The Cast of WITHIN THE LAW
AMERICAN CLASSICS
These are plays produced by ELTC, listed in the order in which they were FIRST written/produced. Check back for updates as artistic director Gayle Stahlhuth continues to plow through production notes, covering over 100 classic productions.
"Unlike the usual summer-theater mix, ELTC specializes in shows that "deal with the uniquely American experience," including revivals of forgotten American plays from the first half of the 20th century. This year, the company has exhumed "To the Ladies!," a 1922 comedy by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly. All Kaufman-Connelly revivals are rare, but "To the Ladies!" hasn't been staged anywhere since 1926, which makes this production significant by definition. To be sure, I expected that "To the Ladies!" would be a historical curiosity, but it turns out to be thoroughly likable, well directed and with an excellent cast." To see the full review click here
– Terry Teachout for THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
1858 OUR AMERICAN COUSIN
Written by Britisher Tom Taylor, this comedy is about an honest but awkward American, Asa Trenchard, who goes to England to claim his inheritance. It.premiered at Laura Keene’s Theatre in NYC, with Joseph Jefferson, famous for his portrayal of “Rip Van Winkle” in the title role, and Keene portraying the daughter of Sir Edward who heads up the Trenchard family in England.
It was Laure Keene's production of Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre on Good Friday, April 14, 1865 in Washington D.C. that President and Mrs. Lincoln were watching when John Wilkes Booth entered the President's box during the third and final act to fire the fatal shot.
In March, 2015, ELTC presented this play as a staged reading with 11 actors taking on 16 roles, to commemorate the 150th Anniversary of the assination. Although Tom Taylor's play is charming, its many scene changes, large cast, and period costumes, make it difficult to produce today. The cast:James Rana, Thomas Raniszewski, Robert LeMaire, Fred Velde, Lee O'Connor, Mark Edward Lang, Gayle Stahlhuth, Alison J. Murphy, Suzanne Dawson, Susan Tischler, and Holly Knapp, under the direction of Gayle Stahlhuth.
Mary Frances Moss (1826-1873) was born in England. After her husband was sent to prison, she changed her name to Laura Keene and became an actor to support herself and her two children. While touring America, she decided to stay, becoming the first woman in NYC to manage her own theater and direct. On that dreadful night at Ford's Theatre, Keene cradled Lincoln's head in her lap while doctors examined the wound before he was moved to the boarding house across the street.
Written by Britisher Tom Taylor, this comedy is about an honest but awkward American, Asa Trenchard, who goes to England to claim his inheritance. It.premiered at Laura Keene’s Theatre in NYC, with Joseph Jefferson, famous for his portrayal of “Rip Van Winkle” in the title role, and Keene portraying the daughter of Sir Edward who heads up the Trenchard family in England.
It was Laure Keene's production of Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre on Good Friday, April 14, 1865 in Washington D.C. that President and Mrs. Lincoln were watching when John Wilkes Booth entered the President's box during the third and final act to fire the fatal shot.
In March, 2015, ELTC presented this play as a staged reading with 11 actors taking on 16 roles, to commemorate the 150th Anniversary of the assination. Although Tom Taylor's play is charming, its many scene changes, large cast, and period costumes, make it difficult to produce today. The cast:James Rana, Thomas Raniszewski, Robert LeMaire, Fred Velde, Lee O'Connor, Mark Edward Lang, Gayle Stahlhuth, Alison J. Murphy, Suzanne Dawson, Susan Tischler, and Holly Knapp, under the direction of Gayle Stahlhuth.
Mary Frances Moss (1826-1873) was born in England. After her husband was sent to prison, she changed her name to Laura Keene and became an actor to support herself and her two children. While touring America, she decided to stay, becoming the first woman in NYC to manage her own theater and direct. On that dreadful night at Ford's Theatre, Keene cradled Lincoln's head in her lap while doctors examined the wound before he was moved to the boarding house across the street.
1904 THE DICTATOR
Ethel Barrymore challenged famous journalist Richard Harding Davis to write a play, and he wrote one of the funniest comedies ELTC has ever produced. Brooke Travers flees NYC by jumping aboard a ship, and lands in Puerto Banos, in Central America. Believing he’s a “wanted man,” he assumes different names, even swapping identities with the American Consul, and meanwhile still manages to fall in love. Who is in charge of this Banana Republic, where revolutions are a way of life, is anyone’s guess in this large-cast 1904 Broadway hit.
When ELTC first produced The Dictator in 2001, it had not been staged in 76 years. ELTC produced it again in 2010. Photo is from the 2010 production with John Cameron Weber, Tiffany-Leigh Moscow, John Alvarez, Alison J. Murphy, Brad Heikes, Clifford Rivera, and Robert LeMaire. Also in the cast were Tom Byrn, Thomas Raniszewski, and Gayle Stahlhuth, who also directed.
Richard Harding Davis (1864-1916) dined with Ethel Barrymore; fished with Joseph Jefferson; and Charles Dana Gibson sketched him alongside his “Gibson” girls. He was the son of two writers. His mother, Rebecca Harding Davis, wrote the first book on the evils of the iron mills, and his father, Lemuel Clark Davis, was a journalist and editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer. Richard himself was a well-known journalist and is even referred to in the 1928 Broadway comedy The Front Page. He covered everything from the Johnstown Flood to World War I, and it was his account of the Battle of San Juan Hill that helped Theodore Roosevelt to the Presidency. He wrote short stories, books, and more than a dozen Broadway plays, The Dictator being the most successful. Like many of his stories and plays, it was adapted into a silent film, and in 1939 was slated to be turned into a talkie at the same time Charlie Chaplin’s The Dictator began filming. Harding’s Dictator was not made after all, but Chaplin renamed his film The Great Dictator so as not to cause too much confusion if the two were released at the same time.
Ethel Barrymore challenged famous journalist Richard Harding Davis to write a play, and he wrote one of the funniest comedies ELTC has ever produced. Brooke Travers flees NYC by jumping aboard a ship, and lands in Puerto Banos, in Central America. Believing he’s a “wanted man,” he assumes different names, even swapping identities with the American Consul, and meanwhile still manages to fall in love. Who is in charge of this Banana Republic, where revolutions are a way of life, is anyone’s guess in this large-cast 1904 Broadway hit.
When ELTC first produced The Dictator in 2001, it had not been staged in 76 years. ELTC produced it again in 2010. Photo is from the 2010 production with John Cameron Weber, Tiffany-Leigh Moscow, John Alvarez, Alison J. Murphy, Brad Heikes, Clifford Rivera, and Robert LeMaire. Also in the cast were Tom Byrn, Thomas Raniszewski, and Gayle Stahlhuth, who also directed.
Richard Harding Davis (1864-1916) dined with Ethel Barrymore; fished with Joseph Jefferson; and Charles Dana Gibson sketched him alongside his “Gibson” girls. He was the son of two writers. His mother, Rebecca Harding Davis, wrote the first book on the evils of the iron mills, and his father, Lemuel Clark Davis, was a journalist and editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer. Richard himself was a well-known journalist and is even referred to in the 1928 Broadway comedy The Front Page. He covered everything from the Johnstown Flood to World War I, and it was his account of the Battle of San Juan Hill that helped Theodore Roosevelt to the Presidency. He wrote short stories, books, and more than a dozen Broadway plays, The Dictator being the most successful. Like many of his stories and plays, it was adapted into a silent film, and in 1939 was slated to be turned into a talkie at the same time Charlie Chaplin’s The Dictator began filming. Harding’s Dictator was not made after all, but Chaplin renamed his film The Great Dictator so as not to cause too much confusion if the two were released at the same time.
1906 THE NEW YORK IDEA
Written by Langdon Mitchell, The New York Idea was the first comedy to deal with divorce. Before The Philadelphia Story and Private Lives, Mitchell created this comedy full of wit and sophistication.
When Mitchell began The New York Idea, he had a dual purpose of providing a play for America’s leading lady, Mrs. Minnie Maddern Fiske, and devising a satire on American frivolity and divorce. He believed that “the subject of divorce is the most important question in this country at the present time. There is no training for the marriage-state. The smart set look at it foolishly and the lowest set look upon it brutally.”
Mitchell’s own marriage to English actress, Marion Lea, was a good one. She originated the role of the world-wise Vida Phillamore, and the play is dedicated to her.
ELTC produced this comedy in the fall of 2002 and the spring of 2003. Pictured are the cast: Steve Haas, Michele LaRue, Bruce Minnix, Patti Chambers, Mark Edward Lang, Alison J. Murphy, and Ken Glickfeld. Directed by Gayle Stahlhuth.
Langdon Elwyn Mitchell (1862-1935), born in Philadelphia, was the son of the famous physician and author, Silas Weir Mitchell (1829-1914) best known for his psychological and historical novels. The son even wrote a stage adaptation of one of his father’s novels, The Adventures of Francois, about a roguish thief during the French Revolution. Mitchell was considered by the critics of his day to be the “American George Bernard Shaw” because of his use of satire and social commentary. His career as a dramatist began in 1885 with the romantic comedy, Sylvan, but his first major success was Becky Sharp, based on William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel, Vanity Fair. It opened on Broadway on September 12, 1899, and was revived in 1904, 1911, 1929, toured in 1931, and was the basis for the first Technicolor feature film ever made. Shooting began in 1934, but one month into filming, the director, Lowell Sherman, died. The position was filled by Reuben Mamoulian. Mitchell’s next major success was The New York Idea, which opened at The Lyric Theatre on November 19, 1906 and ran for 66 performances, which was a long run in those days. It was revived on Broadway in 1915 and 1933, and was made into a silent film in 1920, starring Alice Brady (Cynthia), Lowell Sherman (John), Hedda Hopper (Vida), and George Howell (Philip). Other Broadway plays written by Mitchell include The Kreutzer Sonata in 1906 and Major Pendennis in 1916.
Minnie Maddern Fiske was the original Cynthia Karslake in The New York Idea. At the turn of the twentieth century, she was one of the best known actresses in America, making her mark playing the heroines in the plays of Henrik Ibsen and William Shakespeare. In 1890, she married playwright and theatrical manager Harrison Grey Fisk. The New York Idea was not her first Mitchell play. She played the title role in Becky Sharp in the original production as well as the revivals and the tour.
Written by Langdon Mitchell, The New York Idea was the first comedy to deal with divorce. Before The Philadelphia Story and Private Lives, Mitchell created this comedy full of wit and sophistication.
When Mitchell began The New York Idea, he had a dual purpose of providing a play for America’s leading lady, Mrs. Minnie Maddern Fiske, and devising a satire on American frivolity and divorce. He believed that “the subject of divorce is the most important question in this country at the present time. There is no training for the marriage-state. The smart set look at it foolishly and the lowest set look upon it brutally.”
Mitchell’s own marriage to English actress, Marion Lea, was a good one. She originated the role of the world-wise Vida Phillamore, and the play is dedicated to her.
ELTC produced this comedy in the fall of 2002 and the spring of 2003. Pictured are the cast: Steve Haas, Michele LaRue, Bruce Minnix, Patti Chambers, Mark Edward Lang, Alison J. Murphy, and Ken Glickfeld. Directed by Gayle Stahlhuth.
Langdon Elwyn Mitchell (1862-1935), born in Philadelphia, was the son of the famous physician and author, Silas Weir Mitchell (1829-1914) best known for his psychological and historical novels. The son even wrote a stage adaptation of one of his father’s novels, The Adventures of Francois, about a roguish thief during the French Revolution. Mitchell was considered by the critics of his day to be the “American George Bernard Shaw” because of his use of satire and social commentary. His career as a dramatist began in 1885 with the romantic comedy, Sylvan, but his first major success was Becky Sharp, based on William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel, Vanity Fair. It opened on Broadway on September 12, 1899, and was revived in 1904, 1911, 1929, toured in 1931, and was the basis for the first Technicolor feature film ever made. Shooting began in 1934, but one month into filming, the director, Lowell Sherman, died. The position was filled by Reuben Mamoulian. Mitchell’s next major success was The New York Idea, which opened at The Lyric Theatre on November 19, 1906 and ran for 66 performances, which was a long run in those days. It was revived on Broadway in 1915 and 1933, and was made into a silent film in 1920, starring Alice Brady (Cynthia), Lowell Sherman (John), Hedda Hopper (Vida), and George Howell (Philip). Other Broadway plays written by Mitchell include The Kreutzer Sonata in 1906 and Major Pendennis in 1916.
Minnie Maddern Fiske was the original Cynthia Karslake in The New York Idea. At the turn of the twentieth century, she was one of the best known actresses in America, making her mark playing the heroines in the plays of Henrik Ibsen and William Shakespeare. In 1890, she married playwright and theatrical manager Harrison Grey Fisk. The New York Idea was not her first Mitchell play. She played the title role in Becky Sharp in the original production as well as the revivals and the tour.
1912 WITHIN THE LAW
This Broadway sensation was the most successful play to hit New York in ten years. Part of its charm lies in the fact that it’s a drama, comedy, romance, and mystery all rolled into one hit. Opening in September, 1912 at the Eltinge Theatre, it ran for two years (a long run in those days), receiving praise from critics, social workers, city officials, and audiences alike. The plot involves Mary Turner, a sales clerk in a Manhattan department store, being falsely accused of shoplifting. Her pleas for justice solicit a sneer from the store owner, but she warns him that, although she is no thief, if he doesn't pay his employees a decent wage, there will be more thefts. After her prison term, Mary learns how to fight society and wealth with their own weapons, so she can seek revenge on those who wronged her by staying just “within the law.” This was familiar territory for playwright Bayard Veiller, who grew up poor in Brooklyn and spent many years as a police reporter before becoming a successful playwright. Cast: Jennifer Bissell, Tom Byrn, Ken Glickfeld, Patrick Hyland, Seth James, Meredith Lark, Matt Baxter Luceno, Lee O’Connor, Hillary Pusak, Thomas Raniszewski, Gayle Stahlhuth, Eric Stephenson, and John Cameron Weber.
"Gayle Stahlhuth's production brings to life a NYC world of economic exploitation, crime, corruption, and convoluted romance . . . There's fun to be had watching these timeless themes play out . . . With a cast of 13, Within the Law offers a large canvas of effective ensemble acting." - Kim Merrill, Cape May Star and Wave
This Broadway sensation was the most successful play to hit New York in ten years. Part of its charm lies in the fact that it’s a drama, comedy, romance, and mystery all rolled into one hit. Opening in September, 1912 at the Eltinge Theatre, it ran for two years (a long run in those days), receiving praise from critics, social workers, city officials, and audiences alike. The plot involves Mary Turner, a sales clerk in a Manhattan department store, being falsely accused of shoplifting. Her pleas for justice solicit a sneer from the store owner, but she warns him that, although she is no thief, if he doesn't pay his employees a decent wage, there will be more thefts. After her prison term, Mary learns how to fight society and wealth with their own weapons, so she can seek revenge on those who wronged her by staying just “within the law.” This was familiar territory for playwright Bayard Veiller, who grew up poor in Brooklyn and spent many years as a police reporter before becoming a successful playwright. Cast: Jennifer Bissell, Tom Byrn, Ken Glickfeld, Patrick Hyland, Seth James, Meredith Lark, Matt Baxter Luceno, Lee O’Connor, Hillary Pusak, Thomas Raniszewski, Gayle Stahlhuth, Eric Stephenson, and John Cameron Weber.
"Gayle Stahlhuth's production brings to life a NYC world of economic exploitation, crime, corruption, and convoluted romance . . . There's fun to be had watching these timeless themes play out . . . With a cast of 13, Within the Law offers a large canvas of effective ensemble acting." - Kim Merrill, Cape May Star and Wave
1914 IT PAYS TO ADVERTISE
A “farcical fact” in three acts It Pays to Advertise by Roi Cooper Megrue and Walter C. Hackett, was a hit on Broadway in 1914. This screwball comedy was twice made into a movie: a silent in 1919, and in 1931 with Carole Lombard. The premise – and promise – that anything can be sold is at its core, but it also examines the very nature and romance of advertising. Decades before AMC's Mad Men, this clever farce demonstrates that an ad campaign might be better than the product. All it takes is one adventurous young man to announce, “Advertising is responsible for everything!” and he and his two friends are off and running in this mad romp.
ELTC produced it in 2012. Pictured are Tom Byrn, Matt Baxter Luceno, Phil Pizzi, John Cameron Weber and Kate Shine. Also in the cast were Thomas Raniszewski, Maria Silverman, Glen Corlis, Lee O'Connor, and Gayle Stahlhuth. Directed by Stahlhuth.
Roi Cooper Megrue (1883-1927), born and raised in New York City, worked as an assistant to Elisabeth Marbury, a well-known theatrical and literary agent, before becoming a successful Broadway playwright. His first major success was Under Cover (1914) involving jewelry smuggling and U.S. Customs agents, good guys, and bad, played against the backdrop of High Society. Under Fire (1915), Potash and Perlmutter in Society (1915), Under Sentence (1916, written with Irvin S. Cobb, another play about crime) and Tea for Three (1918) followed. His 1916 comedy, Seven Chances, was made into a film directed by and starring Buster Keaton in 1925. The film was remade in 1999 with the title The Bachelor starring Chris O’Donnell and Renee Zellweger.He directed and co-produced Why Marry? in 1917; the first play to win the Pulitzer Prize. ELTC produced Why Marry? in 2006 and 2007.
Walter C. Hackett (1876-1944) born in Oakland, California, was successful in a variety of ways in the entertainment industry. His play Regeneration, written with Owen Frawley Kildare based on Kildare’s book, My Mamie Rose, was made into a film in 1915 directed by Raoul Walsh. In 2000, Regeneration was selected for preservation by The Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.” It’s about a young man’s rise from poverty to becoming a crime boss. Two other plays were made into British films in the 1930s: Freedom of the Seas, about war, and Hyde Park Corner, about a policeman investigating a current crime that has its origins in the 1780s.
Hackett married Marion Lorne, who grew up in Pennsylvania, and began performing on Broadway in 1905. They moved to England where they built The Whitehall Theatre, designed by Edward Stone. From its opening in 1930 with The Way to Treat a Woman, through 1934, most of the plays were written by Hackett, starring his wife. In 2004, the theater was redesigned and is now called Trafalgar Studios.
When Hackett died in 1944, Lorne moved back to America where she resumed her Broadway career in hits like Harvey. Her film debut was in Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train (1951) playing Robert Walker’s mother. Television roles soon followed, and it was her perplexed witch, Aunt Clara, on Bewitched that gave her well-deserved fame towards the end of a long and respected career. It earned her an Emmy in 1968, accepted on her behalf by Elizabeth Montgomery. Marion Lorne had died from a heart attack a few months before.
A “farcical fact” in three acts It Pays to Advertise by Roi Cooper Megrue and Walter C. Hackett, was a hit on Broadway in 1914. This screwball comedy was twice made into a movie: a silent in 1919, and in 1931 with Carole Lombard. The premise – and promise – that anything can be sold is at its core, but it also examines the very nature and romance of advertising. Decades before AMC's Mad Men, this clever farce demonstrates that an ad campaign might be better than the product. All it takes is one adventurous young man to announce, “Advertising is responsible for everything!” and he and his two friends are off and running in this mad romp.
ELTC produced it in 2012. Pictured are Tom Byrn, Matt Baxter Luceno, Phil Pizzi, John Cameron Weber and Kate Shine. Also in the cast were Thomas Raniszewski, Maria Silverman, Glen Corlis, Lee O'Connor, and Gayle Stahlhuth. Directed by Stahlhuth.
Roi Cooper Megrue (1883-1927), born and raised in New York City, worked as an assistant to Elisabeth Marbury, a well-known theatrical and literary agent, before becoming a successful Broadway playwright. His first major success was Under Cover (1914) involving jewelry smuggling and U.S. Customs agents, good guys, and bad, played against the backdrop of High Society. Under Fire (1915), Potash and Perlmutter in Society (1915), Under Sentence (1916, written with Irvin S. Cobb, another play about crime) and Tea for Three (1918) followed. His 1916 comedy, Seven Chances, was made into a film directed by and starring Buster Keaton in 1925. The film was remade in 1999 with the title The Bachelor starring Chris O’Donnell and Renee Zellweger.He directed and co-produced Why Marry? in 1917; the first play to win the Pulitzer Prize. ELTC produced Why Marry? in 2006 and 2007.
Walter C. Hackett (1876-1944) born in Oakland, California, was successful in a variety of ways in the entertainment industry. His play Regeneration, written with Owen Frawley Kildare based on Kildare’s book, My Mamie Rose, was made into a film in 1915 directed by Raoul Walsh. In 2000, Regeneration was selected for preservation by The Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.” It’s about a young man’s rise from poverty to becoming a crime boss. Two other plays were made into British films in the 1930s: Freedom of the Seas, about war, and Hyde Park Corner, about a policeman investigating a current crime that has its origins in the 1780s.
Hackett married Marion Lorne, who grew up in Pennsylvania, and began performing on Broadway in 1905. They moved to England where they built The Whitehall Theatre, designed by Edward Stone. From its opening in 1930 with The Way to Treat a Woman, through 1934, most of the plays were written by Hackett, starring his wife. In 2004, the theater was redesigned and is now called Trafalgar Studios.
When Hackett died in 1944, Lorne moved back to America where she resumed her Broadway career in hits like Harvey. Her film debut was in Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train (1951) playing Robert Walker’s mother. Television roles soon followed, and it was her perplexed witch, Aunt Clara, on Bewitched that gave her well-deserved fame towards the end of a long and respected career. It earned her an Emmy in 1968, accepted on her behalf by Elizabeth Montgomery. Marion Lorne had died from a heart attack a few months before.
Through a collaboration between the Drumthwacket Foundation and the New Jersey Theatre Alliance, ELTC was one of five NJ theaters asked to decorate several rooms for the 2013 holiday season at Drumthwacket, the Governor’s Official Residence in Princeton. ELTC was given the Governor’s office. Using costumes designed and built by Marion T.Brady for It Pays to Advertise, ELTC’s display, designed by Stahlhuth, was created to make one think of a shop window. The mannequin in the purple suit is looking at two dresses and a framed sign in the middle that advertises “Thirteen Soap: Unlucky for Dirt," designed by Mark Lang for ELTC’s production. There are smaller frames on either side of the dresses, sitting on small tables. One has pictures and credits from the show. The other is a page of dialogue from It Pays to Advertise, where real statistics are revealed, ending with: “Six hundred and sixteen million dollars were spent last year in magazines and newspapers, billboards and electric signs, bringing education and comfort and fun and luxury to the people of the United States. It’s romance - the romance of the printing presses, of steel rails, of the wireless, of trains and competition, the romance of modern business, and it’s all built on advertising. Advertising is the biggest thing in this country, and it’s only just the beginning.”
One Acts from 1915-1920 ALICE ON THE EDGE
"Overtones" (1915), "He Said and She Said" (1918), "Illuminati in Drama Libre" (1919) and "Fourteen” (1920)
Four deliciously witty one-acts by ground-breaking playwright Alice Gerstenberg. "Overtones” was one of the most talked-about plays of the 1915 Broadway season!
A blizzard blows outside as Mrs. Pringle, her daughter, and the butler, frantically juggle plates inside in preparation for a dinner party in “Fourteen.” “Illuminati,” similar in style to Waiting for Godot, was first produced in 1919, 35 years before Beckett’s Vladimir and Estragon walked the boards. There are four women in “Overtones,” but only two are “real” because two women represent one person, each embodying a disparate part of the same personality. This was the first time on stage where two characters were seen talking to their alter egos. In “He Said and She Said,” a busybody questions why the unmarried Diana spends so much time with her best friend—and her best friend’s husband.
ELTC produced these one-acts in 2009, directed by Karen Case Cook. Pictured here are cast members Mark Edward Lang and Suzanne Dawson. Not pictured are Shelley McPherson, Alison J. Murphy, and Gayle Stahlhuth.
Alice Gerstenberg (1885-1972), born and raised in Chicago, the daughter of wealthy, cultured, socialites, started writing when she was eight. After graduating from the Kirkland School, she attended Bryn Mawr, where she wrote and performed in plays. After graduation in 1907, she returned to Chicago to attend classes at Anna Morgan's studio and became active in Chicago's theater circle. Morgan encouraged Gerstenberg to write one-act plays, four of which were published under the title A Little World. She traveled extensively throughout America and Europe, seeing theater wherever she went, and even received encouragement from David Belasco who allowed her to sit in on his rehearsals. In 1912, she became one of the founding members of the Chicago Little Theatre, but left at the end of the first season due to artistic differences with the theater’s director, Maurice Browne.
In February, 1915, her full-length play Alice in Wonderland, based on Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass was produced at the Fine Arts Theater in Chicago, and, on March 23, 1915, opened at the Booth Theater in NYC. It was the first successful adaptation of Carroll’s books, and her version introduced innovative stage techniques to the Broadway stage. (ELTC’s Summer Student Production in 2007 was a shortened version of Gerstenberg’s Alice.) Her novel, The Conscience of Sarah Platt, was published during the same year, receiving excellent reviews. In 1921 she co-founded the Chicago Junior League Theater, a group that produced plays for children, and in 1922 she founded the Playwright's Theater, dedicated to providing development and production opportunities for local artists. She ran the Playwright's Theater until 1945. In 1938 she received the Chicago Foundation for Literature Award.
Gerstenberg wrote more than 40 plays and is considered an influential member of the "little theater" movement in the United States and an innovator of theatrical form. “The Little Theater Movement” offered artists the opportunity to take risks without the concerns inherent in large commercial ventures. Several of these cutting-edge productions were performed in larger venues. For example, “Overtones” was produced on Broadway in 1915 by the famous Washington Square Players, began a successful run in vaudeville the following year, and was performed in London by Lily Langtry.
"Overtones" (1915), "He Said and She Said" (1918), "Illuminati in Drama Libre" (1919) and "Fourteen” (1920)
Four deliciously witty one-acts by ground-breaking playwright Alice Gerstenberg. "Overtones” was one of the most talked-about plays of the 1915 Broadway season!
A blizzard blows outside as Mrs. Pringle, her daughter, and the butler, frantically juggle plates inside in preparation for a dinner party in “Fourteen.” “Illuminati,” similar in style to Waiting for Godot, was first produced in 1919, 35 years before Beckett’s Vladimir and Estragon walked the boards. There are four women in “Overtones,” but only two are “real” because two women represent one person, each embodying a disparate part of the same personality. This was the first time on stage where two characters were seen talking to their alter egos. In “He Said and She Said,” a busybody questions why the unmarried Diana spends so much time with her best friend—and her best friend’s husband.
ELTC produced these one-acts in 2009, directed by Karen Case Cook. Pictured here are cast members Mark Edward Lang and Suzanne Dawson. Not pictured are Shelley McPherson, Alison J. Murphy, and Gayle Stahlhuth.
Alice Gerstenberg (1885-1972), born and raised in Chicago, the daughter of wealthy, cultured, socialites, started writing when she was eight. After graduating from the Kirkland School, she attended Bryn Mawr, where she wrote and performed in plays. After graduation in 1907, she returned to Chicago to attend classes at Anna Morgan's studio and became active in Chicago's theater circle. Morgan encouraged Gerstenberg to write one-act plays, four of which were published under the title A Little World. She traveled extensively throughout America and Europe, seeing theater wherever she went, and even received encouragement from David Belasco who allowed her to sit in on his rehearsals. In 1912, she became one of the founding members of the Chicago Little Theatre, but left at the end of the first season due to artistic differences with the theater’s director, Maurice Browne.
In February, 1915, her full-length play Alice in Wonderland, based on Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass was produced at the Fine Arts Theater in Chicago, and, on March 23, 1915, opened at the Booth Theater in NYC. It was the first successful adaptation of Carroll’s books, and her version introduced innovative stage techniques to the Broadway stage. (ELTC’s Summer Student Production in 2007 was a shortened version of Gerstenberg’s Alice.) Her novel, The Conscience of Sarah Platt, was published during the same year, receiving excellent reviews. In 1921 she co-founded the Chicago Junior League Theater, a group that produced plays for children, and in 1922 she founded the Playwright's Theater, dedicated to providing development and production opportunities for local artists. She ran the Playwright's Theater until 1945. In 1938 she received the Chicago Foundation for Literature Award.
Gerstenberg wrote more than 40 plays and is considered an influential member of the "little theater" movement in the United States and an innovator of theatrical form. “The Little Theater Movement” offered artists the opportunity to take risks without the concerns inherent in large commercial ventures. Several of these cutting-edge productions were performed in larger venues. For example, “Overtones” was produced on Broadway in 1915 by the famous Washington Square Players, began a successful run in vaudeville the following year, and was performed in London by Lily Langtry.
1917 WHY MARRY?
Written by Jesse Lynch Williams, this was the first play to win a Pulitzer Prize. It opened on Broadway in 1917 - a time when more women were attending universities, entering the workforce, and struggling to obtain the vote, thus forcing a reexamination of women’s role in society. This delightfully zesty comedy explores marriage vs. living together, through the lives of three sisters. Jean is contemplating marriage because it’s expected. Lucy is married to a man who believes that women should behave the way men wish them to behave. Helen doesn’t want to ruin her friendship with a co-worker by marrying him. “There can be no real marriage - save on a basis of political, social, and economic equality.” - Jesse Lynch Williams
When ELTC produced it in the fall of 2006, it was the first time this play had been produced in 86 years. It was brought back in the spring of 2007. Pictured left are Mark Edward Lang and Alison J. Murphy. Others in the cast were Ken Glickfeld, John Isgro, Megan McDermott, Shelley McPherson, Phil Pizzi, and Thomas Raniszewski. Directed by Gayle Stahlhuth. In May 2013, ELTC’s 2007 cast of “Why Marry?” reunited for a staged-reading performance at The Players Club in NYC – the last time this play was ever heard in NYC.
JESSE LYNCH WILLIAMS AND THE PULITZER PRIZE
Jesse Lynch Williams was born on August 17, 1871 in Sterling, IL. At Princeton, he co-founded the Triangle Club, an organization devoted to theater, with Booth Tarkington. After graduation, he became a reporter for The New York Sun, and, after two years, started working for Scribner’s Magazine. Meanwhile, he contributed stories to many New York newspapers, and, in 1900, founded the Princeton Alumni Weekly. Princeton Stories, Adventures of a Freshman, and The Girl and the Game are just a few of the short stories he wrote based on his experiences as a Princeton undergraduate. From 1904 to 1929, Williams wrote six novels and four plays, including the The Newspaper Stories, which was successfully produced in 1906. He was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters and to the Author’s League of America, even serving as its President in 1921. From 1925-1926, he occupied the Chair of Creative Arts at the University of Michigan. He died on September 14, 1929.
Williams started to write Why Marry? as a short story, but soon realized he wanted to give it a dramatic treatment. At first, he was unable to interest Broadway producers because the subject matter was too provocative, but when students at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts staged the play at their annual graduation exercise on January 3, 1917, several Broadway producers who had turned it down, now saw its appeal. Why Marry? played for ten weeks in Columbus, OH before it moved to New York’s Astor Theater on December 25, 1917. Not only was it the hit of the season, but it became the first play to win the Pulitzer Prize.
Hungarian-born Joseph Pulitzer was not only a skillful newspaper publisher, but was also a crusader against dishonest government, and a visionary. His innovative New York World and St. Louis Post-Dispatch reshaped newspaper journalism. In his 1904 will, he made provision for the establishment of the Pulitzer Prizes as an incentive to excellence. Prizes were first awarded in 1917. From 1923-1925, Jesse Lynch Williams was a Pulitzer Prize juror.
Other productions on New York City stages in 1917 included The Willow Tree, A Tailor-Made Man, The King, Going Up, The Passing Show of 1917, and Ziegfeld Follies of 1917 at the New Amsterdam Theater. Jerome Kern had several productions that year, including Miss 1917 that he wrote with Victor Herbert, and Leave It to Jane. George Gershwin was the rehearsal pianist.
Three playwrights had their one-acts produced. Susan Glaspell’s The People, Close the Book and The Outside helped to solidify her reputation as a playwright. The Washington Square Players produced Eugene O’Neill’s The Long Voyage Home, Fog, The Sniper, Ile, and The Rope. Ridgely Terrence’s evening of one acts, Grammy Maumee, The Rider of Dreams, and Simon the Cyrenian, were groundbreaking. Not only was this the first dramatic production to portray African American life beyond the cliché, but it was also the first production on Broadway to feature an all-African American cast.
As always, plays came to Broadway from “across the pond.” George Bernard Shaw’s Misalliance opened in 1917, the first production in the new Broadhurst Theater.
Written by Jesse Lynch Williams, this was the first play to win a Pulitzer Prize. It opened on Broadway in 1917 - a time when more women were attending universities, entering the workforce, and struggling to obtain the vote, thus forcing a reexamination of women’s role in society. This delightfully zesty comedy explores marriage vs. living together, through the lives of three sisters. Jean is contemplating marriage because it’s expected. Lucy is married to a man who believes that women should behave the way men wish them to behave. Helen doesn’t want to ruin her friendship with a co-worker by marrying him. “There can be no real marriage - save on a basis of political, social, and economic equality.” - Jesse Lynch Williams
When ELTC produced it in the fall of 2006, it was the first time this play had been produced in 86 years. It was brought back in the spring of 2007. Pictured left are Mark Edward Lang and Alison J. Murphy. Others in the cast were Ken Glickfeld, John Isgro, Megan McDermott, Shelley McPherson, Phil Pizzi, and Thomas Raniszewski. Directed by Gayle Stahlhuth. In May 2013, ELTC’s 2007 cast of “Why Marry?” reunited for a staged-reading performance at The Players Club in NYC – the last time this play was ever heard in NYC.
JESSE LYNCH WILLIAMS AND THE PULITZER PRIZE
Jesse Lynch Williams was born on August 17, 1871 in Sterling, IL. At Princeton, he co-founded the Triangle Club, an organization devoted to theater, with Booth Tarkington. After graduation, he became a reporter for The New York Sun, and, after two years, started working for Scribner’s Magazine. Meanwhile, he contributed stories to many New York newspapers, and, in 1900, founded the Princeton Alumni Weekly. Princeton Stories, Adventures of a Freshman, and The Girl and the Game are just a few of the short stories he wrote based on his experiences as a Princeton undergraduate. From 1904 to 1929, Williams wrote six novels and four plays, including the The Newspaper Stories, which was successfully produced in 1906. He was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters and to the Author’s League of America, even serving as its President in 1921. From 1925-1926, he occupied the Chair of Creative Arts at the University of Michigan. He died on September 14, 1929.
Williams started to write Why Marry? as a short story, but soon realized he wanted to give it a dramatic treatment. At first, he was unable to interest Broadway producers because the subject matter was too provocative, but when students at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts staged the play at their annual graduation exercise on January 3, 1917, several Broadway producers who had turned it down, now saw its appeal. Why Marry? played for ten weeks in Columbus, OH before it moved to New York’s Astor Theater on December 25, 1917. Not only was it the hit of the season, but it became the first play to win the Pulitzer Prize.
Hungarian-born Joseph Pulitzer was not only a skillful newspaper publisher, but was also a crusader against dishonest government, and a visionary. His innovative New York World and St. Louis Post-Dispatch reshaped newspaper journalism. In his 1904 will, he made provision for the establishment of the Pulitzer Prizes as an incentive to excellence. Prizes were first awarded in 1917. From 1923-1925, Jesse Lynch Williams was a Pulitzer Prize juror.
Other productions on New York City stages in 1917 included The Willow Tree, A Tailor-Made Man, The King, Going Up, The Passing Show of 1917, and Ziegfeld Follies of 1917 at the New Amsterdam Theater. Jerome Kern had several productions that year, including Miss 1917 that he wrote with Victor Herbert, and Leave It to Jane. George Gershwin was the rehearsal pianist.
Three playwrights had their one-acts produced. Susan Glaspell’s The People, Close the Book and The Outside helped to solidify her reputation as a playwright. The Washington Square Players produced Eugene O’Neill’s The Long Voyage Home, Fog, The Sniper, Ile, and The Rope. Ridgely Terrence’s evening of one acts, Grammy Maumee, The Rider of Dreams, and Simon the Cyrenian, were groundbreaking. Not only was this the first dramatic production to portray African American life beyond the cliché, but it was also the first production on Broadway to feature an all-African American cast.
As always, plays came to Broadway from “across the pond.” George Bernard Shaw’s Misalliance opened in 1917, the first production in the new Broadhurst Theater.
1917- 1940 RUTH DRAPER’S COMPANY OF CHARACTERS
Before the solo shows of Lily Tomlin and Whoopi Goldberg, there was the originator of the "character monologue," Ruth Draper. For 40 years she performed humorous and touching scenes with great precision, filled with a diverse array of characters from charwomen to divas. Scenes ELTC produced were "Opening a Bazaar," "The German Governess," "Glasses," "A Peasant," "A Charwoman," "A Class in Greek Poise," "At a Telephone Switchboard," and "A Cocktail Party."
In 2012, ELTC was only the second production company - ever - to be allowed to produce this work since Draper. Performers were Karen Case Cook and Suzanne Dawson (pictured), alternating solo scenes, under the direction of Gayle Stahlhuth.
Ruth Draper (1884-1956) was the fifth of six children born into the affluent New York City Draper household. Her father, William Henry Draper, was a well-known physician, and her mother, Ruth Dana, was the daughter of Charles Anderson Dana, editor and publisher of “The New York Sun.” Her nephew was dancer Paul Draper, and her second cousin was architect Paul Phipps, father of British actress Joyce Grenfell. Friends of the family included pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski.
She was a quiet child, who meticulously studied people around her – whether it was her German governess, or the residents in the Maine village where the Drapers had a summer home – and created monologues based on her findings which she performed for family and friends at private parties and charity events. Meanwhile, she was pursuing a theatrical career, appearing at the Neighborhood Playhouse in 1915, and making her Broadway debut a year later in A Lady’s Name. In 1917, she performed in an evening of monologues, the most successful of which was the only one she had written. From then on, she only performed her own material.
In 1920, she made her London debut at Aeolian Hall, garnering her first of many rave reviews, and establishing herself as the preeminent practitioner of her art – a master performer of the character monologue. During a tour of the United States from 1924-1928, she had a command performance before King George V at Windsor Castle. In 1928-1929, she played 18 weeks at the Comedy Theater in NYC. In the 1930s and 1940s, she toured throughout the world, performing on many stages, giving private recitals for Sarah Bernhardt, Eleonora Duse, and the royal families of Britain, Spain, and Belgium. Her repertoire included 60 dramatic sketches featuring 52 characters whom she performed, as well as 316 others whom she evoked during the course of the sketches. Usually, her only set piece was a chair, and her costumes were created with various scarves.
Eleonora Duse declared “Ruth Draper is theater.”
Ruth loved the family summer house built by her father at Dark Harbor on Islesboro, Maine. After her mother died in 1914, the house was left jointly to the Draper children, but Ruth eventually bought it from her siblings, and the Maine home became her refuge. Here, she entertained family and friends, and during World War II, it was home to seven English children and their three nannies. Ruth kept the children busy by playing board games, swimming, going on walks, and reading. And she tucked them in at night.
The love of her life, the Italian poet and political activist, Lauro de Bosis, disappeared mysteriously in 1931 while he was dropping anti-Fascist pamphlets over Rome from a plane. His remains have never been found.
Ruth died peacefully in her sleep at the age of 72 on December 29, 1956. Earlier that evening, she had received accolades for her performance on the Broadway stage. The following June, at her request, her ashes were scattered over the water near her home in Maine.
Before the solo shows of Lily Tomlin and Whoopi Goldberg, there was the originator of the "character monologue," Ruth Draper. For 40 years she performed humorous and touching scenes with great precision, filled with a diverse array of characters from charwomen to divas. Scenes ELTC produced were "Opening a Bazaar," "The German Governess," "Glasses," "A Peasant," "A Charwoman," "A Class in Greek Poise," "At a Telephone Switchboard," and "A Cocktail Party."
In 2012, ELTC was only the second production company - ever - to be allowed to produce this work since Draper. Performers were Karen Case Cook and Suzanne Dawson (pictured), alternating solo scenes, under the direction of Gayle Stahlhuth.
Ruth Draper (1884-1956) was the fifth of six children born into the affluent New York City Draper household. Her father, William Henry Draper, was a well-known physician, and her mother, Ruth Dana, was the daughter of Charles Anderson Dana, editor and publisher of “The New York Sun.” Her nephew was dancer Paul Draper, and her second cousin was architect Paul Phipps, father of British actress Joyce Grenfell. Friends of the family included pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski.
She was a quiet child, who meticulously studied people around her – whether it was her German governess, or the residents in the Maine village where the Drapers had a summer home – and created monologues based on her findings which she performed for family and friends at private parties and charity events. Meanwhile, she was pursuing a theatrical career, appearing at the Neighborhood Playhouse in 1915, and making her Broadway debut a year later in A Lady’s Name. In 1917, she performed in an evening of monologues, the most successful of which was the only one she had written. From then on, she only performed her own material.
In 1920, she made her London debut at Aeolian Hall, garnering her first of many rave reviews, and establishing herself as the preeminent practitioner of her art – a master performer of the character monologue. During a tour of the United States from 1924-1928, she had a command performance before King George V at Windsor Castle. In 1928-1929, she played 18 weeks at the Comedy Theater in NYC. In the 1930s and 1940s, she toured throughout the world, performing on many stages, giving private recitals for Sarah Bernhardt, Eleonora Duse, and the royal families of Britain, Spain, and Belgium. Her repertoire included 60 dramatic sketches featuring 52 characters whom she performed, as well as 316 others whom she evoked during the course of the sketches. Usually, her only set piece was a chair, and her costumes were created with various scarves.
Eleonora Duse declared “Ruth Draper is theater.”
Ruth loved the family summer house built by her father at Dark Harbor on Islesboro, Maine. After her mother died in 1914, the house was left jointly to the Draper children, but Ruth eventually bought it from her siblings, and the Maine home became her refuge. Here, she entertained family and friends, and during World War II, it was home to seven English children and their three nannies. Ruth kept the children busy by playing board games, swimming, going on walks, and reading. And she tucked them in at night.
The love of her life, the Italian poet and political activist, Lauro de Bosis, disappeared mysteriously in 1931 while he was dropping anti-Fascist pamphlets over Rome from a plane. His remains have never been found.
Ruth died peacefully in her sleep at the age of 72 on December 29, 1956. Earlier that evening, she had received accolades for her performance on the Broadway stage. The following June, at her request, her ashes were scattered over the water near her home in Maine.
1920 HE AND SHE
He and She, by Rachel Crothers, begins with Tom Herford entering a competition for a $100,000.00 prize for the best work of art. After hearing comments about “men’s work being better than women’s,” Tom’s wife, Ann, decides to go after the prize, too. Tom’s assistant, Keith, is in love with Ruth, who works for a magazine, but Keith is not sure he can marry a “working” woman. Tom’s sister, Daisy, is the Herfords’ secretary and appears to be determinedly independent … but is she? Suddenly, Tom and Ann’s sixteen-year-old daughter wants to get married. Who wins the prize and who walks down the aisle are all revealed by the end of the play, but with a few surprises along the way.
He and She was first produced in 1911, but did not make it's Broadway debut until 1920, after Crothers made revisions. She played the female lead on Broadway. In 1980, He and She had a successful run at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM).
ELTC produced He and She first in 1997 when Warren Kliewer was artistic director, and artistic director Gayle Stahlhuth produced and directed it in 2011, one-hundred years after its first production. Pictured left are Tom Byrn and Mollie O'Neill as Tom and Ann Herford. Others in cast included Emily Cheney, John Cameron Weber, Gayle Stahlhuth, Dave Holyoak, Ashley Kowzun, and Grace Wright.
Rachel Crothers played a major role in American theater as a playwright, performer, director, producer, and philanthropist. Born in 1878 in Bloomington, Illinois, the youngest of seven children, she began writing, performing in and producing her own plays at age twelve, much to the amusement of family and friends. Her father was a successful doctor, and her mother, who began studying medicine after the age of forty, became a practicing physician as well. Many of Crothers’ plays, filled with warmth, humor, and wit, involve educated, working women. Beginning with her first successful Broadway play, The Three of Us in 1906, she had a Broadway hit almost every season for the next thirty years, many of which she also directed and produced. Several of her plays were adapted into films, including her 1936 Broadway success, Susan and God. The 1940 movie was directed by George Cukor, starring Joan Crawford and Fredric March.
In 1917, shortly before the United States joined the Allies in fighting World War I, seven women in the theatrical profession, including Rachel Crothers, formed the Stage Women’s War Relief. This organization created clothing and food collection centers, a canteen on Broadway for servicemen, sent entertainers to perform for the troops, and most significantly, organized speakers, trained by the organization, to sell Liberty Bonds. Through the vision and patriotism of the theater community, the Stage Women's War Relief became one of the most significant and active relief organizations in the world, raising almost seven million dollars. After the end of the war, Crothers and her comrades continued their activities, and in 1920, men in the theater business formed a brother committee to work with the women on behalf of the civilian population still recovering from the hardships of the war.
On April 25, 1939, Crothers was awarded the Chi Omega sorority national achievement award by Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt. This national achievement gold medal award is given “to an American woman of notable accomplishments in the professions, public affairs, art, letters, business and finance, or education.”
During the same year, the United States government asked Crothers to reactivate her committee, which she did, titling it “The American Theatre Wing,” under the auspices of the "Allied Relief Fund." Later the Allied Fund merged with the British War Relief Society. During the two years before the United States entered the War, the American Theatre Wing gave $81,760.00 in civilian aid to Britain. After the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the Wing became an independent organization. The charter states: "To render voluntary service and aid toward the successful prosecution by the United States of the war in which it is now engaged…It is primarily a War Service Corporation with emphasis on the service functions and features of such work." The forty-three members of the executive board was a "Who's Who" of the theater community. Rachel Crothers served as president; Gertrude Lawrence, Helen Hayes and Vera Allen served as vice-presidents; and Josephine Hull was treasurer. Antoinette Perry served as both chairman of the board and secretary. Male board members included Gilbert Miller, Brooks Atkinson, George S. Kaufman, Raymond Massey, Brock Pemberton, Billy Rose, Lee Shubert, Max Gordon and Vinton Freedley. Many of the Wing’s most famous activities included the legendary Stage Door Canteen and the selling of Liberty Bonds. Crothers remained the Executive Director until 1950. Today, The American Theater Wing is best known for partnering with The Broadway League in presenting the Tony Awards.
Rachel Crothers died in her Danbury, Connecticut home on July 5, 1958.
He and She, by Rachel Crothers, begins with Tom Herford entering a competition for a $100,000.00 prize for the best work of art. After hearing comments about “men’s work being better than women’s,” Tom’s wife, Ann, decides to go after the prize, too. Tom’s assistant, Keith, is in love with Ruth, who works for a magazine, but Keith is not sure he can marry a “working” woman. Tom’s sister, Daisy, is the Herfords’ secretary and appears to be determinedly independent … but is she? Suddenly, Tom and Ann’s sixteen-year-old daughter wants to get married. Who wins the prize and who walks down the aisle are all revealed by the end of the play, but with a few surprises along the way.
He and She was first produced in 1911, but did not make it's Broadway debut until 1920, after Crothers made revisions. She played the female lead on Broadway. In 1980, He and She had a successful run at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM).
ELTC produced He and She first in 1997 when Warren Kliewer was artistic director, and artistic director Gayle Stahlhuth produced and directed it in 2011, one-hundred years after its first production. Pictured left are Tom Byrn and Mollie O'Neill as Tom and Ann Herford. Others in cast included Emily Cheney, John Cameron Weber, Gayle Stahlhuth, Dave Holyoak, Ashley Kowzun, and Grace Wright.
Rachel Crothers played a major role in American theater as a playwright, performer, director, producer, and philanthropist. Born in 1878 in Bloomington, Illinois, the youngest of seven children, she began writing, performing in and producing her own plays at age twelve, much to the amusement of family and friends. Her father was a successful doctor, and her mother, who began studying medicine after the age of forty, became a practicing physician as well. Many of Crothers’ plays, filled with warmth, humor, and wit, involve educated, working women. Beginning with her first successful Broadway play, The Three of Us in 1906, she had a Broadway hit almost every season for the next thirty years, many of which she also directed and produced. Several of her plays were adapted into films, including her 1936 Broadway success, Susan and God. The 1940 movie was directed by George Cukor, starring Joan Crawford and Fredric March.
In 1917, shortly before the United States joined the Allies in fighting World War I, seven women in the theatrical profession, including Rachel Crothers, formed the Stage Women’s War Relief. This organization created clothing and food collection centers, a canteen on Broadway for servicemen, sent entertainers to perform for the troops, and most significantly, organized speakers, trained by the organization, to sell Liberty Bonds. Through the vision and patriotism of the theater community, the Stage Women's War Relief became one of the most significant and active relief organizations in the world, raising almost seven million dollars. After the end of the war, Crothers and her comrades continued their activities, and in 1920, men in the theater business formed a brother committee to work with the women on behalf of the civilian population still recovering from the hardships of the war.
On April 25, 1939, Crothers was awarded the Chi Omega sorority national achievement award by Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt. This national achievement gold medal award is given “to an American woman of notable accomplishments in the professions, public affairs, art, letters, business and finance, or education.”
During the same year, the United States government asked Crothers to reactivate her committee, which she did, titling it “The American Theatre Wing,” under the auspices of the "Allied Relief Fund." Later the Allied Fund merged with the British War Relief Society. During the two years before the United States entered the War, the American Theatre Wing gave $81,760.00 in civilian aid to Britain. After the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the Wing became an independent organization. The charter states: "To render voluntary service and aid toward the successful prosecution by the United States of the war in which it is now engaged…It is primarily a War Service Corporation with emphasis on the service functions and features of such work." The forty-three members of the executive board was a "Who's Who" of the theater community. Rachel Crothers served as president; Gertrude Lawrence, Helen Hayes and Vera Allen served as vice-presidents; and Josephine Hull was treasurer. Antoinette Perry served as both chairman of the board and secretary. Male board members included Gilbert Miller, Brooks Atkinson, George S. Kaufman, Raymond Massey, Brock Pemberton, Billy Rose, Lee Shubert, Max Gordon and Vinton Freedley. Many of the Wing’s most famous activities included the legendary Stage Door Canteen and the selling of Liberty Bonds. Crothers remained the Executive Director until 1950. Today, The American Theater Wing is best known for partnering with The Broadway League in presenting the Tony Awards.
Rachel Crothers died in her Danbury, Connecticut home on July 5, 1958.
1921 ANNA CHRISTIE
Eugene O’Neill’s second Pulitzer-Prize winning play, Anna Christie, tells the story of an embittered woman who, in 1910, leaves the Midwest where she has been raised, to join her father who is the captain of a barge along the Northeastern shore. When a sailor falls in love with her, Anna is forced to reveal her past to him and her father. In 1930, the play was made into Gretta Garbo’s first talking picture. Her first words: “Gimme a whiskey, ginger ale on the side. And don’t be stingy, baby.”
ELTC produced Anna Christie in the fall of 2004 and the spring of 2005 Pictured left are Kevin Mahoney and Katherine Puma. Others in the cast: Scott Hinkle, Mark Edward Lang, Robert LeMaire, Gayle Stahlhuth, and Fred Velde, Directed by Mark Edward Lang.
EUGENE O’NEILL AND THE PULITZER PRIZE
On October 16, 1888, while James O’Neill was playing the title role in The Count of Monte Cristo, his son, Eugene, was born in a NYC hotel room.
After a year at Princeton, Eugene was suspended for throwing a beer bottle through a window in college president Woodrow Wilson’s home during a party. He then took to the sea as a sailor.
O’Neill’s decision to become a playwright came after he was hospitalized with tuberculosis in a sanatorium at Wallingford, CT, in 1912. Forced to remain inactive, he read plays by Strindberg and Ibsen. During his long convalescence, he completed 11 one-act dramas and 2 full-length plays. Six were published – 7 were destroyed. The experiences he garnered while shipping out on freighters sailing the Atlantic provided the inspiration for his plays about the sea. He knew the depravity of waterfront dives and the starlit peace of a night watch, both the sweet and the sour, and knew how to put this into plays that pulse with commonplace tensions.
After only three years working with The Provincetown Players, O’Neill won the Pulitzer Prize for Beyond the Horizon, although, at the time, he didn't know what it was. This prize had only been around since 1916. When O’Neill learned he was getting the Pulitzer, he was disdainful, thinking it involved a medal and a ceremony. He was about to turn it down, when his agent told him that the Prize entailed a thousand dollars and no medal and no ceremony. Happily, he accepted the Prize. He was broke.
His second Pulitzer was for Anna Christie. The first version, titled Chris Christopherson, tried out in Atlantic City and Philadelphia with a new English actress, Lynn Fontanne, in the lead. It failed, and O’Neill rewrote it, and Pauline Lord replaced Fontanne. In 1930, Anna Christie was made into Greta Garbo’s first talking picture. Others in the cast were Marie Dressler, George Marion reprising his Broadway role, and Charles Bickford as Mat Burke. The setting for the first act of Anna Christie is Johnny-the-Priest’s Saloon – a location O’Neill would again use in The Iceman Cometh.
In 1928-29, he won the Pulitzer for Strange Interlude. Because of the play’s length, it began at 5:15, adjourned for dinner from 7:40-9:00, and then went on until 11:00. This was the first dinner-break play in theater history. Strange Interlude made national headlines when the Mayor of Boston refused to let the show come to his city. He found the subject distasteful. Unwilling to be denied the chance for the Boston market, the producers booked a theater in nearby Quincy. Across the street from the Quincy Theatre was a restaurant. Business boomed at intermission time, because of the dinner break in the play. So well did the restaurant prosper, that the owner thought of opening other branches. The owner was Howard Johnson.
O’Neill’s fourth Pulitzer Prize was given for his semi-autobiographical Long Day’s Journey into Night in 1957. It was awarded posthumously. O’Neill died in 1953 due to complications from a debilitating neurodegenerative disease that he’d been dealing with since 1944.
Eugene O’Neill’s second Pulitzer-Prize winning play, Anna Christie, tells the story of an embittered woman who, in 1910, leaves the Midwest where she has been raised, to join her father who is the captain of a barge along the Northeastern shore. When a sailor falls in love with her, Anna is forced to reveal her past to him and her father. In 1930, the play was made into Gretta Garbo’s first talking picture. Her first words: “Gimme a whiskey, ginger ale on the side. And don’t be stingy, baby.”
ELTC produced Anna Christie in the fall of 2004 and the spring of 2005 Pictured left are Kevin Mahoney and Katherine Puma. Others in the cast: Scott Hinkle, Mark Edward Lang, Robert LeMaire, Gayle Stahlhuth, and Fred Velde, Directed by Mark Edward Lang.
EUGENE O’NEILL AND THE PULITZER PRIZE
On October 16, 1888, while James O’Neill was playing the title role in The Count of Monte Cristo, his son, Eugene, was born in a NYC hotel room.
After a year at Princeton, Eugene was suspended for throwing a beer bottle through a window in college president Woodrow Wilson’s home during a party. He then took to the sea as a sailor.
O’Neill’s decision to become a playwright came after he was hospitalized with tuberculosis in a sanatorium at Wallingford, CT, in 1912. Forced to remain inactive, he read plays by Strindberg and Ibsen. During his long convalescence, he completed 11 one-act dramas and 2 full-length plays. Six were published – 7 were destroyed. The experiences he garnered while shipping out on freighters sailing the Atlantic provided the inspiration for his plays about the sea. He knew the depravity of waterfront dives and the starlit peace of a night watch, both the sweet and the sour, and knew how to put this into plays that pulse with commonplace tensions.
After only three years working with The Provincetown Players, O’Neill won the Pulitzer Prize for Beyond the Horizon, although, at the time, he didn't know what it was. This prize had only been around since 1916. When O’Neill learned he was getting the Pulitzer, he was disdainful, thinking it involved a medal and a ceremony. He was about to turn it down, when his agent told him that the Prize entailed a thousand dollars and no medal and no ceremony. Happily, he accepted the Prize. He was broke.
His second Pulitzer was for Anna Christie. The first version, titled Chris Christopherson, tried out in Atlantic City and Philadelphia with a new English actress, Lynn Fontanne, in the lead. It failed, and O’Neill rewrote it, and Pauline Lord replaced Fontanne. In 1930, Anna Christie was made into Greta Garbo’s first talking picture. Others in the cast were Marie Dressler, George Marion reprising his Broadway role, and Charles Bickford as Mat Burke. The setting for the first act of Anna Christie is Johnny-the-Priest’s Saloon – a location O’Neill would again use in The Iceman Cometh.
In 1928-29, he won the Pulitzer for Strange Interlude. Because of the play’s length, it began at 5:15, adjourned for dinner from 7:40-9:00, and then went on until 11:00. This was the first dinner-break play in theater history. Strange Interlude made national headlines when the Mayor of Boston refused to let the show come to his city. He found the subject distasteful. Unwilling to be denied the chance for the Boston market, the producers booked a theater in nearby Quincy. Across the street from the Quincy Theatre was a restaurant. Business boomed at intermission time, because of the dinner break in the play. So well did the restaurant prosper, that the owner thought of opening other branches. The owner was Howard Johnson.
O’Neill’s fourth Pulitzer Prize was given for his semi-autobiographical Long Day’s Journey into Night in 1957. It was awarded posthumously. O’Neill died in 1953 due to complications from a debilitating neurodegenerative disease that he’d been dealing with since 1944.
1921 DULCY
"This is probably the first weekend party on record that ended on Friday night,” says Dulcy’s brother William to his brother-in-law Gordon. Dulcy is the only one who believes she’s created the perfect atmosphere in her home for a lovely weekend where her husband can make a brilliant business deal with Mr. Forbes – or perhaps with Mr. Forbes’ rival - and Forbes’ daughter can run away with the right – or wrong - man. It may be that an innocent person could go to jail and all of her plans will go awry in this zany, screwball comedy written by Pulitzer Prize-winners George S. Kaufman (1889-1961) and Marc Connelly (1890-1980). The cast: Erin Callahan, Larry Daggett, Thomas Raniszewski, Suzanne Dawson, Megan McDermott, Drew Seltzer. Mark Edward Lang. Alison J. Murphy, Fred Velde, Dave Holyoak, and Gayle Stahlhuth.
"This is probably the first weekend party on record that ended on Friday night,” says Dulcy’s brother William to his brother-in-law Gordon. Dulcy is the only one who believes she’s created the perfect atmosphere in her home for a lovely weekend where her husband can make a brilliant business deal with Mr. Forbes – or perhaps with Mr. Forbes’ rival - and Forbes’ daughter can run away with the right – or wrong - man. It may be that an innocent person could go to jail and all of her plans will go awry in this zany, screwball comedy written by Pulitzer Prize-winners George S. Kaufman (1889-1961) and Marc Connelly (1890-1980). The cast: Erin Callahan, Larry Daggett, Thomas Raniszewski, Suzanne Dawson, Megan McDermott, Drew Seltzer. Mark Edward Lang. Alison J. Murphy, Fred Velde, Dave Holyoak, and Gayle Stahlhuth.
1922 RAIN
Based on Somerset Maugham’s story “Sadie Thompson,” it was adapted by John Colton and Clemence Randolph. When free-spirited Sadie appears at Horn’s General Store on the South Seas’ Island of Pago-Pago, she excites the interest of the Marines and the animosity of a missionary. So popular was this 2005 production, directed by Emmy Award-nominated Bruce M. Minnix, that ELTC is proud to bring it back. Originally, this 1922 Broadway hit ran for five years on Broadway and was the basis for four films.
It was produced at ELTC in the fall of 2005 and the summer of 2006. Pictured left is Carol Todd as Sadie. Other cast members: Patti Chambers, Stephanie Garrett, Ken Glickfeld, Scott Hinkle, Kevin Mahoney, J. M. McDonough, Thomas Raniszewski, Gayle Stahlhuth, Fred Velde, and Caitlin Wallace. Directed by Bruce Minnix.
W. Somerset Maugham, in California at the time, was too busy to correct the proof sheets for his story, “Miss Thompson,” so he asked John Colton to make corrections and send it back to the magazine, Smart Set. Originally, Maugham had sent the story to Cosmopolitan, but they found it too risqué. The Smart Set editors, George Jean Nathan and H. L. Mencken found nothing wrong with the story. They liked it.
And so did Colton. He was so taken with the story that he asked Maugham if he could adapt it for the stage. Maugham gave his consent, although he didn’t think it possible. In NYC, Colton began working with Clemence Randolph on the adaptation. With only half of the first act written, they showed it to John D. Williams, who agreed to direct. When Rain opened on Broadway at the Maxine Elliott Theatre on November 7, 1922, the excitement in the audience amounted to a demonstration. The play became a tremendous success, and Jeanne Eagles played Sadie Thompson for five years.
By 1922, Maugham was a well-known writer of fiction, with Of Human Bondage and The Moon and Sixpence to his credit. He was a playwright as well, with The Land of Promise and The Circle both produced before Rain.
John Colton was born in Minnesota in 1891, but the family moved to Japan because his father collected art treasures. He attended Columbia University, but didn’t graduate. He then tried working for a newspaper in Minneapolis, before moving to California, where he met Maugham. Although Colton wrote several other plays, his one other success came in 1926 with The Shanghai Gesture; the story of a woman who discovers that a girl in her brothel is her own child by a faithless English lover. It ran for three years.
Clemence Randolph owes her only distinction in theater to Rain.
Based on Somerset Maugham’s story “Sadie Thompson,” it was adapted by John Colton and Clemence Randolph. When free-spirited Sadie appears at Horn’s General Store on the South Seas’ Island of Pago-Pago, she excites the interest of the Marines and the animosity of a missionary. So popular was this 2005 production, directed by Emmy Award-nominated Bruce M. Minnix, that ELTC is proud to bring it back. Originally, this 1922 Broadway hit ran for five years on Broadway and was the basis for four films.
It was produced at ELTC in the fall of 2005 and the summer of 2006. Pictured left is Carol Todd as Sadie. Other cast members: Patti Chambers, Stephanie Garrett, Ken Glickfeld, Scott Hinkle, Kevin Mahoney, J. M. McDonough, Thomas Raniszewski, Gayle Stahlhuth, Fred Velde, and Caitlin Wallace. Directed by Bruce Minnix.
W. Somerset Maugham, in California at the time, was too busy to correct the proof sheets for his story, “Miss Thompson,” so he asked John Colton to make corrections and send it back to the magazine, Smart Set. Originally, Maugham had sent the story to Cosmopolitan, but they found it too risqué. The Smart Set editors, George Jean Nathan and H. L. Mencken found nothing wrong with the story. They liked it.
And so did Colton. He was so taken with the story that he asked Maugham if he could adapt it for the stage. Maugham gave his consent, although he didn’t think it possible. In NYC, Colton began working with Clemence Randolph on the adaptation. With only half of the first act written, they showed it to John D. Williams, who agreed to direct. When Rain opened on Broadway at the Maxine Elliott Theatre on November 7, 1922, the excitement in the audience amounted to a demonstration. The play became a tremendous success, and Jeanne Eagles played Sadie Thompson for five years.
By 1922, Maugham was a well-known writer of fiction, with Of Human Bondage and The Moon and Sixpence to his credit. He was a playwright as well, with The Land of Promise and The Circle both produced before Rain.
John Colton was born in Minnesota in 1891, but the family moved to Japan because his father collected art treasures. He attended Columbia University, but didn’t graduate. He then tried working for a newspaper in Minneapolis, before moving to California, where he met Maugham. Although Colton wrote several other plays, his one other success came in 1926 with The Shanghai Gesture; the story of a woman who discovers that a girl in her brothel is her own child by a faithless English lover. It ran for three years.
Clemence Randolph owes her only distinction in theater to Rain.
1922 TO THE LADIES!
Written by Pulitzer Prize winners George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly, To the Ladies! was the second of eight plays on which they collaborated. A comedy with a cast of eight, it features examples of the classic Kaufman heroine: a clever woman who outsmarts the men. Leonard Beebe of Nutley, NJ, who wants to get ahead in the world, is often “rescued” by his bride, Elsie, including at a business dinner where he is to make a speech. In 1922, To the Ladies! was on Broadway starring Helen Hayes, but after 1924, no other productions can be found. George S. Kaufman’s daughter had never read or seen To the Ladies! and came to Cape May just to see ELTC’s production, which she thoroughly enjoyed.
Pictured left is Anne Kaufman, the playwright's daughter, surrounded by the cast: Morgan Nichols, Suzanne Dawson, Ken Glickfeld, Tiffany-Leigh Moscow, John Morton, Gayle Stahlhuth, robert LeMaire, and Terry Harris. Directed by Stahlhuth.
GEORGE S. KAUFMAN and MARC CONNELLY
George S. Kaufman (1889-1961) was the drama editor for “The New York Times” and Marc Connelly (1890-1980) was the Broadway reporter for the “Morning Telegraph,” when they met in 1919. Both men were born in Pennsylvania, Kaufman in Pittsburg and Connelly in McKeesport; were members of the Algonquin Round Table; had written for the stage before working together; and earned Pulitzer Prizes. Their first collaboration, Dulcy, in 1920, was based on a character from Franklin P. Adams’ “New York Tribune” column, and was written for the rising star, Lynn Fontanne. Their next comedy, two years later, To the Ladies!, was a vehicle for another up-and-coming actress, Helen Hayes. They collaborated on six more shows through 1924: The ‘49ers, West of Pittsburgh, Merton of the Movies, Helen of Troy, New York, Beggar on Horseback and Be Yourself. After Be Yourself, a musical, with lyrics contributed by Ira Gershwin, the two men, creatively, went their separate ways.
Connelly continued writing plays and screenplays, but also worked as a producer, director, and actor. His best known solo work is The Green Pastures, adapted from Ol’ Man Adam an’ His Chillun, a collection of folk tales compiled by Roark Bradford, based on the Old Testament. The 1930 production featured an all African-American cast and garnered Connelly the Pulitzer Prize. His last Broadway success was The Farmer Takes a Wife, written with Frank Elser. From 1946-1950, he taught playwriting at Yale. Connelly published two books: A Souvenir from Qam (1965) and Voices Offstage: A Book of Memoirs about the Algonquin Round Table era (1968).
Kaufman became America’s most successful playwright in the 1920s and ‘30s. He collaborated with Dorothy Parker (Business is Business); Edna Ferber (Dinner at Eight, The Royal Family, Stage Door); Ring Lardner (June Moon); Morrie Ryskind (Animal Crackers); Moss Hart (Once in a Lifetime, The Man Who Came to Dinner); and Howard Teichmann (The Solid Gold Cadillac). He directed many of his plays, as well as the works of others, including the original The Front Page and Guys and Dolls. Kaufman received two Pulitzer Prizes. In 1931, it was for Of Thee I Sing, with Morrie Ryskind and Ira Gershwin, the first musical to be so honored, and with Moss Hart in 1937 for You Can’t Take It With You. In 2004, The Library of America, an independent nonprofit organization founded in 1979, published Kaufman and Co.: Broadway Comedies, the most comprehensive collection of his plays ever assembled.
Written by Pulitzer Prize winners George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly, To the Ladies! was the second of eight plays on which they collaborated. A comedy with a cast of eight, it features examples of the classic Kaufman heroine: a clever woman who outsmarts the men. Leonard Beebe of Nutley, NJ, who wants to get ahead in the world, is often “rescued” by his bride, Elsie, including at a business dinner where he is to make a speech. In 1922, To the Ladies! was on Broadway starring Helen Hayes, but after 1924, no other productions can be found. George S. Kaufman’s daughter had never read or seen To the Ladies! and came to Cape May just to see ELTC’s production, which she thoroughly enjoyed.
Pictured left is Anne Kaufman, the playwright's daughter, surrounded by the cast: Morgan Nichols, Suzanne Dawson, Ken Glickfeld, Tiffany-Leigh Moscow, John Morton, Gayle Stahlhuth, robert LeMaire, and Terry Harris. Directed by Stahlhuth.
GEORGE S. KAUFMAN and MARC CONNELLY
George S. Kaufman (1889-1961) was the drama editor for “The New York Times” and Marc Connelly (1890-1980) was the Broadway reporter for the “Morning Telegraph,” when they met in 1919. Both men were born in Pennsylvania, Kaufman in Pittsburg and Connelly in McKeesport; were members of the Algonquin Round Table; had written for the stage before working together; and earned Pulitzer Prizes. Their first collaboration, Dulcy, in 1920, was based on a character from Franklin P. Adams’ “New York Tribune” column, and was written for the rising star, Lynn Fontanne. Their next comedy, two years later, To the Ladies!, was a vehicle for another up-and-coming actress, Helen Hayes. They collaborated on six more shows through 1924: The ‘49ers, West of Pittsburgh, Merton of the Movies, Helen of Troy, New York, Beggar on Horseback and Be Yourself. After Be Yourself, a musical, with lyrics contributed by Ira Gershwin, the two men, creatively, went their separate ways.
Connelly continued writing plays and screenplays, but also worked as a producer, director, and actor. His best known solo work is The Green Pastures, adapted from Ol’ Man Adam an’ His Chillun, a collection of folk tales compiled by Roark Bradford, based on the Old Testament. The 1930 production featured an all African-American cast and garnered Connelly the Pulitzer Prize. His last Broadway success was The Farmer Takes a Wife, written with Frank Elser. From 1946-1950, he taught playwriting at Yale. Connelly published two books: A Souvenir from Qam (1965) and Voices Offstage: A Book of Memoirs about the Algonquin Round Table era (1968).
Kaufman became America’s most successful playwright in the 1920s and ‘30s. He collaborated with Dorothy Parker (Business is Business); Edna Ferber (Dinner at Eight, The Royal Family, Stage Door); Ring Lardner (June Moon); Morrie Ryskind (Animal Crackers); Moss Hart (Once in a Lifetime, The Man Who Came to Dinner); and Howard Teichmann (The Solid Gold Cadillac). He directed many of his plays, as well as the works of others, including the original The Front Page and Guys and Dolls. Kaufman received two Pulitzer Prizes. In 1931, it was for Of Thee I Sing, with Morrie Ryskind and Ira Gershwin, the first musical to be so honored, and with Moss Hart in 1937 for You Can’t Take It With You. In 2004, The Library of America, an independent nonprofit organization founded in 1979, published Kaufman and Co.: Broadway Comedies, the most comprehensive collection of his plays ever assembled.
1922 THE FIRST FIFTY YEARS
This incredible two-person play charts the ups and downs of a married couple in seven scenes from 1872 -1922. ELTC’s artistic director Gayle Stahlhuth tracked down the only known script of this forgotten gem at the Billy Rose Collection at Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts in NYC. Playing on Broadway in 1922, this was the first success of Henry Myers who later wrote screenplays, including Destry Rides Again, and numbered Jay Gorney, who wrote the tune for "Brother Can You Spare a Dime," as one of his collaborators. Many may know the 1952 Tony Award-winning play The Fourposter written by Jan de Hartog that covers 35 years of a marriage from 1890-1925, and was adapted into the musical, I Do! I Do!, but The First Fifty Years came first. Cast: Beckley Andrews and Samuel Douglas Clark. shot.
"The dialog was realistic, timeless, and as entertaining as it was insightful. The direction by Gayle Stahlhuth was wonderful. In my opinion, not only one of the best directed plays I've seen at East Lynne, but one of the best plays I've seen anywhere in quite some time." - Review on TripAdvisor
This incredible two-person play charts the ups and downs of a married couple in seven scenes from 1872 -1922. ELTC’s artistic director Gayle Stahlhuth tracked down the only known script of this forgotten gem at the Billy Rose Collection at Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts in NYC. Playing on Broadway in 1922, this was the first success of Henry Myers who later wrote screenplays, including Destry Rides Again, and numbered Jay Gorney, who wrote the tune for "Brother Can You Spare a Dime," as one of his collaborators. Many may know the 1952 Tony Award-winning play The Fourposter written by Jan de Hartog that covers 35 years of a marriage from 1890-1925, and was adapted into the musical, I Do! I Do!, but The First Fifty Years came first. Cast: Beckley Andrews and Samuel Douglas Clark. shot.
"The dialog was realistic, timeless, and as entertaining as it was insightful. The direction by Gayle Stahlhuth was wonderful. In my opinion, not only one of the best directed plays I've seen at East Lynne, but one of the best plays I've seen anywhere in quite some time." - Review on TripAdvisor
1923 YOU AND I
After the children are grown, do parents get to do what they want to do? Maitland gave up painting to become a successful businessman so his wife, Nancy, and his children would be financially secure. When his son declares he’s going into business instead of pursuing his passion for architecture, Nancy suggests that Maitland leave the business world, and paint. They can live off the money they would have spent on furthering their son's education. Or can they?
ELTC produced You and I in the fall of 2007 and the spring of 2008. Pictured left are Erin Callahan and Merritt Reid. Others in the cast: Karen Case Cook, Mark Edward Lang, Kevin Mahoney, Alison J. Murphy, and Robert LeMaire. Directed by Gayle Stahlhuth.
Philip Barry, born in 1896 in Rochester, NY, was the youngest son of James Barry, a marble and tile contractor, born in Ireland, and Mary Quinn, the daughter of a Philadelphia businessman. Barry began writing at age nine, and in 1913 attended Yale to further his literary interest. Poor eyesight prevented him from fighting during World War I, but he served as a clerk, deciphering cables, at the American Embassy in London. In 1919, Barry enrolled in George Pierce Baker’s prestigious English 47 Workshop at Harvard. It was Baker who urged him to concentrate on American themes and to “write about conditions in the life of the present time which shall be amusing, and at the same time amuse in such a way that one finds one is thinking about the play afterwards.” You and I received the Harvard Prize, which was awarded each year to a member of the 47 Workshop. Also known as the Richard Herndon Prize, the award assured the play a professional production on Broadway. Herndon, a theatrical manager and a member of the award committee, produced the play. You and I opened at the Belmont Theatre in New York on February 19, 1923, and ran for 170 performances. This play and his next, The Youngest (1924) established Barry's reputation as a playwright.
Other plays written by Barry include: Paris Bound (1927), Holiday (1928), John (1927), Cock Robin (1928, with Elmer Rice), Tomorrow and Tomorrow (1931), The Animal Kingdom (1932), The Joyous Season (1934), Bright Star (1935), Spring Dance (1936), Here Come the Clowns (1938), The Philadelphia Story (1939), Liberty Jones (1941), Without Love (1942), and Foolish Notion (1945). Barry completed the first draft of Second Threshold before he died in 1949. Robert Sherwood, a close friend of Barry’s, revised the play for a successful New York production in 1951.
Many of Barry’s plays were made into movies, including Holiday, The Philadelphia Story, and even You and I was made into the 1932 film titled The Bargain.
After the children are grown, do parents get to do what they want to do? Maitland gave up painting to become a successful businessman so his wife, Nancy, and his children would be financially secure. When his son declares he’s going into business instead of pursuing his passion for architecture, Nancy suggests that Maitland leave the business world, and paint. They can live off the money they would have spent on furthering their son's education. Or can they?
ELTC produced You and I in the fall of 2007 and the spring of 2008. Pictured left are Erin Callahan and Merritt Reid. Others in the cast: Karen Case Cook, Mark Edward Lang, Kevin Mahoney, Alison J. Murphy, and Robert LeMaire. Directed by Gayle Stahlhuth.
Philip Barry, born in 1896 in Rochester, NY, was the youngest son of James Barry, a marble and tile contractor, born in Ireland, and Mary Quinn, the daughter of a Philadelphia businessman. Barry began writing at age nine, and in 1913 attended Yale to further his literary interest. Poor eyesight prevented him from fighting during World War I, but he served as a clerk, deciphering cables, at the American Embassy in London. In 1919, Barry enrolled in George Pierce Baker’s prestigious English 47 Workshop at Harvard. It was Baker who urged him to concentrate on American themes and to “write about conditions in the life of the present time which shall be amusing, and at the same time amuse in such a way that one finds one is thinking about the play afterwards.” You and I received the Harvard Prize, which was awarded each year to a member of the 47 Workshop. Also known as the Richard Herndon Prize, the award assured the play a professional production on Broadway. Herndon, a theatrical manager and a member of the award committee, produced the play. You and I opened at the Belmont Theatre in New York on February 19, 1923, and ran for 170 performances. This play and his next, The Youngest (1924) established Barry's reputation as a playwright.
Other plays written by Barry include: Paris Bound (1927), Holiday (1928), John (1927), Cock Robin (1928, with Elmer Rice), Tomorrow and Tomorrow (1931), The Animal Kingdom (1932), The Joyous Season (1934), Bright Star (1935), Spring Dance (1936), Here Come the Clowns (1938), The Philadelphia Story (1939), Liberty Jones (1941), Without Love (1942), and Foolish Notion (1945). Barry completed the first draft of Second Threshold before he died in 1949. Robert Sherwood, a close friend of Barry’s, revised the play for a successful New York production in 1951.
Many of Barry’s plays were made into movies, including Holiday, The Philadelphia Story, and even You and I was made into the 1932 film titled The Bargain.
1924 THE GUARDSMAN
Written by Franz Molnar, this 1924 comedy, originally titled Playing with Fire, established Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne as Broadway stars. The location is Vienna, during the Belle Époque, the “beautiful years” before World War I, when love, not war, was in the air. Two actors have been married for six months, and everyone knows that the actress habitually changes men every twenty-six weeks. Thus, the actor is nervous, and goes to great lengths to discover whether or not she is faithful. This well-beloved tale was the basis for the 1940 Louis B. Mayer film, The Chocolate Soldier.
ELTC produced it in 2008. Pictured left are Thomas Raniszewski, Eddie Furs, Alison J. Murphy, and Mark Edward Lang. Also in the cast was Gayle Stahlhuth. Directed by Karen Case Cook.
Written by Franz Molnar, this 1924 comedy, originally titled Playing with Fire, established Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne as Broadway stars. The location is Vienna, during the Belle Époque, the “beautiful years” before World War I, when love, not war, was in the air. Two actors have been married for six months, and everyone knows that the actress habitually changes men every twenty-six weeks. Thus, the actor is nervous, and goes to great lengths to discover whether or not she is faithful. This well-beloved tale was the basis for the 1940 Louis B. Mayer film, The Chocolate Soldier.
ELTC produced it in 2008. Pictured left are Thomas Raniszewski, Eddie Furs, Alison J. Murphy, and Mark Edward Lang. Also in the cast was Gayle Stahlhuth. Directed by Karen Case Cook.
1925 THE BUTTER AND EGG MAN
Before Mel Brooks’ 1968 film The Producers, there was Kaufman’s 1925 hit about two producers who need funding for their Broadway show. What they’re looking for is a wealthy person who can easily be parted from his cash: a “butter and egg man.”
The cast pictured here are Alison J. Murphy, Mark Edward Lang, Thomas Raniszewski, Daisy Ouzts, Suzanne Dawson, Morgan Nichols, Tiffany-Leigh Moscow, and Justin Flagg, Not pictures are cast members John Cameron Weber and Gayle Stahlhuth, who also directed. ELTC produced this comedy in 2009.
George S. Kaufman (1889-1961), born in Pittsburg, PA, was the drama editor for “The New York Times” when he started writing plays with Marc Connelly in 1919. ELTC has presented two of their collaboration: To the Ladies! and Dulcy. Kaufman became America’s most successful playwright in the 1920s and ‘30s, collaborating with Dorothy Parker (Business is Business); Edna Ferber (Dinner at Eight, The Royal Family, Stage Door); Ring Lardner (June Moon); Morrie Ryskind (Animal Crackers); Moss Hart (Once in a Lifetime, The Man Who Came to Dinner); and Howard Teichmann (The Solid Gold Cadillac). He directed many of his plays, as well as the works of others, including the original The Front Page and Guys and Dolls. Kaufman received two Pulitzer Prizes. In 1931, it was for Of Thee I Sing, with Morrie Ryskind and Ira Gershwin, the first musical to be so honored, and with Moss Hart in 1937 for You Can’t Take It With You. In 2004, The Library of America, an independent nonprofit organization founded in 1979, published Kaufman and Co.: Broadway Comedies, the most comprehensive collection of his plays ever assembled. The Butter and Egg Man is the only play he wrote without a partner.
Before Mel Brooks’ 1968 film The Producers, there was Kaufman’s 1925 hit about two producers who need funding for their Broadway show. What they’re looking for is a wealthy person who can easily be parted from his cash: a “butter and egg man.”
The cast pictured here are Alison J. Murphy, Mark Edward Lang, Thomas Raniszewski, Daisy Ouzts, Suzanne Dawson, Morgan Nichols, Tiffany-Leigh Moscow, and Justin Flagg, Not pictures are cast members John Cameron Weber and Gayle Stahlhuth, who also directed. ELTC produced this comedy in 2009.
George S. Kaufman (1889-1961), born in Pittsburg, PA, was the drama editor for “The New York Times” when he started writing plays with Marc Connelly in 1919. ELTC has presented two of their collaboration: To the Ladies! and Dulcy. Kaufman became America’s most successful playwright in the 1920s and ‘30s, collaborating with Dorothy Parker (Business is Business); Edna Ferber (Dinner at Eight, The Royal Family, Stage Door); Ring Lardner (June Moon); Morrie Ryskind (Animal Crackers); Moss Hart (Once in a Lifetime, The Man Who Came to Dinner); and Howard Teichmann (The Solid Gold Cadillac). He directed many of his plays, as well as the works of others, including the original The Front Page and Guys and Dolls. Kaufman received two Pulitzer Prizes. In 1931, it was for Of Thee I Sing, with Morrie Ryskind and Ira Gershwin, the first musical to be so honored, and with Moss Hart in 1937 for You Can’t Take It With You. In 2004, The Library of America, an independent nonprofit organization founded in 1979, published Kaufman and Co.: Broadway Comedies, the most comprehensive collection of his plays ever assembled. The Butter and Egg Man is the only play he wrote without a partner.
1928 BERKELEY SQUARE
ELTC received special permission by the Robert A. Freedman Dramatic Agency to produce this highly original romantic fantasy by John L. Balderston. Balderston based this play on The Sense of the Past, an unfinished novel by Henry James. An American, who inherits a home in London’s Berkeley Square, is so fascinated by reading letters and diaries of his ancestors, that he’s sent back in time to 1784, a year after the end of the American Revolution. Engaged to a woman in 1928, he meets two enchanting sisters in 1784. Is life better in the past or the present? This Broadway sensation, starring Leslie Howard, was adapted for the 1933 film.
ELTC's production was in 2010. The last time it had been produced in North America was at The Shaw Festival in 1976. Pictured here from the cast are Michael Kirby and Megan McDermott. Others in the cast: Drew Setlzer, Suzanne Dawson, Emily Cheney, Rachel Handler, Morgan Nichols, Erin Callahan, Thomas Raniszewski, and Gayle Stahlhuth, who also directed.
John L. Balderston (1889-1954) was born in Philadelphia. After graduating from Columbia University, he worked at The Philadelphia Record, The Outlook (in London), and from 1923-1931, was the London correspondent for The New York World. One of his many assignments included reporting on the opening of King Tut’s tomb in 1922. Balderston’s adaptation of Dracula opened on Broadway on Oct. 5, 1927; he wrote the screen version in 1931; and his play is still the most produced version of this classic. It was revived on Broadway in 1977 with Fank Langella, who also starred in the 1979 film. Other plays include The Genius of the Marne (1919), Morality Play for the Leisured Class (1920), Tongo (1924), Red Planet (1932), and Frankenstein (1932) He wrote and/or contributed to such movies as Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, The Mummy, Gone with the Wind, and The Prisoner of Zenda. Balderston was twice nominated for the screenwriting Oscar—for Lives of a Bengal Lancer and Gaslight. He died in Beverly Hills, on March 8, 1954.
ELTC received special permission by the Robert A. Freedman Dramatic Agency to produce this highly original romantic fantasy by John L. Balderston. Balderston based this play on The Sense of the Past, an unfinished novel by Henry James. An American, who inherits a home in London’s Berkeley Square, is so fascinated by reading letters and diaries of his ancestors, that he’s sent back in time to 1784, a year after the end of the American Revolution. Engaged to a woman in 1928, he meets two enchanting sisters in 1784. Is life better in the past or the present? This Broadway sensation, starring Leslie Howard, was adapted for the 1933 film.
ELTC's production was in 2010. The last time it had been produced in North America was at The Shaw Festival in 1976. Pictured here from the cast are Michael Kirby and Megan McDermott. Others in the cast: Drew Setlzer, Suzanne Dawson, Emily Cheney, Rachel Handler, Morgan Nichols, Erin Callahan, Thomas Raniszewski, and Gayle Stahlhuth, who also directed.
John L. Balderston (1889-1954) was born in Philadelphia. After graduating from Columbia University, he worked at The Philadelphia Record, The Outlook (in London), and from 1923-1931, was the London correspondent for The New York World. One of his many assignments included reporting on the opening of King Tut’s tomb in 1922. Balderston’s adaptation of Dracula opened on Broadway on Oct. 5, 1927; he wrote the screen version in 1931; and his play is still the most produced version of this classic. It was revived on Broadway in 1977 with Fank Langella, who also starred in the 1979 film. Other plays include The Genius of the Marne (1919), Morality Play for the Leisured Class (1920), Tongo (1924), Red Planet (1932), and Frankenstein (1932) He wrote and/or contributed to such movies as Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, The Mummy, Gone with the Wind, and The Prisoner of Zenda. Balderston was twice nominated for the screenwriting Oscar—for Lives of a Bengal Lancer and Gaslight. He died in Beverly Hills, on March 8, 1954.
1929 STRICTLY DISHONORABLE
Isabelle, who was raised on a plantation in Mississippi, and Henry, her fiancé from West Orange, New Jersey step into a Manhattan speakeasy for a drink. Here they encounter Tomaso, the owner of the establishment, Mario, a waiter, Judge Dempsey, who lives above the speakeasy, Patrolman Mulligan, and the famous opera star, Count Di Ruvo. Isabelle finds these men enchanting. Henry does not. Where Isabelle and Henry spend the night and what happens the next day all have to do with the decision to play it safe or expand one’s horizons. Opening on September 19, 1929, this screwball comedy by Preston Sturges received rave reviews, and ticket sales remained strong even after the stock market crash in October. "While Sturges does examine issues that are important to what it means to be an American—giving comic (and other) consideration to questions of ambition, money, heroism, and morality—he examines them with a flashing wit and a poet’s gift for slang that offers American English at its most entertaining." - from a Vanity Fair article. Click Here to read the complete May, 2010 article in Vanity Fair about Sturges.
"I had the pleasure of seeing Strictly Dishonorable recently at ELTC. It was a fantastic production with so many strong performances and excellent direction. The play was very engaging and kept us on the edge of our seats. Very funny.. the actors had great timing and it was also quite touching. The costuming was perfect and the set was resourceful and very charming. I've seen multiple shows here and I highly recommend catching a show! This is a unique and professional company that never leaves you disappointed. Seeing a play here always seems to fit in perfectly for a night out in Cape May." - review on TripAdvisor
Isabelle, who was raised on a plantation in Mississippi, and Henry, her fiancé from West Orange, New Jersey step into a Manhattan speakeasy for a drink. Here they encounter Tomaso, the owner of the establishment, Mario, a waiter, Judge Dempsey, who lives above the speakeasy, Patrolman Mulligan, and the famous opera star, Count Di Ruvo. Isabelle finds these men enchanting. Henry does not. Where Isabelle and Henry spend the night and what happens the next day all have to do with the decision to play it safe or expand one’s horizons. Opening on September 19, 1929, this screwball comedy by Preston Sturges received rave reviews, and ticket sales remained strong even after the stock market crash in October. "While Sturges does examine issues that are important to what it means to be an American—giving comic (and other) consideration to questions of ambition, money, heroism, and morality—he examines them with a flashing wit and a poet’s gift for slang that offers American English at its most entertaining." - from a Vanity Fair article. Click Here to read the complete May, 2010 article in Vanity Fair about Sturges.
"I had the pleasure of seeing Strictly Dishonorable recently at ELTC. It was a fantastic production with so many strong performances and excellent direction. The play was very engaging and kept us on the edge of our seats. Very funny.. the actors had great timing and it was also quite touching. The costuming was perfect and the set was resourceful and very charming. I've seen multiple shows here and I highly recommend catching a show! This is a unique and professional company that never leaves you disappointed. Seeing a play here always seems to fit in perfectly for a night out in Cape May." - review on TripAdvisor
1932 THE LATE CHRISTOPHER BEAN
After his death, Bean is heralded as “not merely a great American artist, but one of the greatest masters of all time,” and the art world now wants his work. But did a New England family destroy his paintings, misplace them, or hide them? This Broadway hit written by Pulitzer-prize winner Sidney Howard, with a cast of nine. Cast: Jennifer Bissell, Craig Fols, Seth James, Mark Edward Lang, Robert LeMaire, Bradley Mott, Francesca Mondelli, Alison J. Murphy, and Maria Silverman.
“It’s a play that has remained fresh and funny, proving once again that a strong script is rarely tarnished by time.” - Ken Jaworowski, The New York Times
After his death, Bean is heralded as “not merely a great American artist, but one of the greatest masters of all time,” and the art world now wants his work. But did a New England family destroy his paintings, misplace them, or hide them? This Broadway hit written by Pulitzer-prize winner Sidney Howard, with a cast of nine. Cast: Jennifer Bissell, Craig Fols, Seth James, Mark Edward Lang, Robert LeMaire, Bradley Mott, Francesca Mondelli, Alison J. Murphy, and Maria Silverman.
“It’s a play that has remained fresh and funny, proving once again that a strong script is rarely tarnished by time.” - Ken Jaworowski, The New York Times
