Little Theatre Movement
Encyclopedia
As the new medium of cinema
was beginning to replace theatre as a source of large-scale spectacle, the Little Theatre Movement developed in the United States around 1912. In several large cities, beginning with Chicago
, Boston
, Seattle and Detroit companies formed to produce more intimate, noncommercial, and reform-minded entertainments.
audiences since the mid 1800s, drawing larger and larger audiences. These types of formulaic works could be produced over and over again in splendid halls in big cities and by touring companies in smaller ones. During the last decades of the century, producers and playwrights began to create narratives dealing with social problems, albeit usually on a sensational level. While not yet totally free of melodramatic elements, plays reflecting a style more associated with realism
gradually emerged. During a secret meeting in 1895 the owners of most of the theatres across America organized into a Theatrical Syndicate
"to control competition and prices." This group, which included all major producers, "effectively stifled dramatic experimentation for many years" in search of greater profits. Nevertheless, by the second decade of the 20th century pure melodrama, with its typed characters and exaggerated plots, had become the province of motion pictures.
Chicago philanthropists and arts patrons Arthur T. Aldis and Mary Aldis established an artists' colony called The Compound in Lake Forest, Illinois, and in 1910, Mary founded there the Aldis Playhouse, "a predecessor to the 'little theater' movement." The Hull-House settlement theatre group, founded by Jane Addams
and Ellen Gates Starr, was the first to perform several plays by Galsworthy, Ibsen, and Shaw
in Chicago
. Maurice Browne, founder of the Little Theatre in Chicago, credited Hull House director Laura Dainty Pelham with being the "true founder of the 'American Little Theatre Movement'."
Alice Gerstenberg, an original member of the Little Theatre of Chicago, expanded the movement to include children, founding the Chicago Junior League Theatre for Children in 1921. Gerstenberg was also producer and president of The Playwrights' Theatre of Chicago, 1922-1945. She was active in the Alice Gerstenberg Experimental Theatre Workshop in the 1950's and the Alice Gerstenberg Theatre in the 1960's, which helped to cultivate the legacy of the Little Theatre Movement of the early 20th century.
In 1912 two theatre groups were formed, the Toy Theatre in Boston
and the Little Theatre in Chicago, these events often being cited as the official start of the Little Theatre Movement in the United States. Continuing to react against commercialism, amateur companies began to write and produce their own works as well as new plays from Europe that had been ignored by the syndicates. A wide variety of experimental groups, clubs, and settlement houses undertook to reform the theater, bringing more inwardly-directed plays to a wider public audience. New forms of drama, some influenced by or parodying the new science of psychoanalysis, began to be presented in smaller venues, many converted from other uses into makeshift theatres. The new groups began to experiment with new forms of storytelling, acting styles, dialogue and mise-en-scene. This experimentation, influenced by European models, ranged from an ultra-detailed naturalism
to, by the early 20s, a wildly-provocative expressionism
, part of a new stagecraft. Women were pervasive throughout these companies, although their efforts were often belittled, dismissed, or undervalued.
The movement achieved high water marks in artistic significance, community involvement, and international recognition with the Pasadena Community Playhouse. Originally a community theatre, the Playhouse boasted at its peak capacity six stages, each featuring a new production every two weeks, making it, for most of the early 20th century, the world's most prolific theatrical production organization. This palatial venue was at the time of its construction in 1925 the largest theatre complex west of Chicago. The organization was able to complete many projects beyond the scope of professional companies, thanks to volunteer labor and widespread community support. Notable undertakings of the Pasadena Playhouse include the staging of the entire canon of Shakespeare for the first time on a single stage, and a Midsummer Drama Festival showcasing the work of local writers. In 1928 the Playhouse produced the massive theo-philosophical epic Lazarus Laughed
by Eugene O'Neill
. The first fully realized production of this play, the cast included 250 primarily local amateur actors, often doubling in roles that required over three hundred masks and costumes.
Seeking larger audiences and with more complicated production ambitions, by the early 1920s several leading companies of the movement had turned professional. The Provincetown Players
, who produced O'Neill's first one-acts, moved to New York in 1916; members of the former Washington Square Players
formed the Theatre Guild
in 1919. But in its heyday, dozens of Little Theatre groups presented alternatives to mainstream commercial theatre. Numerous small companies had flourished, creating environments for diverse voices and viewpoints, in turn leading to the rise of giants like O'Neill. Little Theatre can be seen as a precursor to the Off-Broadway
movement of the 1950s as well as to other smaller, non-commercial ventures thereafter. Today's community theater
may be also seen as an outgrowth of the Little Theatre Movement.
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
was beginning to replace theatre as a source of large-scale spectacle, the Little Theatre Movement developed in the United States around 1912. In several large cities, beginning with Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, Seattle and Detroit companies formed to produce more intimate, noncommercial, and reform-minded entertainments.
History
Sensational melodramas had entertained theatreTheatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
audiences since the mid 1800s, drawing larger and larger audiences. These types of formulaic works could be produced over and over again in splendid halls in big cities and by touring companies in smaller ones. During the last decades of the century, producers and playwrights began to create narratives dealing with social problems, albeit usually on a sensational level. While not yet totally free of melodramatic elements, plays reflecting a style more associated with realism
Realism
Realism, Realist or Realistic are terms that describe any manifestation of philosophical realism, the belief that reality exists independently of observers, whether in philosophy itself or in the applied arts and sciences. In this broad sense it is frequently contrasted with Idealism.Realism in the...
gradually emerged. During a secret meeting in 1895 the owners of most of the theatres across America organized into a Theatrical Syndicate
Theatrical Syndicate
-Beginnings:One day, early in the year 1896, six men gathered for lunch at the Holland House in New York City. These men were Charles Frohman, Al Hayman, A.L. Erlanger, Marc Klaw, Samuel F. Nirdlinger, and Frederick Zimmerman...
"to control competition and prices." This group, which included all major producers, "effectively stifled dramatic experimentation for many years" in search of greater profits. Nevertheless, by the second decade of the 20th century pure melodrama, with its typed characters and exaggerated plots, had become the province of motion pictures.
Chicago philanthropists and arts patrons Arthur T. Aldis and Mary Aldis established an artists' colony called The Compound in Lake Forest, Illinois, and in 1910, Mary founded there the Aldis Playhouse, "a predecessor to the 'little theater' movement." The Hull-House settlement theatre group, founded by Jane Addams
Jane Addams
Jane Addams was a pioneer settlement worker, founder of Hull House in Chicago, public philosopher, sociologist, author, and leader in woman suffrage and world peace...
and Ellen Gates Starr, was the first to perform several plays by Galsworthy, Ibsen, and Shaw
Shaw
-United Kingdom:*Shaw, Berkshire, a village*Shaw, Wiltshire, a village*Shaw and Crompton, a town in Greater Manchester-United States:*Shaw, Mississippi, a city*Shaw, Washington, D.C., a neighborhood*Shaw, St...
in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
. Maurice Browne, founder of the Little Theatre in Chicago, credited Hull House director Laura Dainty Pelham with being the "true founder of the 'American Little Theatre Movement'."
Alice Gerstenberg, an original member of the Little Theatre of Chicago, expanded the movement to include children, founding the Chicago Junior League Theatre for Children in 1921. Gerstenberg was also producer and president of The Playwrights' Theatre of Chicago, 1922-1945. She was active in the Alice Gerstenberg Experimental Theatre Workshop in the 1950's and the Alice Gerstenberg Theatre in the 1960's, which helped to cultivate the legacy of the Little Theatre Movement of the early 20th century.
In 1912 two theatre groups were formed, the Toy Theatre in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
and the Little Theatre in Chicago, these events often being cited as the official start of the Little Theatre Movement in the United States. Continuing to react against commercialism, amateur companies began to write and produce their own works as well as new plays from Europe that had been ignored by the syndicates. A wide variety of experimental groups, clubs, and settlement houses undertook to reform the theater, bringing more inwardly-directed plays to a wider public audience. New forms of drama, some influenced by or parodying the new science of psychoanalysis, began to be presented in smaller venues, many converted from other uses into makeshift theatres. The new groups began to experiment with new forms of storytelling, acting styles, dialogue and mise-en-scene. This experimentation, influenced by European models, ranged from an ultra-detailed naturalism
Naturalism
Naturalism is any of several philosophical stances wherein all phenomena or hypotheses, commonly labeled as supernatural, are either false or not inherently different from natural phenomena or hypotheses.Naturalism may also refer to:-In the arts:...
to, by the early 20s, a wildly-provocative expressionism
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
, part of a new stagecraft. Women were pervasive throughout these companies, although their efforts were often belittled, dismissed, or undervalued.
The movement achieved high water marks in artistic significance, community involvement, and international recognition with the Pasadena Community Playhouse. Originally a community theatre, the Playhouse boasted at its peak capacity six stages, each featuring a new production every two weeks, making it, for most of the early 20th century, the world's most prolific theatrical production organization. This palatial venue was at the time of its construction in 1925 the largest theatre complex west of Chicago. The organization was able to complete many projects beyond the scope of professional companies, thanks to volunteer labor and widespread community support. Notable undertakings of the Pasadena Playhouse include the staging of the entire canon of Shakespeare for the first time on a single stage, and a Midsummer Drama Festival showcasing the work of local writers. In 1928 the Playhouse produced the massive theo-philosophical epic Lazarus Laughed
Lazarus Laughed
Lazarus Laughed is a play by Eugene O'Neill written in 1925. Its sub-title was A Play for Imaginative Theatre. It is a long theo-philosophical meditation with more than a hundred actors making up a masked chorus. In theatrical format, Lazarus Laughed appears to be a Greek tragedy. But the...
by Eugene O'Neill
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish...
. The first fully realized production of this play, the cast included 250 primarily local amateur actors, often doubling in roles that required over three hundred masks and costumes.
Seeking larger audiences and with more complicated production ambitions, by the early 1920s several leading companies of the movement had turned professional. The Provincetown Players
Provincetown Players
The Provincetown Players was an amateur group of writers and artists who, at the early part of the 20th Century, wanted to see a change in American theatre and created a company committed to producing new plays by exclusively American playwrights...
, who produced O'Neill's first one-acts, moved to New York in 1916; members of the former Washington Square Players
Washington Square Players
The Washington Square Players was a New York theatrical production company founded in 1914. Its debut production in 1915 was a collection of one-act plays, some of which had been written for the event. In 1916 the troupe started presenting full-length plays, among which were Shaw's Mrs Warren's...
formed the Theatre Guild
Theatre Guild
The Theatre Guild is a theatrical society founded in New York City in 1918 by Lawrence Langner, Philip Moeller, Helen Westley and Theresa Helburn. Langner's wife, Armina Marshall, then served as a co-director. It evolved out of the work of the Washington Square Players.Its original purpose was to...
in 1919. But in its heyday, dozens of Little Theatre groups presented alternatives to mainstream commercial theatre. Numerous small companies had flourished, creating environments for diverse voices and viewpoints, in turn leading to the rise of giants like O'Neill. Little Theatre can be seen as a precursor to the Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
movement of the 1950s as well as to other smaller, non-commercial ventures thereafter. Today's community theater
Community theatre
Community theatre refers to theatrical performance made in relation to particular communities—its usage includes theatre made by, with, and for a community...
may be also seen as an outgrowth of the Little Theatre Movement.
External Links
- Alice Gerstenberg Papers at Newberry LibraryNewberry LibraryThe Newberry Library is a privately endowed, independent research library for the humanities and social sciences in Chicago, Illinois. Although it is private, non-circulating library, the Newberry Library is free and open to the public...