1766 (260 years ago)
Southwark Theatre opened in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the first purpose-built theatre in the English colonies. The first play by an American playwright, the tragedy The Prince of Parthia, by Thomas Godfrey, premiered at the Southwark the following spring. Philadelphia was a performance hub in the colonies. The Continental Congress banned theatre during the Revolution, along with gambling and horseracing, as theatre was seen as a symbol of British decadence. British troops staged amateur productions at the Southwark during the British occupation. Theatre performances gradually returned through the 1780s, billed as lectures or exhibitions to skirt congressional restrictions. The Southwark operated as a theatre until 1821. It was a distillery from 1821 until its demolition in 1912.
1906 (120 years ago)
Viola Spolin, creator of theatre games, was born in Chicago to Russian Jewish immigrant parents. Initially trained in social work, she learned techniques rooted in play to help immigrant children integrate in the United States. Following the birth of her son, Paul Sills, she began acting and studied dramatics at DePaul University’s night school. Throughout the 1930s, Spolin’s reputation grew for her creative drama work with young people. She conducted workshops at Hull House and sought to establish formalized theatre training that incorporated the benefits of play. In 1948, Spolin relocated to Hollywood and founded the Young Actors Company, a training center and professional theatre. In the 1950s, when Sills founded the Compass, the first modern improvisational theatre company, in Chicago, he invited Spolin to teach workshops for the company. Sills went on to co-found the Second City in 1959, with Spolin once again leading the company’s training. In 1963, Spolin published the hugely influential Improvisation for the Theater. Her teaching and collaboration with Sills continued into her 80s, and she published several more books. She died in Los Angeles in 1994.
1916 (110 years ago)
Theatre Arts Magazine published its first issue. Intended for theatre artists and spectators alike, the magazine was closely aligned with the Little Theatre Movement, an early 20th-century movement for theatre innovation independent of commercial theatre’s dominance. The first issue’s foreword wryly concluded, “P.S. – We intend not to be swallowed by the movies.” The quarterly publication was edited by Sheldon Cheney, a noted author, art historian, and theatre critic, with support from the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts. Cheney moved the magazine to New York in 1917 and remained its editor until 1921. The magazine was renamed Theatre Arts Monthly in 1924 and shortened to Theatre Arts in 1939. It continued publication until 1964. Cheney authored several books in his lifetime, including The Theatre: 3000 Years of Drama, Acting and Stagecraft, published in 1929, with a second edition in 1952. It was the first comprehensive history of theatre written in English. Cheney’s work influenced contemporary theatre practitioners, including playwright Eugene O’Neill and scenic designer Robert Edmund Jones.
1916 (110 years ago)
The Provincetown Players opened Eugene O’Neill’s first one-act play, Bound East for Cardiff, at their new theatre in Greenwich Village. The experimental theatre company was founded in Provincetown, Massachusetts, in 1915 and became the most influential company associated with the Little Theatre Movement. The company was celebrated for their groundbreaking work in developing American plays. Playwright Susan Glaspell, who would go on to win a Pulitzer Prize, was a founding member. O’Neill joined the company in 1916. Poet Edna St. Vincent Millay joined as an actor in 1917. The company produced her one-act play, The Princess Marries the Page, in 1918. Bound East for Cardiff marked both O’Neill’s and the Provincetown Players’ New York debuts. The company continued producing in New York through 1922 and officially disbanded in 1923. Long Day’s Journey Into Night, O’Niell’s posthumously produced magnum opus, opened on Broadway almost 40 years to the date after Bound East for Cardiff’s New York premiere.
1981 (45 years ago)
A Soldier’s Play by Charles Fuller premiered at the Negro Ensemble Company. The murder mystery follows the investigation into the killing of a Black sergeant at a segregated army camp in 1944 Louisiana. The production starred Denzel Washington and Samuel L. Jackson; Washington reprised his role in the 1984 film adaptation A Soldier’s Story, which Fuller also wrote. A Soldier’s Play won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1982. Fuller was interviewed in this publication for the Roundabout Theatre Company’s 2020 revival. A veteran of the U.S. army and a prolific writer, Fuller returned to military settings in several plays to explore complexities of human relationships in racialized America. His other notable plays include The Brownsville Raid, One Night…, and Zooman and the Sign. Fuller died in 2022.
