colleague John Mason Brown to resign from the jury. Gassner himself received many awards and honors during his career, among them an honorary M.A. from Yale University (1956) and the American Educational Theatre Association award of merit (1959). He was busy working on an anthology of his own writings (Dramatic Soundings) at the time of his death on April 2, 1967. It was completed by his wife Mollie, and published posthumously in 1968. Sources: Harbour, Charles Clayton. “John Gassner: Drama Critic,” dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin, 1970. “John Waldhorn Gassner.” Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2002. Accessed 16 December 2015. Scope and Contents The papers of the Hungarian-born American theatre historian, critic, educator, and 3 Gassner, John, 1903-1967 Manuscript Collection MS-54109 The papers of the Hungarian-born American theatre historian, critic, educator, and anthologist John Gassner (1903-1967) contain manuscripts for numerous works, extensive correspondence, career and personal papers, research materials, and works by others, forming a notable record of Gassner’s contributions to theatre history. Many of Gassner’s colleagues are represented in the papers, including fellow critics, editors, educators, publishers, and theatre professionals, as well as noted performers and playwrights, students, fans, and family members, most notably wife Mollie Kern Gassner who often assisted her husband and continued this role after John Gassner’s death. The papers span 1894-1983, with the bulk dating from the period from 1950 until Gassner’s death in 1967. The papers are organized into five series, I. Works; II. Letters; III. Recipient; IV. Miscellaneous; and V. Additional Materials. The John Gassner papers in Series I.-IV. (boxes 1-87) were previously described only in a card catalog. This finding aid replicates and replaces that description. Please see the explanatory note at the end of this finding aid for information regarding the arrangement of those manuscripts as well as the abbreviations commonly used in the descriptions. Gassner’s papers were formerly part of the Ransom Center’s Theater Arts Manuscripts Collection, but now form a separate, discrete collection. Manuscripts, notes, and proofs for Gassner’s writings make up Series I. Works, 1926-1969, and represent his output of anthologies, articles, book reviews, columns, criticism, introductions, lectures, play adaptations, play reports, poetry, and speeches. The materials are arranged alphabetically by title. Dominant among the works are his various Best Plays volumes, "Broadway in Review" column, Directions in Modern Theatre and Drama, work toward Dramatic Soundings (posthumously published), Elizabethan Drama, Our Heritage of World Literature, and A Treasury of the Theatre. Also present are Gassner’s lectures for his Drama 126 class at Yale University, 1962-1964, as well as extensive notes on a variety of literary and theatre figures and subjects. All titles are represented in the Index of Works in

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