Margo Jones
Encyclopedia
Margo Jones was an influential American
stage director and producer
best known for launching the American regional theater movement and for introducing the theater-in-the-round
concept in Dallas, Texas
. In 1947, she established the first regional professional company when she opened Theatre ’47 in Dallas. Of the 85 plays Jones staged during her Dallas career, 57 were new, and one-third of those new plays had a continued life on stage, television and radio.
, Jones worked in community and professional theaters in California
, Houston, and New York
. "Since 1936, Margo Jones had served as assistant director of the Federal Theatre in Houston, traveled to Soviet Russia for a festival at the Moscow Art Theatre, and founded and directed the Houston Community Theatre. She had recently joined the faculty of the University of Texas's drama department in Austin (around 1942)." She traveled the world, experiencing theater everywhere, eventually gaining commercial success on Broadway as co-director of the original production of The Glass Menagerie
by Tennessee Williams
. She directed Williams' Summer and Smoke
, a flop in its first production but highly regarded years later. After she directed Maxwell Anderson
's successful Joan of Lorraine
, starring Ingrid Bergman
as Joan of Arc
, she was fired during the Washington, D.C.
tryout. However, her name remained on the marquee and playbills, and no other director was ever credited for the production.
All three plays were filmed. Bergman repeated her Joan of Lorraine role in Joan of Arc
(1948), for which she was Oscar-nominated. Geraldine Page
was Oscar-nominated for her performance in Summer and Smoke (1961). Since 1950, there have been at least five different film/TV productions of The Glass Menagerie.
The success of The Glass Menagerie allowed her to take the next step toward her dream of running a repertory theatre outside of New York. She moved back to Dallas and opened Theatre ’47 (which changed its name to the corresponding year every New Year’s Eve).
Her theater was in the sleek "Magnolia Lounge" (Magnolia Petroleum Company, later Mobil Oil) building, designed by Swiss-born architect William Lescaze, in 1936 for the Texas Centennial and situated on the grounds of Fair Park
in Dallas. The theater was America's first modern nonprofit professional resident theater and also the first professional arena theater (theater-in-the-round) in the country. Jones was inspired by Franklin Roosevelt’s Depression era National Theater Project and the European arts movement which she had experienced directly during the 1930s. The resident company was dedicated to staging new plays and classics of world theater rather than revivals of past Broadway hits. The initial season introduced William Inge
's first play, Farther Off from Heaven, later revised as The Dark at the Top of the Stairs
.
and Robert E. Lee championed this sentiment when they received their first big breaks from Jones' Dallas theater.
Jones envisioned it as a place where actors, writers and technicians could have steady jobs and not be subject to the problems found in the volatile New York scene. When the Ford Foundation began giving grants outside of New York during the 1950s, the movement gathered momentum and Theatre ’47 became the model of how to build a new company. (Weeks)
In her book Theatre in the Round, Jones outlined inexpensive methods to enable companies to get started, detailing valuable information on subscription sales, board development, programming, actor/artist relations and other issues relevant to new regional theatre companies. Her theater-in-the-round concept requires no stage curtain, little scenery and allows the audience to sit on three sides of the stage. That concept was used by directors in later years for such well-known shows as the original stage production of Man of La Mancha
, and all plays staged at the ANTA Washington Square Theatre
(demolished in the late 1960s), including Arthur Miller
's autobiographical play After the Fall
(1964).
fumes from a newly-cleaned carpet in her Dallas apartment. She was found unconscious on the floor and rushed to the hospital, where, according to friends, she regained consciousness, and slowly realized that she was dying, making elaborate preparations for it and instructing her closest friends to groom and dress her properly for burial. However, she never actually knew what had killed her, and her theater closed in 1959.
and Robert Edwin Lee
's Inherit the Wind
, a fictionalized retelling of the Scopes monkey trial, after it had been rejected by several Broadway producers. The play received rave reviews and subsequently opened on Broadway in April 1955, where it became a major hit. Inherit the Wind become an Oscar-nominated film in 1960 and has been revived as a TV special three times.
Jones' innovative ideas inspired the growth of numerous resident companies, and made it possible for regions across America to experience the art she loved. In 1950-55, producer Albert McCleery
brought the concept of theater-in-the-round to television with his Cameo Theatre
.
The Margo Jones Award was established in 1961 by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee.
about her life and career, Sweet Tornado: Margo Jones and the American Theater, was shown on PBS. With Jones portrayed by Judith Ivey
, the film dramatized scenes from her life, adapted from her letters and correspondence with Broadway producers and Tennessee Williams (portrayed by Richard Thomas
). The film features interviews with people who worked with her, including actor Ray Walston
, who got his first big break in the original production of Summer and Smoke.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
stage director and producer
Theatrical producer
A theatrical producer is the person ultimately responsible for overseeing all aspects of mounting a theatre production. The independent producer will usually be the originator and finder of the script and starts the whole process...
best known for launching the American regional theater movement and for introducing the theater-in-the-round
Theatre in the round
Theatre-in-the-round or arena theatre is any theatre space in which the audience surrounds the stage area...
concept in Dallas, Texas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
. In 1947, she established the first regional professional company when she opened Theatre ’47 in Dallas. Of the 85 plays Jones staged during her Dallas career, 57 were new, and one-third of those new plays had a continued life on stage, television and radio.
Early career and Theatre '47
Born Margaret Virginia Jones in Livingston, TexasLivingston, Texas
Livingston is a town in Polk County, Texas, United States. The population was 5,433 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Polk County. Livingston was settled in 1835 as Springfield. Its name was changed to Livingston and became the county seat of Polk County in 1846.The Alabama-Coushatta...
, Jones worked in community and professional theaters in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, Houston, and New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. "Since 1936, Margo Jones had served as assistant director of the Federal Theatre in Houston, traveled to Soviet Russia for a festival at the Moscow Art Theatre, and founded and directed the Houston Community Theatre. She had recently joined the faculty of the University of Texas's drama department in Austin (around 1942)." She traveled the world, experiencing theater everywhere, eventually gaining commercial success on Broadway as co-director of the original production of The Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie is a four-character memory play by Tennessee Williams. Williams worked on various drafts of the play prior to writing a version of it as a screenplay for MGM, to whom Williams was contracted...
by Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
. She directed Williams' Summer and Smoke
Summer and Smoke
Summer and Smoke is a two-part, thirteen-scene play by Tennessee Williams, originally titled Chart of Anatomy when Williams began work on it in 1945. In 1964, Williams revised the play as The Eccentricities of a Nightingale...
, a flop in its first production but highly regarded years later. After she directed Maxwell Anderson
Maxwell Anderson
James Maxwell Anderson was an American playwright, author, poet, journalist and lyricist.-Early years:Anderson was born in Atlantic, Pennsylvania, the second of eight children to William Lincoln "Link" Anderson, a Baptist minister, and Charlotte Perrimela Stephenson, both of Scots and Irish descent...
's successful Joan of Lorraine
Joan of Lorraine
Joan of Lorraine is a 1946 play-within-a-play by Maxwell Anderson. It is about an acting company who stages a dramatization of the story of Joan of Arc and the effect that the story has on them. As in the musical Man of La Mancha, most of the actors in the drama play two or more roles...
, starring Ingrid Bergman
Ingrid Bergman
Ingrid Bergman was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films. She won three Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards, and the Tony Award for Best Actress. She is ranked as the fourth greatest female star of American cinema of all time by the American Film Institute...
as Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc
Saint Joan of Arc, nicknamed "The Maid of Orléans" , is a national heroine of France and a Roman Catholic saint. A peasant girl born in eastern France who claimed divine guidance, she led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years' War, which paved the way for the...
, she was fired during the Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
tryout. However, her name remained on the marquee and playbills, and no other director was ever credited for the production.
All three plays were filmed. Bergman repeated her Joan of Lorraine role in Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc (1948 film)
Joan of Arc is a 1948 Technicolor film directed by Victor Fleming; starring Ingrid Bergman as the French religious icon and war heroine. It was produced by Walter Wanger. It is based on Maxwell Anderson's successful Broadway play Joan of Lorraine, which also starred Bergman, and was adapted for the...
(1948), for which she was Oscar-nominated. Geraldine Page
Geraldine Page
Geraldine Sue Page was an American actress. Although she starred in at least two dozen feature films, she is primarily known for her celebrated work in the American theater...
was Oscar-nominated for her performance in Summer and Smoke (1961). Since 1950, there have been at least five different film/TV productions of The Glass Menagerie.
The success of The Glass Menagerie allowed her to take the next step toward her dream of running a repertory theatre outside of New York. She moved back to Dallas and opened Theatre ’47 (which changed its name to the corresponding year every New Year’s Eve).
Her theater was in the sleek "Magnolia Lounge" (Magnolia Petroleum Company, later Mobil Oil) building, designed by Swiss-born architect William Lescaze, in 1936 for the Texas Centennial and situated on the grounds of Fair Park
Fair Park
Dallas Fair Park is a recreational and educational complex located in Dallas, Texas . The complex is registered as a Dallas Landmark, National Historic Landmark and is home to nine museums, six performance facilities, a lagoon, and the largest Ferris wheel in North America...
in Dallas. The theater was America's first modern nonprofit professional resident theater and also the first professional arena theater (theater-in-the-round) in the country. Jones was inspired by Franklin Roosevelt’s Depression era National Theater Project and the European arts movement which she had experienced directly during the 1930s. The resident company was dedicated to staging new plays and classics of world theater rather than revivals of past Broadway hits. The initial season introduced William Inge
William Inge
William Motter Inge was an American playwright and novelist, whose works typically feature solitary protagonists encumbered with strained sexual relations. In the early 1950s, he had a string of memorable Broadway productions, and one of these, Picnic, earned him a Pulitzer Prize...
's first play, Farther Off from Heaven, later revised as The Dark at the Top of the Stairs
The Dark at the Top of the Stairs
The Dark at the Top of the Stairs is a 1957 play by William Inge about family conflicts during the early 1920s in a small Oklahoma town. It won the Tony Award for Best Play and was made into a film in 1960.-Plot:...
.
Regional theater movement
Though touring shows did exist at this time, there were no quality professional American theatre companies outside of New York. Jones believed in the decentralization of theater. She wanted her art to exist all across America, beyond the realm of commercialized Broadway. She reasoned that if she and her collaborators succeeded “in inspiring the operation of 30 theatres like ours, the playwright won’t need Broadway.” (Sheehy 2). Playwrights Inge, Jerome LawrenceJerome Lawrence
Jerome Lawrence was an American playwright and author.-Life and career:Lawrence was born Jerome Lawrence Schwartz in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Sarah , a poet, and Samuel Schwartz, a printer. He worked for several small newspapers as a reporter/editor before moving into radio as a writer for CBS....
and Robert E. Lee championed this sentiment when they received their first big breaks from Jones' Dallas theater.
Jones envisioned it as a place where actors, writers and technicians could have steady jobs and not be subject to the problems found in the volatile New York scene. When the Ford Foundation began giving grants outside of New York during the 1950s, the movement gathered momentum and Theatre ’47 became the model of how to build a new company. (Weeks)
In her book Theatre in the Round, Jones outlined inexpensive methods to enable companies to get started, detailing valuable information on subscription sales, board development, programming, actor/artist relations and other issues relevant to new regional theatre companies. Her theater-in-the-round concept requires no stage curtain, little scenery and allows the audience to sit on three sides of the stage. That concept was used by directors in later years for such well-known shows as the original stage production of Man of La Mancha
Man of La Mancha
Man of La Mancha is a musical with a book by Dale Wasserman, lyrics by Joe Darion and music by Mitch Leigh. It is adapted from Wasserman's non-musical 1959 teleplay I, Don Quixote, which was in turn inspired by Miguel de Cervantes's seventeenth century masterpiece Don Quixote...
, and all plays staged at the ANTA Washington Square Theatre
ANTA Washington Square Theatre
The ANTA Washington Square Theatre was a small theatre located on 40 West 4th St., in Greenwich Village, in New York City, and run by the American National Theater and Academy . The theater was located away from the mainstream Broadway district, and was originally designed as a prototype for the...
(demolished in the late 1960s), including Arthur Miller
Arthur Miller
Arthur Asher Miller was an American playwright and essayist. He was a prominent figure in American theatre, writing dramas that include plays such as All My Sons , Death of a Salesman , The Crucible , and A View from the Bridge .Miller was often in the public eye,...
's autobiographical play After the Fall
After the Fall (play)
After the Fall is a play by American dramatist Arthur Miller. The original performance opened in New York City on January 23, 1964, directed by Elia Kazan and starring Barbara Loden and Jason Robards Jr., with an early appearance by Faye Dunaway. Kazan also collaborated with Miller on the script...
(1964).
Death
In 1955, Jones died at age 43 from accidental exposure to poisonous carbon tetrachlorideCarbon tetrachloride
Carbon tetrachloride, also known by many other names is the organic compound with the formula CCl4. It was formerly widely used in fire extinguishers, as a precursor to refrigerants, and as a cleaning agent...
fumes from a newly-cleaned carpet in her Dallas apartment. She was found unconscious on the floor and rushed to the hospital, where, according to friends, she regained consciousness, and slowly realized that she was dying, making elaborate preparations for it and instructing her closest friends to groom and dress her properly for burial. However, she never actually knew what had killed her, and her theater closed in 1959.
Legacy
For eight years Jones balanced her career between Broadway and regional projects. In Dallas, she staged the world premiere of Jerome LawrenceJerome Lawrence
Jerome Lawrence was an American playwright and author.-Life and career:Lawrence was born Jerome Lawrence Schwartz in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Sarah , a poet, and Samuel Schwartz, a printer. He worked for several small newspapers as a reporter/editor before moving into radio as a writer for CBS....
and Robert Edwin Lee
Robert Edwin Lee
Robert Edwin Lee was an American playwright and lyricist. With his writing partner, Jerome Lawrence, Lee worked for Armed Forces Radio during World War II; Lawrence and Lee became the most prolific writing partnership in radio, with such long-running series as Favorite Story among others.-Life and...
's Inherit the Wind
Inherit the Wind (play)
Inherit the Wind is a play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee. The play, which debuted in 1955, is a parable that fictionalizes the 1925 Scopes "Monkey" Trial as a means to discuss the then-contemporary McCarthy trials.-Background:...
, a fictionalized retelling of the Scopes monkey trial, after it had been rejected by several Broadway producers. The play received rave reviews and subsequently opened on Broadway in April 1955, where it became a major hit. Inherit the Wind become an Oscar-nominated film in 1960 and has been revived as a TV special three times.
Jones' innovative ideas inspired the growth of numerous resident companies, and made it possible for regions across America to experience the art she loved. In 1950-55, producer Albert McCleery
Albert McCleery
Albert McCleery was a pioneering television producer during the 1950s.He created his innovative Cameo Theatre for television in 1950. A weekly live production, it continued until 1955. On this half-hour series, McCleery offered dramas seen against pure black backgrounds instead of walls of a set...
brought the concept of theater-in-the-round to television with his Cameo Theatre
Cameo Theatre
Cameo Theatre was an American anthology series that aired on NBC during the Golden Age of Television, from 1950 to 1955.-Television in the round:...
.
The Margo Jones Award was established in 1961 by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee.
Television
In 2006, a documentary filmDocumentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
about her life and career, Sweet Tornado: Margo Jones and the American Theater, was shown on PBS. With Jones portrayed by Judith Ivey
Judith Ivey
Judith Lee Ivey is an American actress and director.-Personal life:Ivey was born in El Paso, Texas, the daughter of Dorothy Lee , a teacher, and Nathan Aldean Ivey, a college instructor and dean. She spent 1965-1968 in Dowagiac, Michigan, where she attended Union High School through tenth grade...
, the film dramatized scenes from her life, adapted from her letters and correspondence with Broadway producers and Tennessee Williams (portrayed by Richard Thomas
Richard Thomas (actor)
Richard Earl Thomas is an American actor, best known for his role as budding author John-Boy Walton in the CBS drama The Waltons.- Early life :Thomas was born Richard Earl Thomas in New York,...
). The film features interviews with people who worked with her, including actor Ray Walston
Ray Walston
Ray Walston was an American stage, television and film actor best known as the title character on the 1960s situation comedy My Favorite Martian. In addition, he is also remembered for his roles as Luther Billis in South Pacific , Mr. Applegate in Damn Yankees , J.J...
, who got his first big break in the original production of Summer and Smoke.
Stage productions
| Date | Production | Author | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1942 | The Eve of St. Mark | Maxwell Anderson Maxwell Anderson James Maxwell Anderson was an American playwright, author, poet, journalist and lyricist.-Early years:Anderson was born in Atlantic, Pennsylvania, the second of eight children to William Lincoln "Link" Anderson, a Baptist minister, and Charlotte Perrimela Stephenson, both of Scots and Irish descent... |
University of Texas, Austin |
| 1943 | Sporting Pink | Theodore Apstein | University of Texas, Austin |
| A Choice of Weapons | Theodore Apstein | ||
| You Touched Me | Tennessee Williams Tennessee Williams Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs... |
Pasadena Playhouse, California | |
| 1945 | The Glass Menagerie The Glass Menagerie The Glass Menagerie is a four-character memory play by Tennessee Williams. Williams worked on various drafts of the play prior to writing a version of it as a screenplay for MGM, to whom Williams was contracted... |
Tennessee Williams | Playhouse, New York |
| 1946 | On Whitman Avenue | Maxine Wood | Broadway, New York |
| Joan of Lorraine Joan of Lorraine Joan of Lorraine is a 1946 play-within-a-play by Maxwell Anderson. It is about an acting company who stages a dramatization of the story of Joan of Arc and the effect that the story has on them. As in the musical Man of La Mancha, most of the actors in the drama play two or more roles... |
Maxwell Anderson | Alvin Theatre, New York | |
| 1947 | Farther Off From Heaven/The Dark at the Top of the Stairs The Dark at the Top of the Stairs The Dark at the Top of the Stairs is a 1957 play by William Inge about family conflicts during the early 1920s in a small Oklahoma town. It won the Tony Award for Best Play and was made into a film in 1960.-Plot:... |
William Inge William Inge William Motter Inge was an American playwright and novelist, whose works typically feature solitary protagonists encumbered with strained sexual relations. In the early 1950s, he had a string of memorable Broadway productions, and one of these, Picnic, earned him a Pulitzer Prize... |
Theatre '47, Dallas, Texas |
| Hedda Gabler Hedda Gabler Hedda Gabler is a play first published in 1890 by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. The play premiered in 1891 in Germany to negative reviews, but has subsequently gained recognition as a classic of realism, nineteenth century theatre, and world drama... |
Henrik Ibsen Henrik Ibsen Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre... |
||
| How Now Hecate | Martyn Coleman | ||
| Summer and Smoke Summer and Smoke Summer and Smoke is a two-part, thirteen-scene play by Tennessee Williams, originally titled Chart of Anatomy when Williams began work on it in 1945. In 1964, Williams revised the play as The Eccentricities of a Nightingale... |
Tennessee Williams | Theatre '47, Dallas, Texas Music Box Theatre, New York |
|
| Third Cousin | Vera Mathews | Theatre '47, Dallas, Texas | |
| 1948 | The Master Builder The Master Builder The Master Builder is a play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It was first published in December 1892 and is regarded as one of Ibsen's most significant and revealing works.-Performance:... |
Henrik Ibsen Henrik Ibsen Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre... |
Theatre '48, Dallas, Texas |
| The Taming of the Shrew The Taming of the Shrew The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1591.The play begins with a framing device, often referred to as the Induction, in which a mischievous nobleman tricks a drunken tinker named Sly into believing he is actually a nobleman himself... |
William Shakespeare William Shakespeare William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"... |
||
| The Importance of Being Earnest The Importance of Being Earnest The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at St. James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personae in order to escape burdensome social obligations... |
Oscar Wilde Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s... |
||
| Summer and Smoke | Tennessee Williams | Broadway, New York | |
| Last of My Solid Gold Watches This Property Is Condemned Portrait of a Madonna |
Tennessee Williams | Theatre '48, Dallas, Texas | |
| Throng o' Scarlet | Vivian Connell | ||
| Lemple's Old Man | Manning Gurain | ||
| Leaf and Bough | Joseph Hayes Joseph Hayes Joseph Hayes was an American author and playwright, born in Indianapolis, Indiana. When he was thirteen, he entered a Benedictine monastery, staying there for two years. He graduated from Indiana University.... |
||
| Black John | Barton MacLane Barton MacLane Barton MacLane was an American actor, playwright, and screenwriter. Although he has appeared in many classic films from the 1930s through the 1960s, he was known for his role as Gen... |
||
| 1949 | The Learned Ladies Les Femmes Savantes Les Femmes savantes is a play by Molière in five acts, written in verse. A satire on academic pretention, female education, and préciosité , it was one of his most popular comedies... |
Molière Molière Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature... |
Theatre '49, Dallas, Texas |
| Twelfth Night | William Shakespeare | ||
| The Sea Gull The Sea Gull The Sea Gull is a 1968 British-American-Greek drama film directed by Sidney Lumet. The screenplay by Moura Budberg is adapted from Anton Chekhov's classic 1896 play The Seagull.... |
Anton Chekhov Anton Chekhov Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics... |
||
| She Stoops to Conquer She Stoops to Conquer She Stoops to Conquer is a comedy by the Irish author Oliver Goldsmith, son of an Anglo-Irish vicar, first performed in London in 1773. The play is a great favourite for study by English literature and theatre classes in Britain and the United States. It is one of the few plays from the 18th... |
Oliver Goldsmith Oliver Goldsmith Oliver Goldsmith was an Irish writer, poet and physician known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield , his pastoral poem The Deserted Village , and his plays The Good-Natur'd Man and She Stoops to Conquer... |
||
| Here's to Us | Shirland Quin | ||
| Sting in the Tail | Tom Purefoy | ||
| The Coast of Illyria | Dorothy Parker Dorothy Parker Dorothy Parker was an American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist, best known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th century urban foibles.... and Ross Evans |
||
| 1950 | Heartbreak House Heartbreak House Heartbreak House is a play written by George Bernard Shaw, first published in 1919 and first played at the Garrick Theatre in 1920. According to A. C. Ward, the work argues that "cultured, leisured Europe" was drifting toward destruction, and that "Those in a position to guide Europe to safety... |
George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60... |
Theatre '50, Dallas, Texas |
| Ghosts Ghosts (play) Ghosts is a play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It was written in 1881 and first staged in 1882.Like many of Ibsen's better-known plays, Ghosts is a scathing commentary on 19th century morality.... |
Henrik Ibsen Henrik Ibsen Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre... |
||
| An Old Beat-Up Woman | Sari Scott | ||
| My Granny Van | Loren Disney and George Sessions Perry George Sessions Perry George Sessions Perry was an American novelist, World War II correspondent and one of the highest paid popular magazine contributors of his time. He is remembered best for his 1941 novel Hold Autumn in Your Hand, which won the National Book Award and the Texas Institute of Letters award in 1941... |
||
| Cock-a-Doodle Dandy Cock-a-Doodle Dandy Cock-a-Doodle Dandy is a 1949 play by Irish dramatist Seán O'Casey.Regarded by O'Casey as his best play, this is a darkly comic fantasy in which a magic cockerel appears in the parish of Nyadnanave and forces the characters to make choices about the way they live their lives. It is a parable of... |
Seán O'Casey Seán O'Casey Seán O'Casey was an Irish dramatist and memoirist. A committed socialist, he was the first Irish playwright of note to write about the Dublin working classes.- Early life:... |
||
| The Golden Porcupine | Muriel Roy Bolton | ||
| Southern Exposure | Owen Crump | ||
| A Play for Mary | William McCleery | ||
| An Innocent Time | Edward Caufield | ||
| 1951 | Lady Windermere's Fan Lady Windermere's Fan Lady Windermere's Fan, A Play About a Good Woman is a four act comedy by Oscar Wilde, first produced 22 February 1892 at the St James's Theatre in London. The play was first published in 1893... |
Oscar Wilde | Theatre '51, Dallas, Texas |
| The Merchant of Venice The Merchant of Venice The Merchant of Venice is a tragic comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. Though classified as a comedy in the First Folio and sharing certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, the play is perhaps most remembered for its dramatic... |
William Shakespeare | ||
| Candida Candida (play) Candida, a comedy by playwright George Bernard Shaw, was first published in 1898, as part of his Plays Pleasant. The central characters are clergyman James Morell, his wife Candida and a youthful poet, Eugene Marchbanks, who tries to win Candida's affections. The play questions Victorian notions... |
George Bernard Shaw | ||
| A Willow Tree | A. B. Shiffrin | ||
| One Bright Day | Siomund Miller | ||
| Walls Rise Up | Duane, Frank and Richard Shannon | ||
| A Gift for Cathy | Ronald Alexander | ||
| 1952 | A Midsummer Night's Dream A Midsummer Night's Dream A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play that was written by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta... |
William Shakespeare | Theatre '52, Dallas, Texas |
| Sainted Sisters | Alden Nash | ||
| The Blind Spot | Edward Caulfield | ||
| So in Love | Vern Matthews | ||
| I Am Laughing | Edwin Justus Mayer Edwin Justus Mayer Edwin Justus Mayer was an American screenwriter. He wrote or co-wrote the screenplays for 47 films between 1927 and 1958.... |
||
| 1953 | Hamlet Hamlet The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601... |
William Shakespeare | Theatre '53, Dallas, Texas |
| The Rivals | Richard Brinsley Sheridan Richard Brinsley Sheridan Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan was an Irish-born playwright and poet and long-term owner of the London Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. For thirty-two years he was also a Whig Member of the British House of Commons for Stafford , Westminster and Ilchester... |
||
| Goodbye, Your Majesty | Vivian Connell | ||
| The Rising Heifer | Robin Maugham | ||
| The Last Island | Eugene Raskin Eugene Raskin Eugene Raskin or Gene Raskin , was an American musician and playwright, author of the lyrics of the English version of the Russian song "Those Were the Days" and also of three books on architecture and adjunct professor at Columbia University .-Life:Raskin was born in the Bronx in 1909... |
||
| Late Love | Casey | ||
| Uncle Marston | John Briard Harding | ||
| The Day's Mischief | Lesley Storm Lesley Storm Lesley Storm was the pen-name of Mabel Cowie also known by her married name of Mabel Clark.She was a Scottish writer, who wrote a number of plays, some of which were filmed. Black Chiffon and Roar Like a Dove were major hits... |
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| 1954 | Volpone Volpone Volpone is a comedy by Ben Jonson first produced in 1606, drawing on elements of city comedy, black comedy and beast fable... |
Ben Jonson Ben Jonson Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems... |
Theatre '54, Dallas, Texas |
| The Footpath Way | Burgess Drake | ||
| The Guilty | Harry Granick | ||
| Happy We'll Be | Samson Raphaelson Samson Raphaelson Samson Raphaelson was an American screenwriter and playwright.Born in New York City, Raphaelson worked on nine films with Ernst Lubitsch, including Trouble in Paradise , The Shop Around the Corner , Heaven Can Wait , and That Lady in Ermine... |
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| Oracle Junction | Samson Raphaelson | ||
| The Heel | Samson Raphaelson | ||
| A Rainbow at Home | Milton Robertson | ||
| Horatio | Wallach, David Baker, and Harnick | ||
| The Purification | Tennessee Williams | ||
| Apollo of Bellac Apollo of Bellac The Apollo of Bellac is a comedic one act play written in 1942 by French dramatist Jean Giraudoux.-Plot summary:... |
Jean Giraudoux Jean Giraudoux Hippolyte Jean Giraudoux was a French novelist, essayist, diplomat and playwright. He is considered among the most important French dramatists of the period between World War I and World War II. His work is noted for its stylistic elegance and poetic fantasy... |
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| The Brothers | John S. Rodell | ||
| A Dash of Bitters | Reginald Denham Reginald Denham Reginald Denham was an English writer, theater and film director, actor and film producer.Denham was born in London, England in 1894.... and Conrad Sutton-Smith |
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| Sea-Change | William Case | ||
| The Hemlock Cup | Edward Hunt | ||
| 1955 | As You Like It As You Like It As You Like It is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 or early 1600 and first published in the folio of 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 has been suggested as a possibility... |
William Shakespeare | Theatre '55, Dallas, Texas |
| Inherit the Wind Inherit the Wind (play) Inherit the Wind is a play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee. The play, which debuted in 1955, is a parable that fictionalizes the 1925 Scopes "Monkey" Trial as a means to discuss the then-contemporary McCarthy trials.-Background:... |
Jerome Lawrence Jerome Lawrence Jerome Lawrence was an American playwright and author.-Life and career:Lawrence was born Jerome Lawrence Schwartz in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Sarah , a poet, and Samuel Schwartz, a printer. He worked for several small newspapers as a reporter/editor before moving into radio as a writer for CBS.... and Robert Edwin Lee Robert Edwin Lee Robert Edwin Lee was an American playwright and lyricist. With his writing partner, Jerome Lawrence, Lee worked for Armed Forces Radio during World War II; Lawrence and Lee became the most prolific writing partnership in radio, with such long-running series as Favorite Story among others.-Life and... |
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| Whisper to Me | William Goyen William Goyen Charles William Goyen was an American novelist, short story writer, playwright, poet, editor, and teacher. Born in a small town in East Texas, these roots would influence his work for his entire life.... and Greer Johnson |
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| La Belle Lulu | Jacques Offenbach Jacques Offenbach Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr.... and Charles Previn |
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| The Girl from Boston | Joseph Hayes Joseph Hayes Joseph Hayes was an American author and playwright, born in Indianapolis, Indiana. When he was thirteen, he entered a Benedictine monastery, staying there for two years. He graduated from Indiana University.... |
Listen to
Sources
- Sheehy, Helen. Margo: The Life and Theatre of Margo Jones. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1989.