Schuster School - Proscenium Yearbook (Cincinnati, OH)

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i t E. E LPN i! 37?; ,- Now these amateur and educational theatres are not necessarily governed by the real Little Theatre idea, but the fact that they exist shows a growing demand for better plays, simply produced, and a greater intimacy between the audiences and the players. This new attitude has not developed in this country alone. in France, An- toine was a dramatic revolutionary. He founded the Theatre Libre, and with his little band of enthusiasts opened the eyes of the French public. uThe influence of the Theatre Libre upon the development of the theatre in France was enormous,u says Brieux. iiHe tAntoinei was the first to bring Ibsen to France and Francois de Curel into international renown. ' The Little Theatres in America are trying to do what the Free Theatre did for France. They are striving continually for things new and daring. They are bring- ing the ultra and the eccentric to the people who enjoy such things, and they are producing the plays of unknown dramatists in the hope of helping them to establish themselves. In spite of the fact that a great many people have taken up the idea as a fad, in spite of the utterly utter, and sometimes the disgusting things that have been producecl, growing out of a madness for stimulating new sensations, the Little The- atres are doing a great good. The Toy Theatre in Boston treats the drama consist- ently as a fine art, and has produced in the four years of its existence plays by Shaw, Strindberg, Sudermann, Chesterton, Percy MacKaye, and many others, never falling below the ideal standards which it set up for itself in the outset. The Toy Theatre employs Bostonian amateurs for actors, and is no doubt an outgrowth of the move- ment Professor Baker set on foot. The Chicago Little Theatre employs professional actors, but is a repertoire theatre for experimental producing e again we trace the Baker movemente presenting both classic and modern drama at popular prices. It states in its announcements that its purpose is the creation of a new and plastic rhythmic drama in America. Winthrope Ames' Little Theatre in New York City and the Little Theatre in Philadelphia with Mr. Hines at its head are both doing the same kind of work. If the Little Theatre is only for the aristocratic few, it must be remembered that there will always be an aristocracy in things dramatic as well as in things politic. This minority is doing what it can to produce the closet drama and literary play under favorable auspices. It is not a minority because it wishes to be so, but from the very nature of things. There is as wide a difference between plays and players as there is between a hutdy-gurdy on a street corner and a cathedral organ. The devotees of the Little Theatre have learned to appreciate this difference, and to prev fer the organ music to the hurdy-gurdy tunes. Their greatest work, now, is to educate the public and to swell the ranks of the real musicians, so that there will be a demand for a Little Theatre in every community capable of supporting such an institution. For, as Professor Baker has said, iiThe drama is the most potentially powerful esthetic expression in the modern world.n Page twenty-nne

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THE LITTLE THEATRE Ever since Ibsen revolutionized the drama, taking us as he does into a room, one wall of which - the one toward the audience- is missing, there has been a growing feeling that very large theatres are not well aciapted to this newer kind of play. Since that time, in European countries as well as in America, a movement has been set afoot to decrease the size of playhouses. This tendency has resulted today in what is called the Little Theatre Movement. The object of the little theatre is to bring intimate drama into a small place where subtleties of dialogue and situation will not he lost, and to produce plays, interesting to a select few, that do not interest the general public, and which the general public fails to support. During the last decade there has been a great dramatic awakening in this coun- try. The people, those who make up the audiences, have wakened to a sense that they have a right to have some voice as to the conduct of the theatres. For long the audiences were merely paying spectators, accepting what Broadway pleased to send them. Now there is a more and more clearly defined feeling throughout the country that the people do not necessarily have to accept Broadwayis ultimatum. Amateur theatres have sprung up in the colleges as a result of this feeling. Young men and women are studying piay-writing, playeproducing, directing and managing. The time when the managers of theltheatres are recruited from the ranks of call boys and ushers is fast passing away. In the future the managers will be recruited from the colleges. Of the work done in the universities, Professor Bakeris Work Shop at Cambridge is the most prominent. English 47 is not a little theatre, how- ever. It is a workshop. in it are produced the plays written by the students at Harvard and Radcliffe, in order that the authors may study their work from a pro- ducing standpoint. Thus they are able to determine from seeing their plays pro duced, wherein their work is lacking, and what qualities go to make it good, bad or indifferent. ProfeSSOr Baker was the pioneer in establishing this kind of dramatic study as an essential in education. Yale University has a dramatic department of this kind under Professor Phelps. Professor Brander Matthews of Columbia is an- other working along these lines. The Little Country Theatre, North Dakota Agri- cultural College, is a reai theatre under college auspices, where the students direct and have an opportunity to act in the plays. Page twenty

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