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LET'S MEET

THE THEATRE

Dorothy and Joseph
S.AMACHSON

With an Introduction
by John Gassner

ABELARD-SCHUMAN NEW YORK

Copyright, 1954

by Dorothy and Joseph Samachson

Libfaiy of Congress

Catalog Card Number 53-10843

Printed and bound in the
United States of America

Page

AUTHORS' PREFACE VII

PREFACE BY JOHN GASSNER IX

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS XIII

INTRODUCTION 1

HOW A PLAY IS PRODUCED 4

AUTHOR AND AUDIENCE 6

Arthur Miller: Why Write a Play? 15

John Van Draten: How to Select a Subject 21

Howard Lindsay and Russel Grouse: How Playwrights Col-
laborate 26

Brooks Atkinson: Does the Critic Make or Break a Play? 31

THE PRODUCER 35

John Golden: How Our Theatre Has Changed 42

Theresa Helburn: How a Producing Group Is Formed 48

Oliver Smith: The Producer in the Noncommercial Theatre 53

THE DIRECTOR 58

George Abbott: How to Direct Comedy and Melodrama 69

Harold Clurman: The Kind of Theatre We Have 73

Margaret Webster: How to Cast a Play 80

THE SCENE AND COSTUME DESIGNER 85

Howard Bay: What Every Young Designer Should Know 97

Mordecai Gorehk: The Designer As Creative Artist 101

* / A S\ \ "" . ,

THE ACTOR 107

Edith Atwater: Problems the Actor Faces 123

Katharine Cornell: What a Star Looks for in a Play 128

Clarence Derwent: What Makes a Character Actor 132

Uta Hagen: How an Actress Prepares for Her Part 137

Alfred Harding: What an Actor Uses for Money 142

Rex Harrison: From London to Broadway 147

Helm Hayes: Extending the Actress* Range 152

Bert Lahr: How to Make People Laugh 158

Frederick O'Neal: The Negro Actor and His Roles 163

THE STAGE MANAGER 167

Ruth Mitchell: What a Stage Manager Does 168

MUSIC AND DANCE IN THE THEATRE 172

Leonard Bernstein: The Composer in the Theatre 178

Agnes de Mille: Staging Dances in the Theatre 183

THE OFF-BROADWAY THEATRE 188

The High-School Theatre 188

The University Theatre 195

The Summer Theatre 206

Theatres Throughout the Country 218

THE NATURE OF OUR THEATRE 233

Glossary 243

Bibliography 247

Index 251

List of Illustraticns

1. Scene from Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller 19

2. Scene from I Am a Camera by John Van Draten 22
8. Scene from Life with Father by Howard Lindsay and Russel Grouse 28

4. Scene from The Male Animal by James Thurber and Elliott Nugent 45

5. Scene from Picnic by William Inge 49

6. Scene from On the Town by Adolph Green and Betty Comden, produced

by Paul Feigay and Oliver Smith, and designed by Mr. Smith 54

7. Helen Hayes and the cast reading Mrs. McThing by Mary Chase 60

8. Newell Tarrant, the director of the Erie Playhouse, explains a piece of

business to a cast in rehearsal 62

9. A tense moment from the Theatre Guild production of Shakespeare's

Othello 64

10. Scene from Three Men on a Horse by Cecil Holm and George Abbott,

directed by Mr. Abbott 70

11. Scene from The Time of the Cuckoo by Arthur Laurents, directed by

Harold Clurman 74

12. Scene from A Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers, directed by

Harold Clurman 78

13. Scene from George Bernard Shaw's The Devils Disciple in production

directed by Margaret Webster 81

14. Stage designer Jo Mielziner, director Alan Schneider, members of the

faculty, and students discuss set for a new pky at Catholic University 87

15. Stage set designed by Jo Mielziner for Arthur Miller's Death of a

Salesman 90

16. A lighting board of the type used in some high schools 92

17. Various types of stage lights that can be used in school productions 92 and 93

18. Lighting a stage set 94

19. Walter Hampden in costume for The Crucible 96

20. Stage design by Howard Bay for a scene in the 1946 revival of Show

Boat by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II t 99

21. Stage set by Howard Bay for Come Back, Little Sheba by William Inge 99

22. Stage design by Mordecai Gorelik for Desire Under the Elms by Eugene

O'Neill 102

23. Setting up the scenery for the American production of L'Ecole des

Femmes by Moliere, which was performed by a French company 104

24. Sarah Bemhardt as the Queen in Ruy Bias by Victor Hugo 113

25. Making up for the part of John Brown in The Moon Besieged by Seyril

Schocken, produced at the Goodman Memorial Theatre, Chicago 115

26. A speech class at Catholic University concentrating on oral interpre-

tation 117

27. Scene from State of the Union by Howard Lindsay and Russel Grouse 124

28. Katharine Cornell and Lenore Ulric in a scene from Shakespeare's Antony

and Cleopatra 130

29. Scene from the Stanford University production of Sheridan's The Rivals.

Clarence Derwent and Aline MacMahon, Artists in Residence, per-
forming with students 135

30. Uta Hagen as Joan of Arc facing her inquisitors in a scene from Shaw's

Saint Joan, directed by Margaret Webster 138

31. Rex Harrison as Henry VIII and Joyce Redman as Anne Boleyn in a scene

from Anne of the Thousand "Days by Maxwell Anderson 148

32. Helen Hayes as the aged Queen Victoria in a scene from Victoria Regina

by Laurence Housman 156

33. Bert Lahr in two scenes from Two on the Aisle 159

34. Frederick O'Neal as the Judge in a scene from The Winner by Elmer

Rice 164

35. Ruth Mitchell, stage manager of The King and I, during a rehearsal 169

36. Scene from Wonderful Town 179

37. Scene from the ballet in Oklahoma! by Richard Rodgers and Oscar

Hammerstein II, choreography by Agnes de Mille 185

38. Scene from The Winslow Boy by Terence Rattigan, produced by the

Bosse High School Thespians at Evansville, Indiana 189

39. A high-school stage crew at Parkersburg, West Virginia, putting up a set 191

40. A rehearsal scene from Katherine and Petruchio at Central Catholic High

School, Canton, Ohio 192

41. Scene from Children of the Ladybug by Robert Thorn, as presented by

the Yale University Department of Drama 195

42. A rehearsal of Sing Out> Sweet Land, written and originally directed by

Walter Kerr for Catholic University 197

43. Scene from an original play by student playwright Louis Adelman, pre-

sented by the Drama School of Carnegie Institute of Technology 198

44. The performance over, student stagehands strike the set and take inventory 199

45. Scene from Oedipus the King as directed by Alan Schneider for Catholic

University 200

46. Student stagehands at Syracuse University 201

47. A student performance of Richard III designed and directed by Dr. A.

Nicholas Vardac of Stanford University 203

48. A Midsummer Night's Dream as staged by the University of Oregon's

School of Drama 204

49. Scene from They Knew What They Wanted by Sidney Howard, as per-

formed at the Seacliff Summer Theatre 211

50. Scene from The Trojan Women by Euripides, as performed at the Hillbam

Summer Theatre, San Mateo, California 214

51. Scene from Street Scene by Elmer Rice, as performed at Le Petit Theatre

du Vieux Carre in New Orleans 219

52. A group of well-known professional actors xehearsing Awake and Sing by

Clifford Odets, at the Actor's Lab Theatre in California 220

53. A model of the Baylor Theatre, a community theatre in Texas 223

54. Scene from the Mexican drama Return to Earth by Miguel N. Lira, first

performed at the Goodman Memorial Theatre, Chicago 225

55. The interior of The Cleveland Playhouse 228

56. Theatre in the Round at the Dallas Theatre, Texas. A performance of

Southern Exposure by Owen Crump, directed by Margo Jones 231

57. Scene from Stairs to the Roof by Tennessee Williams, as performed at the

Pasadena Community Playhouse 234

58. Scene from Sophocles' Electra as presented at the Goodman Memorial

Theatre in Chicago 236

59. Scene from Our Town by Thornton Wilder 238

AUTHORS* PREFACE

So MANY BOOKS have already been written about the theatre that
every new one appears to need, if not an apology, at least a clearly
stated reason for its existence. This, then, has been our aim: to
offer a useful and informative introduction to the theatre, an in-
troduction that will be as well-rounded as possible, without bulg-
ing too greatly and without falling into the opposite error of be-
coming too flat and skimpy.

We have hoped to give the reader an idea of how he or she
might fit into the theatre, especially the noncommercial theatre.
In addition, you may find in this book the answers to such ques-
tions as these: Can you start a worth-while theatre group with
little or no money? How do you decide what play to do? Isn't
the scenery expensive and complicated to make?

We are not writing for people who are already experts on the
theatre, nor for those who want a textbook on some single phase
like production or acting. Excellent volumes on these subjects al-
ready exist, and we refer to some of them in our appendix. More-
over, although the theatre is full of debatable subjects (such as,
How closely should an actor identify himself with the character h.e
is portraying?) we have tried to reduce matters of opinion to a
minimum.

We have attempted chiefly to help the beginner find his di-
rection, to keep him from becoming confused and lost in the maze
of detail in which the story of the theatre abounds. This guiding
thought has influenced our choice of material throughout the book.
It explains, for example, why we have presented so many interviews
with important personalities. We are dealing here with an art in
which facts are not always easy to ascertain, and where at almost
every turn it is impossible to draw a sharp dividing line between
fact and opinion. It is for this reason that the individuals we have
questioned have so much of value to contribute to rounding out
die picture. That they often contradict one another in many de-
tails is to be expected; from their different points of view they
succeed in illuminating the various aspects of the American theatre
today far better than one or two individuals would be likely to do.

There is one final word to be added. The pages which follow
contain occasional references to that solemn question: Is the

VII

theatre dying? In answer, it need be said only that we did not set
out to write this book as an obituary. But although we do not be-
lieve that the theatre is dying, we do agree that it is changing.
The nature of the changes wiU explain some of the emphasis in
this book.

DOROTHY AND JOSEPH SAMACHSON

vnr

PREFACE

MANY BOOKS HAVE BEEN WRITTEN about the stage, and a number
of these have been intended for the younger generation which is
expected to provide the theatre's new artists and new audiences.
But I know of no other book like Let's Meet the Theatre which
treats the young reader as an adult and that is the first principle
to be observed, I believe, in writing about the stage. We owe it
to the young to tell them the truth about the stage. We owe it
especially about an enterprise which is often financially unreward-
ing and always difficult, if not indeed heart-breaking. Instead of
glamorizing a stage career and deluding boys and girls into expect-
ing easy success and fabulous rewards, the authors have assumed
the obligation to be realistic. They know that the glamour of an
art is not the art itself, which must grow out of real conditions and
must accommodate itself to them. Unlike the merchants of glory
who publicize film stars and publish fan magazines for movie ad-
dicts, the authors assume that their readers are already adults in
the sense that they want to be provided with facts rather than
fancies. Moreover, those young people who possess any talent
worth developing are already adults, because in talent distinctions
of^age rarely matter; one must work hard and responsibly and
attend to the business on hand with reliable craftsmanship whether
one is fifteen or fifty-five.

Because they respect the facts, besides, the authors decided to
go for their information to those who have actually worked in the
theatre in one capacity or another professionally and for many
years. This book is, to my knowledge, the first one to let the young
reader hear what the experts have to say about their own specialty
and about the problems of the theatre as a whole. This, too, is the
grown-up way of approaching a subject. One respects both the
subject and the reader, regardless of his age, in presenting the
views of people who tolerate no nonsense about their job, who don't
talk down to anyone because they are experienced enough to have
learned humility, and who don't "talk up" their subject either
because they are not selling anything. That is, they are not recom-

IX

mending a theatrical career to anyone who is not genuinely im-
pelled to become a playwright, actor, director, scene designer, or
producer in spite of all the obstacles that stand in the way of
success; and they are not advertising their own artistry or business
because they know that there is only one place in which to sell it
and that is in the theatre itself through the interest aroused in the
audience.

Because the making of "theatre" is a collaborative undertaking,
the authors, finally, have given most of their attention to the func-
tions which must be discharged before a play can come alive on the
stage. This does not come about by spontaneous combustion, but
only when everybody from the most inspired playwright down to
the most down-to-earth stage manager has performed what is ex-
pected of him with as little friction as is possible in a large group
of collaborators. Tracing the number of jobs to be done is the most
practical way to provide insight into the work as a whole. That is
surely the reason for the method adopted by the authors in inter-
viewing representatives of the various arts and crafts that make up
the total experience we call theatre.

Still, if I endorse the authors* procedure, it is not solely because
they have been so commendably practical They have been that
only in order to better serve their ideal of theatre. They would not
have gone to the trouble of giving us a book so completely free
from pet theories and self-advertisement if they had lacked a
proper regard for an art that has been one of the most remarkable
accomplishments of the human mind and spirit. The theatre, an
enterprise at least three thousand years old and spread, in one
form or another, over the entire globe, is the mirror that shows
men to themselves. By making men share an experience publicly,
the theatre, moreover, gives them a sense of communion and welds
them into a community for each performance, in this way making
society recognize its emotional and intellectual and spiritual unity.
The artists of the stage, in working together, themselves constitute
a temporary community, which like the larger community of the
audience, city, or state, involves mutual understanding and com-
mon endeavor. And, finally, the theatre is the repository of all the
other arts developed by civilization. Writers, dancers, singers, mu-
sicians, painters, costume-designers, architects, and technicians of
all sortsthey all come together and pool their talents and tech-
niques to create one total art. We might say, then, that when the
authors of this book write about the theatre they are, in a profound

sense, writing about almost everything that distinguishes us from
the animal kingdom.

If our authors refrain from waxing lyrical about their subject,
the reason is that its humanism is intrinsic. All that is required
is to make its attributes manifest by means of craftsmanship
and art. Nevertheless, it cannot be stressed too strongly for the
general public, and particularly for parents and teachers, that the
theatre is the school of life. It is that for both those who participate
in putting on a show and for those who witness the performance.
And when this fact is realized, we come to understand the ultimate
justification for this book as well as for the theatre.

Let's Meet the Theatre is not a compendious volume and does
not tell us all there is to know about the craft of theatre. For a
more detailed analysis and for more technical information the
student would have to turn to comprehensive textbooks such as
Heffner, Selden and Sellman's Modern Theatre Practice, Hewitt,
Foster and Wolle's Play Production, or my Producing the Play.
The purpose of the authors of Let 9 s Meet the Theatre is simply
to sum up the nature of the enterprise, which Granville-Barker
once called "Everyman's art," so that those who would like to work
in it will understand what the creation of theatre entails and those
who will become its audience will be able to follow the effort
intelligently. But whether the book comes into the hands of the
potential theatre worker or into those of the potential playgoer,
it is to be hoped that everybody understands that there is no in-
tention here to lure anyone into the Broadway marketplace, which
is also the graveyard of many hopes; and that if any promise is
held out, it is a promise of enhancement of life by theatrical art
whether one serves the art or is served by it. (And in stage per-
formance obviously those who serve and those who are served
interact. ) Above all, if the young will realize that good, stimulating
theatre is something they can create in their own town or city,
they will escape much disappointment and win much gratification.
They will get more out of their humanness than a workaday exist-
ence alone can give them. They will lead fuller lives and make life
richer for others in the place they know as home and wherever
they can effectuate themselves as complete and rooted individuals,
for no one completes himself separately. Theatre need not replace
their other studies, vocations and relationships. It need only sup-
plement and illuminate these to prove highly valuable.

It would have been a mistake to write this or any other book

XI

for the purpose of manufacturing hordes of role-hungry actors and
actresses for Broadway. But it can only be a service to the Individual
and the community to introduce the young to an area of human
activity in which they may develop their senses, their understand-
ing, and their sense of fellowship. Theatre is an activity in which
participation is possible even when an exclusive professional com-
mitment to it is not possible or considered feasible. And it is an
activity, direct rather than canned, in which contact with the other
persons who make up a society is a major gratification a gratifica-
tion especially important in our century which suffers greatly from
men's lack of relatedness. One thing is certain: We ought to view
the theatre and a person's activity in it as an expression and ex-
tension of reality rather than as an irresponsible intrusion. That is
what must have been in the mind of the Elizabethan playwright
John Heywood when he drew his analogy:

The world's a theatre, the earth a stage
Which God and Nature do with players fill.

JOHN GASSNER
New York, N. Y.
June 1954.

xu

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

WE HAVE BEEN PLEASED, in the preparation of this book, to discover
that the generosity traditionally associated with the stage is to be
found not only in the professional theatre, but also among critics
and press agents, and in community and university theatres as
well. It is a welcome duty to acknowledge how much help we
have received.

First of all, we owe much to the people we have interviewed.
Many of them were occupied with other work when we saw them,
or preparing for exhausting performances. We can only thank them
for their kindness and patience, and for their courtesy in answering
questions when they had so much else on their minds.

We owe additional thanks to Brooks Atkinson, who has read
the section on The Producer, and granted permission to use the
ideas expressed in a lecture given at Antioch College. We have
borrowed some of Mr, Atkinson's thinking in our chapter on
Author and Audience; he is not responsible, of course, for what we
have done to his ideas.

Mordecai Gorelik, who has been of great help in writing the
section on The Designer, has generously permitted us to lift some
of his thoughts about Shakespeare from an article, "This Side Idol-
atry," which appeared in the October, 1951 issue of The Educa-
tional Theatre Journal, and to use them in the Author and Au-
dience.

Arthur Miller has read the whole Author and Audience chap-
ter and Harold Clurman has read the chapter on The Director.
Edith Atwater has gone over the chapter on The Actor. George
Freedley has helped with the part on Theatres Throughout the
Country, and supplied information we had not obtained elsewhere.

Thomas G. Ratcliffe, Jr., has gone to considerable trouble to
help inform us about The Summer Theatre. And during a record-
breaking July heat wave, Professor Milton Smith, of Columbia Uni-
versity, maintained his composure and his temperature in answer-
ing our questions about The University Theatre.

We owe thanks to Leon C. Miller, Executive Secretary-Treas-
urer of the Thespian Society, and to Christine Edwards, for their
information about The High-School Theatre. We are also grateful

to Miss Edwards for reading the section on voice and body in the
chapter entitled The Actor.

We are indebted to Jose Ferrer for answering our questions on
how to combine apparently conflicting roles in the theatre, to
James D. Proctor for his information on how to be a press repre-
sentative, and to Zachary Solov for his advice on the staging of
dances in the round. To Mrs. John Burdick, of ANTA, we owe
thanks for information about that organization.

To Professor Sawyer Falk, of Syracuse University, we owe a
great debt for the kindness with which he helped us learn about
Community and University Theatres and enabled us to secure many
of the photographs needed. To Gertrude Macy we are grateful for
being helpful in various ways.

To Alfred Harding, editor of Equity Magazine, our thanks for
many acts of kindness. He has read most of the manuscript, and
has combined a scrupulous insistence on matters of fact with
considerable tolerance in matters of opinion.

To Isadora Bennett we owe thanks for help and encouragement
in the early stages of this book. To Betty Lee Hunt, we are in-
debted for helping us obtain many of the interviews, and for other
kindnesses as well, going far beyond the call of a press agent's duty.

While occupied with the preparation of her own book, Dr.
Alice Venezky Griffin has been of aid in many ways. We are grate-
ful for the time and trouble she has taken.

Thanks are due also to Dr. Kurt Pinthus, who has been kind
enough to go over the manuscript in detail with a keen eye for
mistakes. He has made many suggestions that we feel have in-
creased the value of the book.

For the kindness and generosity expressed by community and
university theatres, we wish to thank Bettie Wysor, of the Barter
Theatre; Paul Baker, of the Baylor Theatre; Alan Schneider, of
Catholic University; Ramon J. Elias, of the Cleveland Play House;
Margo Jones, of the Dallas Theatre; Newell Tarrant and Kenneth
K. Goldstein, of the Erie Playhouse; Louise Dale Spoor, of the
Goodman Memorial Theatre; Jasper Deeter, of the Hedgerow
Theatre; Fred Koch, Jr., of the University of Miami; Horace W.
Robinson, of the University of Oregon; Gilmor Brown and Oliver
B. Prickett, of the Pasadena Playhouse; Monroe Lippman, of Le
Petit Theatre du Vieux Carr6, New Orleans; John Wray Young, of
the Shreveport Little Theatre; Hallie Flanagan Davis, of Smith
College; Norman Philbrick and A. Nicholas Vardac, of Stanford
University; Glenn Hughes, of the University of Washington; and
Boyd Smith and Frank Bevan, of Yale University.

Finally, our special thanks of John Gassner. With his vast

XI7

knowledge of theatrical literature and of the theatre itself, as well
as of the writing of books, he has helped us in many ways both to
secure information and to arrange it to advantage.

If, despite the sharp eyes of our numerous kind critics, errors
are still to be found, they must be attributed to us alone. In the
process of revision and re-revision we have made many changes;
for any inaccuracies thus introduced, only we ourselves can be
held responsible.

INTRODUCTION

"ALL THE WORLD'S a stage," said Shakespeare in one of his most
famous passages, and we may add that it is the most interesting of
all stages. But it is also a stage on which too many different episodes
are being acted at the same time. Real-life drama is too complicated
for us to follow clearly. And because we ourselves take part in it,
we often miss the tragedy and the humor that a bystander might
perceive.

The stage we find in the theatre is smaller and simpler. What
takes place upon it is more easily followed and understood. Most
important, on this stage it is not we ourselves but the imaginary
people created by the playwright who laugh and enjoy themselves,
or weep and suffer. They may be realistic that is, like real people
but they are not real.

Both actors and audience know this. As an actor, you may
make a convincing Macbeth, but you never convince yourself that
you have actually killed Duncan! You may thrill the audience, but
it doesn't forget that it is attending a play, not a murder. As you
create a character, you observe it from within, while the audience
observes it from without but you both realize that (except on
rare occasions) you are merely spectators. You watch other people
do the living and suffering, and you share the acted joys and sor-
rows at second hand.

This sort of sharing is one of the theatre's greatest gifts. For
centuries, audiences have watched entranced as the actors created
their own world within our greater world. In ancient Greece the
people used to rise while it was still dark, and, in the chill before
dawn, assemble in a theatre at the foot of a hill. And as soon as
the sun was high enough to let the actors be seen, the first play
would begin. Drama would follow drama throughout the morning
and, after a short intermission, into the afternoon. The next day a
new set of plays would begin, and the day after still another. The
Greeks took the theatre very seriously indeed.

Through the Middle Ages also, the theatre was a means for en-
riching the lives of the people who lived in small towns and country
villages. It never lost its popularity. Even in nineteenth-century

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

England and the United States, the arrival of a group of touring
actors was an event to which everyone looked forward with eager-
ness for weeks. The plays were often bad, and the actors worse.
But what did that matter to people who considered themselves
lucky if they saw so much as one play a year? To them the
theatre was enchantmentand it has not lost its magic even with
the advent of movies, radio and television.

Now, according to certain prophets, the magic of the theatre is
on the wane, and in fact there have been times when these prophe-
cies have seemed on the point of coming true. Certainly, in our
own day, radio, the movies, and television are giant and formidable
foes of the theatre. But the cry that the theatre is dying is much
older than the oldest of these. It was first raised centuries ago,
before such competition as the movies and other modern forms of
entertainment were dreamed of. And that is why the theatre is
often referred to as "the Fabulous Invalid."

Actually, the theatre has died. It died in ancient Greece, it died
when Rome fell, and it died again in seventeenth-century England.
But in each of these cases the corpse was not quite dead, and
death was only temporary. Like that fabled bird, the phoenix,
it always rose from the ashes of its dead self younger and stronger,
ready for new flights of the imagination. And the new live theatre
always looked different from the old dead one.

Perhaps that is the kind of death and rebirth that is overtaking
the theatre now. Although on Broadway it faces fiercer and fiercer
struggles each year, throughout the rest of the country it gains
new footholds. You may live in a small town or village, but the
theatre is no longer a visitor that you can see and hear just once a
year. Now you can know it well, be a part of it yourself.

Your grammar-school classes put on short skits. Your high
school has for years been successfully giving full-length plays. You
can go to numerous colleges which offer courses in playwriting,
acting, and production. From Michigan to Texas, from California
to Carolina, you can attend university theatres, art theatres, little
theatres, and experimental theatres. Your club, your Sunday school,
your YMCA or YMHA, all produce plays. And despite the movies
and radio and television, summer theatres are spreading through-
out the country. All this, remember, where a few decades ago
there were hardly any theatres at all.

Why has there been so tremendous a development? For one
reason, because the theatre offers its audiences rewards that me-

INTRODUCTION

chanical inventions cannot hope to match. Its actors and actresses
are no mere shadows on a screen, no disembodied voices, or
combinations of voices with shadows shrunk to fit the dimensions
of a television cabinet. They are flesh and blood, and at their
best they can move audiences to heights of emotion that their
rivals rarely attain.

There is something else, too. When you act on the movie screen
or over the air, the audience might just as well not exist as far as
you are concerned. You know it's there and that's all. But when
you act in the theatre, you and the audience see and hear each
other, inspire each other. A theatre without an audience is no
theatre.

The theatre, then, as we shall consider it, includes a stage
with actors on it, playing directly before an audience. Some of
the actors, whatever else they do, must play the roles of imaginary
characters. That is, a theatre cannot consist of just a series of
juggling, acrobatic, or trained-animal acts. You can have such acts
as part of a musical comedy, or even of a serious play. But the
musical comedy or play as a whole must tell some sort of story,
no matter how silly, or you don't have theatre: you have only a
vaudeville show.

The theatre can be either with or without music. The music
may be of little importance, or it may be a way of telling the story
itself. That is why the opera, strictly speaking, is a form of theatre.
But we shall not consider opera at length in this book because its
music is paramount, and by comparison the story and acting take
second place.

You cannot understand what the modem theatre is and can be
unless you learn how a play is written (and frequently rewritten),
how it is produced, directed, and finally put on the stage. This
knowledge will help you to appreciate how much it takes to produce
a good play.

The more you learn about the theatre, the easier it will be for
you to become a part of it. And as a part of it, you will understand
why it will not die and stay dead to please the gloomy prophets.
The theatre is already thousands of years old. In one form or
another, it has outlived powerful empires and widespread civiliza-
tions. In one form or another, it will continue to live.

HOW A PLAT IS PRODUCED

LET us SOTPOSE that we are reckless enough to attend the first
performance of a different play on Broadway every night for an
entire week. What do you think we shall find?

If it's an average week, we shall come across two plays so bad
that everyone in the audience asks in amazement: "How did that
ever get produced?" The critics rip the production apart with their
most cutting adjectives, and after two or three performances the
play quietly folds its scenery and silently steals away.

On the other hand, there may be one play so good that the
audience can't stop applauding. The critics lavish their choicest
words of praise upon it, and even the actor with but a single line
in the second act utters that line with pride. It comes as a shock,
therefore, to learn that a dozen producers turned the play down as
a sure flop before one daring soul decided it was worth a gamble.

In between are the plays that are not very good and not very
bad, reasonably entertaining, and reasonably unimportant. These,
naturally, are in the majority. They run for several weeks or
months, they keep the actors at work, and sometimes they make a
fair amount of money for their backers.

Now, plays are very expensive to produce commercially, and
each one of the failures, or "turkeys," as they are gloomily called,
has cost many thousands of dollars. You wonder, naturally, how
people wise in the ways of the theatre could possibly have mistaken
a turkey for a hit. What on earth has got into author, producer,
scenic designer, and actors that has made them waste time and
money on a story that never stood a chance of success? Or, on
the other hand, what madness has made them turn down what
turns out to be a sure thing, a play that was certain to be an
artistic hit, as well as to put a great deal of money in their pockets?

Is it perhaps because our Broadway theatre people are forced
to be commercial? Do they think too much about money, and
thus lose their sense of perspective? That, certainly, can be a rea-
son. And yet the producers of plays in community and university
theatres make mistakes that are quite as serious. They may be
completely indifferent to money, they may think only of artistic

HOW A PLAY IS PRODUCED

success. But this success is just as elusive as any other kind. More
than one director has staked his reputation as an artist on a
script which audiences and critics have condemned as a piece of
idiocy or incompetence.

There are many reasons for failure, which we shall appreciate
more fully as we learn how difficult a play is to produce. For one
thing, everyone connected with the theatre has opinions, and
stands to profit by convincing the world that his opinions are right.

It's like the story of the Brahman and his goat. A dignified
Brahman was leading a goat along by a string when three thieves
saw him, decided that the goat was worth having, and cooked up
a plot. The first thief approached the Brahman and said, "Good
day, noble Brahman. Why does a holy man like you lead an un-
clean beast like a dog on a string?"

"A dog? This is a goat, a clean and beautiful goat. Out of my
sight, you liar, you scoundrel!"

Then the second thief approached the Brahman, and asked
the same question. At this the holy man became doubtful. Who
was he to set up his opinion against that of an unprejudiced by-
stander? This time, as he asserted that the goat was a goat, he was
less sure of himself. And when the third thief also asked him why
he was leading a dog, he decided that everyone else was right
and he was wrong. He turned the goat loose, whereupon the
happy thieves quickly caught it and ran away with it.

A producer with his play is like a Brahman with his goat. Some
of the people he sees try to persuade him that it is a hit, while
the rest argue that it is a flop. The only eyes with which he can
view the play while it is still in manuscript are the eyes of his
imagination and judgment, and these do not always see clearly.
He knows that everyone who gives him an opinion has some ax to
grind, from the author who wants his masterpiece put on the stage
to the actor who wants a bigger part for himself. Is it any wonder
that he sometimes feels he is groping blindly, and has no idea
whether the play he is producing is good or bad?

Well, let us see how the goats and turkeys are born that is,
how the playwrights create plays, how the producer selects them,
and then how he chooses the actors and designers and all the other
skilled people who will get them ready for performance. Let us
see how the "turkeys" are palmed off as "goats."

AUTHOR AMD AUDIENCE

Why does a man write plays? And why are some plays good
and others bad?

THESE SIMPLE QUESTIONS cannot be answered simply. Authors
write for many reasons. Some want fame, others 'are more in-
terested in the fortune that may come along with it. One man
may be an actor as well as author, and write in order to pro-
vide himself with good parts. Or, like Moliere in the seven-
teenth century, he may be the manager of a troupe of actors
and find it necessary to furnish them with plays to show off
their special abilities as comedians.

But these reasons only scratch the surface of the play-
wright's purpose. There are more profound motives why a man
decides to win fame and fortune writing for the stage instead
of selling shoes or building bridges or trying to become
President. He has something important to express, a way of
feeling or of thinking which he wants the world to know. And
he believes he can best express this in a play.

Thus, the ancient Greek dramatists, beyond the desire to
win prizes and be honored by their fellow citizens, wrote to
express their sense of the mystery or tragedy of human life.
Euripides and Aristophanes vented their hatred of the stupid-
ity and tragedy of war. Moliere sought not only to provide
comedies for his troupe, but to ridicule the follies of his time.

Shaw penned his first play, Widowers Houses, to provide
suitable material for a new group, the Independent Theatre,
which had been organized shortly before and found no English
plays ready for it. But he also wrote it to express his horror
of the British slums and the hypocrisies of British life.

Even the most money-minded dramatist is inspired more
by the examples of Aeschylus and Shakespeare than that of
Rockefeller, or he would not be a dramatist at all, he would
be in the oil business. The Dramatists' Guild, which consists
of playwrights whose work has been produced commercially,
has about four hundred active and two thousand inactive
members. Of the four hundred, a few dozen at most can hope

AUTHOR AND AUDIENCE

for a commercial production in any year. And of these few
dozen, perhaps ten will earn enough from their plays to live
on while they write more plays. Consider the thousands of
dramatists who write without a chance of production, and you
will realize that the average income for all playwrights will
not even pay for the cost of typing their manuscripts. The
most underpaid ditch-digger receives more per hour of work,
and a quack seller of "cancer cures" has a better chance of
getting rich.

As for fame well, the average "fame" amounts to little more
than recognition by the Copyright Office that the author has
paid its fee. From the days of Aeschylus on, even the dramatist
of recognized genius has faced the continued risk of failure,
and even Shakespeare and Moliere had their flops.

Does the author write for posterity, for future generations
instead of his own? Then the chances are even more against
him, for he has no idea what tastes these future generations
will have. And experience shows that the greatest playwrights,
from Aeschylus to Ibsen no matter how advanced they seemed
to be, how far "ahead of their times" have always been most
appreciated by their own generation. Posterity is the harshest
critic of all: it gradually finds many of the old plays more
and more dull and incomprehensible.

There remains the one fundamental motive for writing
plays the desire for the expression of something that appears
to the playwright to be important, whether it will bring him
material rewards or not. Given this desire for expression, how
can the playwright go about his task successfully?

In the first place, he must realize that the writing of plays
is not only an art but a craft, and he must learn this craft
thoroughly. It is advisable, as Arthur Miller suggests in the
following interview, to go first to the best teachers the great-
est dramatists of the past not for the purpose of imitating
them, but to gain insight into their methods, to study their
weaknesses as well as their strength.

There are schools for playwrights in universities and in
various large cities. New York has a New Dramatists* Com-
mittee Workshop, which was first set up in the City Center
with the co-operation of the Council of the Dramatists' Guild.
It provides for discussions with established playwrights, the
encouragement of tryouts of new plays in college and com-

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

munity theatres, and the setting up of a professional laboratory
in New York to put on new plays. Just as important, it helps
new authors get radio and television assignments, etc., in
order to earn a living while working on their plays.

Having learned that the craft of writing plays is not a
mystery, you can begin to express yourself with some skill.
And the first place to apply this skill is in your choice of
subject, in the idea or theme that will embody what you wish
strongly to express.

The idea may come from a story you hear, a newspaper
account you see. It may come from a daydream in
which you imagine what would happen if . You may want
to write a play on a certain theme in order to prove you can
do better with it than another playwright has done. Marlowe
and Goethe used the same Faust legend to express vastly
different ways of looking at life, and Shaw turned the old
story of Don Juan into a medium for the expression of his
own philosophy. You may be called on to write a play for a
certain actor or actress. Or you may have an idea for a wonder-
ful scene and decide to elaborate the scene into an entire
play.

Wherever your idea comes from, it will not automatically
turn itself into a play. You must do some careful dramatic
construction, and a good place to begin is at the end.

If you start with Act I, Scene I, and just go straight ahead,
you may find it impossible to tie up all the loose threads
and end your play satisfactorily. Therefore, many playwrights
decide how to end the play and then construct the action
to lead up to that ending. Much depends on the kind of
play, on the degree of realism, on the extent to which the
effect of the play depends on plot.

Will your play have two acts or three, a single scene per
act or many? That is determined by the nature of the story
you have to tell. You plot your action and try to determine
how the tension will increase, where your climaxes will occur,
where you had best break off a scene or an act.

Some playwrights plot in great detail, others very sketchily.
What you do will depend on the vividness of your imagination,
the speed with which your characters come alive to you.

With the plotting sufficiently advanced, you begin to write.
A man like Lope de Vega (1562-1635) could turn out a play

AUTHOR AND AUDIENCE

in less than a week, and some modern playwrights have
worked as rapidly, but without equaling him in quality. Shaw
might take a few weeks to a year. Ibsen often required
several years.

Some playwrights write a single draft, make a few verbal
changes, and consider the play finished. Others, like Ibsen,
regard the first draft as little more than a skeleton, which
contains the action of the play and only an outline of the
characters. Ibsen would go over the play again and again, fill-
ing in what was needed to round out his characters and make
them come alive.

When you have completed a play, it is submitted, through
an agent, for commercial exploitation. If a producer is suf-
ficiently interested, he will take an option; that is, he will
pay you some sum such as five hundred dollars (more if you
are an established playwright with good bargaining power)
as an advance against royalties, for the right to do the play
within a specified time. If he lets the time pass without pro-
duction, you keep the money and try to sell the play to some
other producer. Some authors never have plays produced at
all, and live on the money they get for options. They do not
live well.

If the producer wants to go ahead with the play, he will
almost certainly suggest revisions. If you are George Bernard
Shaw, you refuse to let anyone change a word. Otherwise,
you fight what is generally a losing battle at each suggestion,
and you revise, even to the extent of rewriting the entire
play. When you have revised to the producer's temporary satis-
faction, and he does proceed to make plans for rehearsal,
you find that your work has just begun.

For now you discover that there are dozens of people
who have a hand in your play the backers or "angels," the
director, the scene designer, the actors, and the numerous
friends and relatives of all these. Each now has an investment
in a business enterprise. The angels have put in their money,
and they hover around to protect it; everyone else has put
in time, reputation, and hopes for the future, and wants to
guard these. Everyone has an idea for improving the play
from his own point of view. The angels want to make the
play more commercial in order to fatten their pocketbooks;

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

the actors want to fatten their parts. There are endless sug-
gestions for new additions and revisions.

For every good suggestion there may be a dozen bad ones.
You use your judgment and you revise again and again. At
some stage of die proceedings, a "play doctor" or collaborator
may be called in to work with you, to make additional re-
visions and possibly to share your royalties., if any. You begin
to feel that the play no longer expresses what you meant it
to express. And very often you are right.

You may end with a compromise play that satisfies nobody.
In that case, key actors resign, the producer calls the whole
thing quits, the angels lose their investment, and you start
all over again to try to get your play produced.

If you are more fortunate, the revised play actually achieves
production. And now you meet your greatest, your final test
the audience.

An audience is critic, teacher, and judge in one, and its
decisions, although they can be completely mistaken, are
social judgments. They are not swayed by the purely personal
factors that influence each of its members. The individual
critic may be in a glow of good feeling from a well-cooked
meal or may suffer the pangs of indigestion from a bad one.
But in the audience as a whole (unless it is either starving
or overfed, and that happens occasionally), happy and un-
happy stomachs cancel out.

The audience is a wonderful critic of writing technique.
If you have developed your plot in a wrong or confused fashion,
the audience will show the effects in its own confusion or
bewilderment. If you have drawn your characters badly,
the audience will be indifferent to them. No audience will
tell you how to get things done. But it will tell you whether
you have done them with reasonable correctness or not.

However, it is not as a critic of technique that the audience
is most important. The main thing is, How does it feel about
the emotion or thought you are trying to express?

If this arouses no response, your play will be born dead,
no matter how technically perfect it is. There is hardly
a week when some play does not open on Broadway which
leaves the audience either cold or hostile. The same play, in
London, or possibly no farther away than Greenwich Village
in New York City, will find a warm and friendly reception.

10

AUTHOR AND AUDIENCE

Audiences differ tremendously from one another, and the
playwright, whether he is aware of it or not, does not write
for audiences in general but for a specific type of audience.
A play may be a success when first produced, and a failure
five years later, when the nature of the audience has changed.
During the depression years, Tobacco Road, with its pretense
of realism, broke records for length of run; in 1951, when
the picture of inhuman degradation it presented was no longer
in style, an attempted revival failed miserably. In the late
thirties, Saroyan's sentimentally optimistic plays were able to
win wide response. But by 1950, Pollyannaish plays had gone
out of fashion, and it was very difficult to get a new Saroyan
play produced.

Does this mean that as a playwright you should try to
gauge what public taste is, and then try to satisfy it? Not at
all. Certainly you must take public taste into account to some
extent, just as you must take into account the miseries of
producers. Large casts of characters mean high expenses for
salaries; therefore most modern commercial plays have rela-
tively few characters. The public does not like four-hour plays;
therefore you increase your chances of pleasing by writing
shorter works (although if you are a Shaw or an O'Neill you
can occasionally thumb your nose at this rule and succeed
anyway).

But better not try to satisfy a taste that disagrees violently
with your own. Do not try to write a sentimental play if you
hate sentimentality, or a melodramatic play if you despise
melodrama. Some of Broadway's (and Hollywood's) worst
failures have been the result of trying to carpenter a play to
the low level of what an author or producer has thought would
meet the taste of the greatest number.

Remember that in writing what you do not feel you are
betraying your very reason for being a playwright. And there
is the practical consideration that you will meet fierce com-
petition, and that you will be handicapped in comparison
with other playwrights who actually share the bad taste of
part of the public. The great technical skill of Scribe and
Sardou 1 would never have brought them success if they hadn't
held much the same shallow views of society as the audiences

1 French dramatists of the nineteenth century.

11

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

of their day. Neither Aeschylus nor Shakespeare could have
competed with them at their own game.

If you study the history of the drama, you will see that
playwrights have often won surprising success by telling an
audience the very things it was sure it didrit want to hear.
Almost a century ago, large numbers of spectators were be-
coming increasingly disgusted with the falsity of the pictures
presented on the stages they knew. When Ibsen offered them
their first icy plunge into greater reality, they shuddered and
drew back. But in time they came to endure and then to prefer
him, and no longer possible to endure Scribe and Sardou.

After the initial shock of Shaw, even British audiences
began to realize that he did fill a need of which they had
not been conscious. American audiences, once they had ex-
perienced the plays of O'Neill, could no longer go back to
the sentimentality of Augustus Thomas and Clyde Fitch.

These "advanced" playwrights were not literally a genera-
tion ahead of their audiences. But they saw more clearly what
the audiences wanted and even needed.

You cannot hope for success if you aim too far ahead of
your audience. But you had better not be behind it, either.
The strong point of every audience is that it is part of the life
of its time, and to the extent that it is representative of the
general public, it can judge this life as pictured on the stage.
But every audience also has its weaknesses its prejudices, its
fears, its irrational hopes.

In ancient Rome, for instance, audiences were brutalized
and demoralized by scenes of cruelty and lust. The low tastes
of Rome's audiences are reflected in the inferior plays of its
dramatists, who never came close to attaining the heights of
the great Greeks. On the other hand, Aeschylus, in his tragedy
The Persians., tells of the enemies of his people, the soldiers of
an empire which had invaded Greece. Nothing would have been
easier than to present the Persians as beasts of inhuman cruelty,
to picture them as the most prejudiced of his own people
might have done. But Aeschylus rose above such feelings
and pictured the Persians with sympathy and insight. And his
play still lives as an pxample of his greatness.

By contrast, Shakespeare in Henry VI panders to the worst
prejudices of his own day by making Joan of Arc a prostitute.
Shakespeare's great virtues included a knowledge of human

12

AUTHOR AND AUDIENCE

nature. Yet, in his portrait of Joan of Arc, in his use in
Titus Andronicus of a Negro character, Aaron, whose black
skin is supposed to show a black heart, in his concessions to
anti-Semitic prejudice in The Merchant of Venice, he is false
to his own knowledge. His The Taming of the Shrew, with
its moral for women: "Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy
keeper," becomes more and more absurd as time goes on.
Such weaknesses are not enough to kill Shakespeare's plays.
But in another less towering playwright they might be fatal.

Thus, the greatness of a playwright will depend to a tre-
mendous extent on the people who see his plays. A dramatist
needs an audience which is close to the life of its time and
takes an active part in that life, an audience which is neither
too aesthetic and "advanced," nor too vulgarized too much
prey to the prejudices it has inherited from the past. The
playwright must give honest expression to the best feelings
of that audience.

If your intentions are too serious, or if your plays are not
sufficiently "commercial" for Broadway, you might try some
of the noncommercial theatres (ANTA may help you choose
the right onessee the section on Theatres Throughout the
Country). At best, the financial rewards are not in a class
with those that Broadway can offer. But there is a good chance
in these theatres for new playwrights, and in the future it
may be possible to live and work on royalties from them.
Margo Jones, in her Dallas theatre, pays an advance of a
hundred and fifty dollars against royalties, but her theatre is
small and holds relatively few spectators, and even if a play
is unusually successful, the author can hardly hope to receive
more than five hundred dollars from Dallas.

There is no reason, however, why the same play cannot
be performed in a single season in half a dozen or more
community theatres. Many, like Miss Jones's theatre, are gener-
ous and helpful to playwrights. When they become sufficiently
well organized to make joint arrangements for the production
of new plays and steps in that direction have already been
takenit will be possible for them to support playwrights who
have no connection with the Broadway theatre. Some, in fact,
do have resident playwrights who work on salary, like the
director and professional actors, as part of the community
theatre organization.

IS

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

Meanwhile, an author whose work is produced in a com-
munity theatre stands a much better chance of being heard
on Broadway than an author whose work is not produced
at all. A few productions do make the transition from the
noncommercial to the commercial theatre. For this and
other reasons, no serious playwright can afford to neglect the
noncommercial theatre, and many a newcomer to the theatre
is turning his attention to it.

The community theatre, as we have seen, offers the play-
wright a different type of audience from that of Broadway.
It may be too specialized, at times too arty and at other
times too easily pleased. But very often it is far superior in
seriousness and understanding to the average Broadway audi-
ence. Plays that commercial producers shun as "unprofitable"
are produced by community players to the profit and delight
of both actors and audience. You stand a better chance of
finding Shakespeare in the Pasadena Playhouse than on Broad-
way. And the new playwrights of California and other
Western states are turning to university and community
theatres rather than to commercial producers.

Some authors have earned steady, if not tremendous
incomes by writing one-act plays for high schools and
small amateur groups. One play publisher, Samuel French, has
long been in the market for such plays, which are made
available in inexpensive paper-bound editions. Here too there
is a possibility of reaching large audiences of which many
playwrights are not aware.

A survey of the most successful legitimate plays on Broad-
way in recent years ( that is, "straight" drama as differentiated
from the musical play such as Carousel or South Pacific)
would show that among the most consistently successful play-
wrights have been John Van Druten, the famous team of
Lindsay and Grouse, and a young man named Arthur Miller
who brings to the theatre a stimulating element of social
criticism. Another kind of writer important to the drama the
dramatic criticis well typified by the New York Times*
Brooks Atkinson. Let's hear from these five writers about the
pros and cons of Broadway versus the noncommercial theatre,
and other aspects of the relationship between playwright and
audience.

14

Why Write a Play?

ARTHUR MILLER

Arthur Miller is one of our younger playwrights who
has established a firm position in the American
theatre. The critics called his first Broadway play
"promising." But his next plays, AH My Sons, Death
of a Salesman, and The Crucible had no need to
promise anything. They were progressively mature,
skillfully written, profoundly moving works.

Mr. Miller is also well known as the author of
Focus, a novel. During the past few years, how-
ever, he has been devoting most of his writing
time to plays and a few short stories.

What attracts you or any other writer to the theatre? Is it
the so-called "glamour"?

AM. One attraction the theatre has for me is that I can see the
effect of my imagination on people, whereas the impact
of a novel upon the reader is private and concealed. But
the reason I write plays rather than nondramatic works is
that I tend to think and feel in terms of the actual confronta-
tions of people. I have no patience with the past tense, such
as a novelist must have; I am stimulated by compactness and
intensity and immediacy, rather than the diffuse, the con-
templative, and the historical. In short, I love the dramatic
form.

I also suspect that most playwrights, myself included, are
shy actors who act vicariously through their writing. There
is no other art I know of which permits the author to speak
to an audience with such directness, without the interference
of printed words or static pictures, or any other aesthetic
means.

Would you consider a producer an aesthetic means? Haven't
you found that your work is seriously hampered because so
people have a hand in the play?

15

LETS MEET THE THEATRE

A M. No. That is, not any more. (Laughter.} But seriously, a young
novelist is also up against the unbelief of his publisher. The
difference is that the play form itself does not permit as
many moments of boredom as the novel form does. The play
must work, as a machine works. Consequently, the playwright,
under the best circumstances, must fend off "fixers" more than
the novelist has to. He must also know when to listen.
This is a question of his own judgment and integrity, and it
is too easy to blame the lack of these qualities upon others.

The fact is that this kind of interference diminishes as
the playwright begins to understand production and takes it
into account as he works.

An experienced playwright or a neophyte, however, is
"interfered" with by less obvious, and more damaging forces.
First, the impossibly high cost of production, which I'm sure
is preventing the expression of new talents, at least on Broad-
way. Except for one or two remaining producers, none is
capable of appreciating really new dramatic modes. Today
the house must be completely filled in order to keep a play
running, and this fact erodes courage. Paradoxically, the most
successful straight plays since the war have been "unorthodox";
but they are still hard to get produced.

Second, the theatre is always very sensitive to the
climate of public opinion. It is the quickest of the arts
to take advantage of any clearly discernible change in public
opinion, and also to shy away from subjects or points of
view which are under attack by the most vocal sections of
the press. Today it is impossible to produce on Broadway any
of the last six plays of O'Casey, who is known to be a radical.
Money cannot be raised for them.

How about the critics? Do they damn the play for its opinions?

AM. Obviously, a play's thesis being hateful to them, critics will
take advantage of any of its aesthetic weaknesses in order to
damn it. So will anyone else who cannot bear the theme. It
was never any different in any country at any time. Never-
theless, there are plays so beautifully written as to win the
praises of critics who, as citizens, are antagonists of the authors'
views. George Jean Nathan and Brooks Atkinson are among
the strongest supporters of O'Casey; this is a great triumph

16

AUTHOR AND AUDIENCE

for O'Casey. But lie still can't get produced on Broadway
today.

As for myself personally, my plays have sometimes been
attacked politically but, with one exception, not by the drama
critics. This critic saw my adaptation of Ibsen's Enemy of the
People as a covert defense of a political minority's right to
advocate its line. He was, of course, perfectly correct, ex-
cepting that the defense was open and not covert at all.
The other critics were not taken by it because it wasn't, for
certain reasons, good enough. Theoretically, of course, the
world's greatest masterpiece might well be called rubbish by
critics if it seemed to advocate something which, should they
approve it, would challenge their respectability. The fact,
however, is that this masterpiece and its condemnation do
not yet exist.

To change the subject, Mr. Miller, how can young people
interested in playwriting learn the craft? What training
would you suggest?

AM. There seems to be no required background for an aspiring
playwright. There are professional playwrights who, with no
formal training of any kind, and with no contact with the
theatre, except as audience, have begun writing plays suc-
cessfully. There are also individuals who have served ap-
prenticeships as actors, stage managers, directors, assistants,
etc., and have later become playwrights.

In my opinion, a man learns this craft mainly by prac-
ticing, and for this he needs paper, pencil, and money. But a
point arrives when the playwright must see his play produced
in order to receive the final judgment of his senses and of an
audience. For this we have no facilities. I think that a miserable
production of a play which requires fine acting can probably
discourage a playwright quite as much as no production at
all. We have no provincial theatres outside of a very few col-
lege groups, whose quality varies from semester to semester.

It would also help a young playwright, if he can't attend
a class, to ask a drama teacher for a list of the outstanding
plays of the past two hundred years, and read them to find out
what has been done. Let him read Chekhov, Shaw, Strind-
berg, Ibsen, O'Casey, Kaiser, Brecht, and Lorca.

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LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

Do you think that, in general, work with a community theatre
is helpful to a young playwright? Or does it make him
feel that he is a big frog in a small puddle does it get him
into a rut?

A M. Such work can be of great encouragement to a young play-
wright. At least he'll find out whether he is a frog at all. The
worst danger that faces him is that no one will pay any atten-
tion to him, and that he will produce less work than he might.
Connection with some kind of theatre is better for him than
being alone. It will encourage him to write additional plays,
and the more he writes the more he will learn, and the
better off he will be. But too close an embroilment with the
theatre blots out the world; again, judgment is all.

Your own plays, Mr. Miller, were written for Broadway.
Death of a Salesman, for instance, has a complicated set
which required careful design and careful production, How
could a community theatre adjust itself to such a play?

A M. Actually, Death of a Salesman does not have a complicated
set. It is the three platforms that make you think of it
as complicated. I wrote it to be done without a set, and it
can be played that way.

I would not have a multiset play, and the reason is not
primarily economic. The reason is that the changing of one
box set for another is a waste of time, and obstructs the
action of a play, bleeding the dramatic effect. It is also
highly artificial. However, I would advise a young playwright
not to bother his head with things he doesn't know about,
like set design. He should just write as well as he knows how.
Stage techniques follow the plays, not the other way around.

What types of plays would you advise noncommercial groups
to present?

A M. They should emphasize original plays; do Broadway plays that
are more imaginative and daring than run-of-the-mill produc-
tions. There is no point to their doing mediocre, unimaginative
successes that Broadway can and does do better. They should
take chances. A play of mine once won a college prize contest,

18

Courtesy of Kermh Bloomgarden. Photo by Eileen Darby, Graphic House

I. MfoVecf Dunnodr, Lee J. CODD, Arthur Kennedy, and Cameron Mitchell
in a scene from Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller.

but it was not produced there because the very people who
awarded the prize saw no point in backing their judgment by
showing the play to an audience^ That kind of timidity kills
the spirit of a theatre.

Can young people in schools and small communities help the
theatre reach new audiences?

A M. They can. First, if they're away from New York and hear of
a good play> they can ask the producer to send the touring
company to their town. Second, they can familiarize themselves
with the British set-up the Arts Council,

19

LETS MEET THE THEATRE

We could have a blossoming of the theatre In this country
if we had an Arts Council, which would in effect have the
government acting as a disinterested guarantor against loss,
while the profits of successful plays would be pooled to offset
the production costs of possibly uncommercial but worthy new
plays. This would give producers a strong motive to experiment
with new playwrights, and would create a feeling of optimism
and a sense of possibilities which are absent now. It would
expand production tremendously, offer new openings for hun-
dreds of actors, and generally create an atmosphere of hope
and vigor.

Young people can propagandize this idea among then-
teachers and parents. And they can keep putting on plays.

The theatre happens to be the only area left in America
which is not monopolized by large corporations. In it, thought
and speech are freer than in any of the other arts. It must
therefore be protected and expanded.

20

to a Subject

JOHN VAN DRUTEN

One of the most consistently successful dramatists
of the past few years, John Van Druten has to his
credit such hit plays as Young Woodley, The Voice
of the Turtle, I Remember Mama, Bell, Book and
Candle, and I Am a Camera. These differ from one
another so greatly as to indicate a very wide range
of talent for the theatre-and this talent includes
directing as well as writing.

Two of the plays we have listed above are
adaptations of books. We asked Mr. Van Druten
about that.

Why does a man who can write original plays with such skill
and to such critical acclaim choose to adapt a book to the
stage?

JvD. It doesn't -happen often. It may happen because I have
nothing of my own to write at the time. There are certain
books and certain characters that have appealed to me. The
character of Sally Bowles seemed so easy to dramatize and
so attractive that I had always known there was a play to
be written about her. Then, when I heard that someone else
was writing a play about the Isherwood stories 1 in which she
appears, changing the locale from Germany to this country,
and changing Sally Bowles* personality, I was spurred into
writing 1 Am a Camera.

The book Mamas Bank Account 2 was sent to me by Rodgers
and Hammerstein, who wanted to know whether I'd be in-
terested in dramatizing it. I wouldn't have wanted to make
a conventional three-act play, but I had always had the idea
Fd like to do a play with the author sitting off to one side
and walking in and out of the action, and this book seemed
perfect for the purpose. That's how I came to write I Remember
Mama,

1 Berlin Stories, by Christopher Isherwood, 2 by Kathryn Forbes.

21

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

Z William Prince, Martin
Brooks, Marian Winters, and
Julie Harris in a scene from
I Am a Camera, by Mo Van
Dmfen.

Courtesy of Gertrude Macy. Photo by John Erwin Associates

I want to write something different, No author wants to feel
that he's doing the same play again and again with a different
set of characters, and to start off with someone else's work
is a challenge. But every play I do has the sound of my
voice in it, just as every actor's part has the sound of his
voice in it,

Isn't there a play in evenj character and every human situa-
tion? Why is it that you see a play in certain situations and
not in others?

J v D, My own instinct tells me. Either the situation strikes me or
it doesn't. And if it doesn't strike me, it may strike someone
else. That's a matter for the individual dramatist's inclina-
tions and abilities.

Do you take your audiences feelings into account, Mr. Van
Druten? "You started to write in England and then came to
the United States. Do you feel that you write for any par-
ticular audience?

22

AUTHOR AND AUDIENCE

J v D. You take a great deal of account of the audience, but after a
time that becomes so much a part of you that you're not
aware of it. You grow into it as you grow into learning a
foreign language. By now I suspect I would have difficulty
in writing for English audiences.

I don't write for "Broadway" as a special audience. That
just happens to be the place where the professional theatre is
centralized, and I write plays that would appeal to a general
audience.

As a playwright, do you feel that it's more important to learn
from what your contemporaries are doing, or from the
great classics of the past? Or do you fed that it's most
important to study staging, acting, and so on?

J v D. You have to know the classics as you have to learn to read
and write, but you must know what's going on around you.
You must see and read contemporary plays.

You must know a great deal about staging. You get that
best by watching your own plays being rehearsed.

For many years my plays were directed by Auriol Lee.
I never realized how much I learned from her until she died
and we had to get a new director. Then, as I watched him,
it struck me, "Why, I can do that," and I tried it. Now I
feel that no one else can do my plays the way I want them
done. But you have to know a great deal about the theatre
to direct. I wouldn't have been equipped to do it when I
started.

You might direct your own plays to make sure that they're
done as you want them. But why did you turn to directing
not only your own plays, but those of others?

J v D. Because I love directing. When you direct, you're releasing
every acting and interpretive gift you have. I know, however,
that I'm a playwright first, and must work as one. I must
spend more time writing.

Mr. Van Druten, do you think it would be useful to a young
playwright to write scenes which show human relationships,

23

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

just as actors study isolated scenes in plays in order to
develop their facility?

J v D. No, I don't. A playwright might do scenes as an exercise, but
he must learn how to put the whole thing together, just as
a dressmaker must learn to make a complete dress, and not
just practice sewing on buttons, or making hems, and so on.
I've never been sure how right and good the writing of scenes
is. An author would have to do a lot of preparation of the
people in his mind, and he would end up with a complete
play anyway if he had ability.

Can a young playwright learn the art and craft of writing
in schools and workshops? Isnt there a danger that he will
lose some of the sharpness of his original concept at the
same time as he gains technical skill in the workshop?

J v D. A school or workshop can teach you a certain amount about
writing plays, but it can't teach you to be a playwright.
Either you have the ability or you haven't. But even if you
haven't, you'll learn some technique. And you needn't worry
about losing the sharpness of your concepts. If you have talent,
you'll retain it.

How about having a play produced by a community theatre?

JvD. It's good for a playwright to have his play produced any-
where, but it's useless to tell him to aim for the community
theatres and not to have his eye on Broadway. He can't help
but have his eye on Broadway. He wants the most the theatre
has to offer in recognition, financial rewards, opportunity, and
so on, and the one place he can get them is on Broadway.
The playwright is in a difficult situation. Nobody demands
of a plumber or a carpenter that he be the best plumber or
carpenter in the world. It's enough if he knows how to thread
a pipe or use a hammer. But a playwright is made to feel
that he is in competition with every other playwright, from
Shakespeare on. When he writes a play, he challenges every
other playwright in the world. And if he's good enough to
do that, he feels that he's good enough for Broadway.

24

AUTHOR AND AUDIENCE

There's one ability the playwright is supposed to have that
you havent commented on, Mr. Van Druten, the ability
to observe to observe everything.

J v D. The ability should be there, of course. But you can't force
yourself to observe. If you try to, you lose sight of things.
I remember a story by H. G. Wells in which a woman writer
is asked if she saw a certain thing happen. "I didn't notice
it," she replies. "I was too busy observing."

A playwright never knows what is going to be important
to him later; he can never tell what to record. You can't keep
a notebook and go back to it later to see what you have
observed at least, I can't. I'd say, trust your memory. It will
sift out and retain the impressions and sensations that are
important to you.

Everyone is concerned these days with the state of the theatre.
What do you think of it, Mr. Van Druten?

J v D. I've lectured over most of the country, and I know that in-
terest in the theatre does exist. The need for the theatre is a
wonderful thing in human nature, and all the little-theatre
groups all over the country are helping to satisfy this need.
People forget how greatly the quality of the theatre has
improved during the past fifty years. Think back to the quality
of the shows that were put on at the beginning of the century.
The average was very low. Standards have gone up since then,
and are continuing to go up. There's no justification for any
extreme pessimism. I'd advise young people just to make plays
first in homes, if necessary, and then in halls. The theatre is
going to stay alive, and they can help keep it that way.

25

HOWARD LINDSAY
RUSSEL GROUSE

The theatre needs people who are able to work
together, but rarely does it get any who practice
that difficult art as well as Howard Lindsay and
Russel Grouse. Even before they wrote Life with
Father (which set a Broadway record of 3,224 per-
formances), State of the Union, and Call Me
Madam, they had learned the secrets of effective
collaboration* Their joint career has included own-
ing and managing the Hudson Theatre, as well as
writing and producing plays that enliven other
people's playhouses. In addition, Mr. Lindsay acts
and directs, and Mr. Grouse has been a theatre
press agent. They know the theatre from every
angle.

How do you use your knowledge? Do you both do everything,
or do you divide the work?

H L. We both do everything together and in each other's presence.
We talk about story and plot until we're sure of every step
before we start the dialogue. Then we collaborate on every
line. That's much better for us.

RC. We collaborate without any self-consciousness. Ill have no
hesitancy about bringing up a bad idea. Lindsay will look
at me as though I were crazy, But he may say, "Now, let's
take that idea and do this," and out of a bad idea comes a
good one.

We started with a secretary, but I was so self-conscious
in the presence of a third person that we threw out the
secretary,

Do you have many differences of opinion about plays, or do
you think sufficiently alike to have the same judgment?

R C. We think more alike than most people. Our differences are so
slight that it's easy to make them meet.

26

AUTHOR AND AUDIENCE

H L. We think alike about literature, philosophy, politics, etc. We
approach people the same way.

Do you ever find yourselves in conflict?

H L. There's no serious conflict.

R Co We're both professionals, and although we might have a dif-
ference of opinion, by the time we're through with the writing,
we're in thorough agreement about every part of the play.
If there's complete disagreement, we drop the idea. But this
rarely happens.

Do you find that there s a danger of losing perspective when
you re with a play in so many capacities?

RC. (as Mr. Lindsay leaves the room to be televised] Yes. That's
why we consider our third collaborator, the audience, as per-
haps the most important. This collaborator is smarter than we
are. It can tell us where a play is wrong, but not how to
fix it. You can tell by the end of the second act. When you've
lost their interest, you're gone.

Life with Father opened in Maine. We had doubts about
the first act, but not about the rest of the play. That, we were
sure, would require no rewriting. But the audience had a
different idea. The first act went well, but it was the second
act that needed work.

That's why we try out a play out of town before tackling
Broadway. Audiences are pretty much the same, unless you
have a purely local New York play. And they're the best
judges. No matter how funny we think a line is, if the audience
doesn't laugh, it isn't funny, and out it goes. And we've found
that an audience seldom coughs because of colds but because
of boredom.

(Upon his return, Mr. Lindsay endorses all this whole-
heartedly. )

Why do you produce plays., in addition to having so many
other activities?

R C. There's a curious sort of vanity that is satisfied in sponsoring

27

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

Courtesy of Theatre Arts Magazine. Photo by Vandamm

3. Howard Lindsay and Dorothy Stickney as Father and Mother
Day in a scene from Life With Father, by Howard Lindsay and
Russel Grouse.

a play that we have faith in and having audiences and critics
support our judgment. But we never produce our own plays.
That would destroy our perspective, and we would then be
much too closely involved. An outside producer can do a
much better and more objective job.

HL. I also lose a certain advantage when I'm acting in a play.
You can't have the same judgment of the audience's reactions
when you're on stage as when you're out front. When I'm on
, stage, I know when I'm holding the audience, but if I'm offstage
when we lose them, I don't know where or when it happened.
I just know when I come on again that we're not holding
their interest.

How do you agree on a play to write together? And how
do you select a play by an outsider?

28

AUTHOR AND AUDIENCE

R C. The method differs. Critics complain that young playwrights
don't write about serious things. Well, moral integrity seems
to us to be a vital subject, and we want it in all plays,
whether it's our own State of the Union, or One Bright Day,
which we produced.

We also have to think, "Will the audiences like it?" that
is, "Will the play make money?" We feel that the theatre
should be entertaining. People won't pay just to be lectured
at. But if you can combine entertainment with the lecture,
that's great. The theatre is commercial, but it's purpose is not
just to make money.

When we did State of the Union, everyone was talking
politics. Roosevelt was responsible, with his fireside chats and
his ability to bring politics home to the average man and
woman and make it part of their lives. We decided to write a
play that would get people to take a greater interest in poli-
tics, but it had to be entertaining too.

When we have a general idea like that, we talk it over
until we get a more definite dramatic idea, or else throw
it out. In this case, we got a definite dramatic idea.

How about acting talent outside of Broadway? Do you have
any idea of how much there is?

H L. No, Tm sorry to say that we don't know about acting talent
outside New York.

R C. We may run across an actor by accident. Once my wife was
at the dentist's, and she happened to look at a magazine that
had a picture of a girl who, she thought, might take a part
in Remains To Be Seen. So we tried this girl out. Unfortunately,
she wouldn't do. But that's a rare thing.

What about writing talent? Do you do anything to help en-
courage that?

H L. We're working closely with the New Dramatists' Committee.

Because of time limitations, we cannot read all plays submitted

to us. It would be wonderful if we could.
R C. We don't read plays at all when we're working on a play of

our own. We just have no time. We read only when we're

planning to produce.

29

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

What advice would you give to an unpwduced playwright?

HL. Playwriting is a difficult craft, but a playwright always
learns more when a play is in production. If he can have it
produced in a community or university theatre, that would be
very helpful. And anything that helps train good new play-
wrights certainly helps the theatre in a period like this.

30

the Critic or a Play?

BROOKS ATKINSON

Since 1925, when Brooks Atkinson gave up the
literary editorship of the New York Times to be-
come its drama critic, he has been one of the most
popular writers on the theatre. His reviews reach
hundreds of thousands of readers, including many
who rarely or never see a play themselves. Before
coming to the Times, Mr. Atkinson had been as-
sistant to the drama critic of the Boston Transcript.
All in all, he has seen a tremendous number of
plays and has undoubtedly influenced the course
of the theatre in our times.

What is the function of the critic in the theatre? Would it be
just as well off or perhaps better off without him?

B A. I work for a newspaper, and my function is to be a reporter
for people who are interested in going to the theatre. Mine
differs from other forms of reporting in that it's subjective, and
not objective. The basic news about the theatre is, "Is it good
or bad?" And that is a matter of opinion.

In my Sunday columns, I also write as a reporter. I report
on subjects that have news interest, and I hang my column
on a news-peg. I don't usually write essays. When I do, it's
only because there's no noteworthy news.

As a critic I'm interested in the theatre, in seeing it grow.
I believe in trying to be judicial but I'm not objective. No one
is objective. No work of art is objective, and no critic is
equally receptive to every kind of theatre. Even with that
point of view, however, I make an attempt to look at a play
from the point of view of the people who are doing it.

Then if all the critics were to disappear as if by magicyou
don't think the theatre would benefit?

B A. I don't think so. Critics are not an isolated group of people.
They're members of the public. One of the biggest pieces of
folklore is that critics make or break a play. Well, I remember

31

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

one play we tried to make Billy Budd. I praised it not once
but several times, and other critics did the same. But the
public stayed away, and the play closed. On the other hand,
we jumped on Tobacco Road with both feet and it went on
to break the record for length of run.

Some people say that critics have power. I say that they
have no power. All the power is on the stage. What the critics
can do is transmit power; they can reflect it in their views.

Apart from the question of quality, don't forget that there
are other factors that determine whether a play will be a
success, especially the economic factors.

To whom is your criticism directed? Do you criticize for the
sake of the actor, author, or director or for the sake of the
public?

B A. Not for the sake of the actor and author, or the director. If I
tried to do that, I'd be a director. If you're looking for really
creative criticism, look to the directors. Any critic who ap-
proaches his work from the point of view of molding actors
and authors should be functioning as a director.

So you dont think that actors and authors learn anything from
the critics? You believe that all they're interested in is a
good review for the sake of the success of the play?

B A. I can't see that a critic can do them much good. Criticism may
be interesting to them as coming from a third party, as being
an echo of what they've done. It may clarify their minds
about what they've accomplished. In that sense they may
benefit to some extent from criticism.

Has criticism ever done any good? Aristotle has been called
the first great critic. Over a period of two thousand years,
did anybody pay serious attention to his ideas? And if any
attention was paid, did the theatre benefit? Did he help
playwrights to write better plays?

B A. I am anti- Aristotelian. I think that his sort of dogmatic criticism
put a straitjacket on the theatre. It didn't help the theatre.
Tradition that replaces life can be a bad influence. That's

32

AUTHOR AND AUDIENCE

what makes academic criticism pompous and pedantic. If well
done, criticism is a form of art, in which the critic, as a human
being, responds to the ideas and emotions in the theatre,
painting, or any other form of art.

It may sound pretentious, but Anatole France had the right
idea when he said that criticism is the adventures of the soul
among masterpieces.

If you want the name of a great critic, there was Shaw.
Shaw's biographer, Archibald Henderson, says that Shaw wasn't
a great critic, but a great provocateur and pamphleteer. But
no laws or definitions apply to genius, and Shaw was a genius.
He fought numerous battles and had a corrective influence on
the theatre of his day. He was intensely personal, and his
motive was to create a new theatre. And as critic and play-
wright, he did it.

How does one become a critic?

B A. Personally, I was interested in newspapers first, and I still am.
It's a form of work I like. I'd say that if you want to become a
critic you should have newspaper training and a background
in newspaper reporting. I'm skeptical of people coming straight
out of the theatre to a newspaper. The point of view is too
specialized. It's difficult to take a public point of view where
personal associations are strong.

Go to the theatre, read reviews. You can't know too much
about the theatre. Learn the background, learn how it got
started. Know all the standard plays. And know a lot about life
outside the theatre. New playwrights sometimes come to New
York and score successes and then lose contact with the life
from which they drew their strength. The critic faces the same
danger when he becomes too closely involved with the theatre.
The theatre life is an ingrown life, unhealthy when isolated.

Why are there no women critics?

B A. There's no reason that I can see why a woman can't be a
critic. We did have a woman critic, Willela Waldorf, in New
York, and in Chicago we have Claudia Cassidy, who is one of
the best, and in Boston, Elinore Hughes, also one of the best.

33

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

Do you think that a good critic would make a good playwright,
as Shaw did?

B A. It requires a very different type of mind. As I said, Shaw is
the exception to the rules. But I'm a commentator, and I've
never in my life had the kind of original creative idea that a
playwright needs.

Do you get much chance., Mr. Atkinson, to see community
theatres outside New York?

B A. Some chance. Every year I try to organize a trip to see what is
being done. These theatres fulfill a very vital function. In some
respects they're better off than Broadway. The productions are
less expensive, and done on a more amiable basis. Community
theatres do many more classics and semiclassics. They remind
us that if the economics of the theatre were different, a lot of
the things we don't see in the commercial theatre would have
a public.

We have a tendency to end an interview with the same ques-
tion, Mr. Atkinson. What do you think will happen to the
theatre in the United States? And what can young people
do to revive and strengthen the theatre in their communities?

B A, The theatre has always been on the verge of disaster, but I
think it'll keep going. To young people, Yd say: Go to the
theatre, put on amateur plays. Just make theatre. Have some
fun.

34

THE PRODUCER

IN ANCIENT EGYPT, the earliest plays dealt with the tragic life
and death of a god. Now it is a new and sometimes tragic god,
the Producer, who determines the life or death of a play.

The producer wields his supernatural powers by virtue of
his control of the money needed for production. Thirty or more
years ago, when the cost of putting on a play was rarely more
than ten thousand dollars, he preferred to invest his own
money and keep most of the profits of a successful run. Now,
with costs from five to ten times as high, he must raise most
of the amount needed from the angels whom he can influence.
These angels do not spend their every moment hymning his
praise. Instead, they examine his record and try to decide
whether he will lose their money for them or multiply it sev-
eral times over.

In this arduous attempt they are guided by their general
estimate of what he knows about the theatre.

What he should know is everything. Not only must he
know plays, he must know people. He must be able to appoint
capable assistants of the right kind for the type of play he is
producing: director, scene designer, stage manager, and others.
He must know how to get them to work together, how to re-
duce the egos of authors and actors in one breath, and how to
soothe their feelings in the next.

He had better know something about everything that any-
one else knows how to write a play (he will have to tell the
author how to rewrite it), how to direct (so that he may be
able to direct the director if he thinks the latter is not on he
right track), how to design scenery (so that he may suggest
to the designer ways of saving money in his designs ) . He must
be aware of what goes on backstage, he must keep track of the
publicity, he must make sure that his stage crew violates no
union regulations.

All this knowing requires a background of considerable
experience in the theatre. Once in a while a producer comes
along who doesn't know the theatre, but does have money,

35

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

and does have an idea of the kind of play he likes. In that case
he will hire people to get things done for him. If he is un-
usually lucky, his play will be a success. More likely, it will be
an expensive education to him.

Of all the things he must be able to do, however, none
remains more difficult than choosing his next play. He is
continually trying to answer the question: "What is the dif-
ference between a play that will succeed and one that will
fail?"

He can answer this question in general, but he falls into a
sweat when he realizes that he can never know for certain
with regard to any particular play. If he remains a producer
long enough, he is sure to put on a turkey which the critics
will proceed to carve for him with their most cutting epithets.
And sooner or later, some play he has himself labeled a turkey
will be put on by another producer in a way that lets the
actors sink their teeth into it and turn it into a smash hit.
He has his moments of success and glory, or he would not be
able to remain a producer and raise money for his next play.
But in general he leads a manic-depressive life, alternating
between the heights of achievement and the depths of failure.
Should he try to put on a play he likes or one he thinks
the public will like? Most successful producers, as you will see
from the interviews which follow, put on plays they like.
The fact is that they never can tell what the public will like,
and must therefore rely upon their own judgment,

But that doesn't settle the question, for the producer must
still take some account of public taste. Suppose the play for
which he develops an affection is too different from the usual
commercial play. Then the public may not like it, and hell
lose all the money he invests, and angels will shy away from
his next production. On the other hand, suppose the play does
not suffer from the curse of being different; suppose it is a
prime example of a commercial play. In that case, critics and
public may jump on it and say, "We've seen this same thing a
thousand times. Why bother to put it on again?"

The producer thus wavers between the impulse to do the
same safe thing and the urge to do something different and
daring. And, in the end, he usually decides on the basis of
what he thinks will pay best.

For many producers, the theatre doesn't pay at all. There

36

THE PRODUCER

were 105 producers listed in New York for the 1951-1952 sea-
son, but the majority of these did not produce anything.
Formerly Broadway would see more than two hundred new
productions a season; now it is not likely to see more than
sixty.

The first difficulty is obtaining a theatre building. It is
questionable whether, considering the present condition of the
commercial stage, there is an actual shortage of suitable build-
ings. For the 1951-1952 season, for example, only thirty theatres
were available for plays, and the number may still be de-
creasing. But there are rarely more than thirty producers who
want theatres at the same time.

There would therefore seem to be enough theatres, if not
for the fact that the owners have a keen eye for possible hits.
The owners follow the fortunes of every play from the beginning
of production, and they often refuse to rent a theatre for
what seems to them like certain failure, if they can hold off
and secure some play seemingly destined for a long run.

The theatre once rented, the owner sits back and relaxes,
while the producer finds himself with a new worry on his
hands. For it turns out that rents are so high that he must
take in a considerable sum at the box office to so much as
break even.

Along with the rents, other costs have also risen. The prices
of costumes and sets have doubled and tripled. Salaries are
high, although, curiously enough, of the actors who receive
them few can make a living in the theatre. Because of the small
number of hit plays produced, actors work so infrequently
and for such short periods that their total income is low. The
stage hands do better. There is enough work on television to
keep most of them occupied and happy.

All in all, to keep a drama running, the box office must
gross from about $10,000 a week for a one-set small-cast
modern play to $20,000 for a play like Shakespeare's Richard
If, which requires a large cast. For a musical, the sum is much
higher. If ticket sales fall below the break-even level and
threaten to drop further, the producer usually decides to close
quickly, and cut his losses.

As expenses continue to rise, the number of successes de-
creases from year to year. It has been estimated that about
one drama out of every eight is profitable and one musical out

37

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

of every three or four. Possibly a dozen producers, therefore,
can count on hits in a season.

When a show does make money, the investors are first
paid off. The producer then splits the rest of the profits with
the investors, usually on a fifty-fifty basis, although some pro-
ducers take less in profit and pay themselves a salary. But
even a hit show is not the same thing as a profit-making show.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn received good reviews and ran for
months, each week recovering part of the original cost but not
all of it. When it closed, it showed a loss of approximately
$100,000. Shakespeare's King Lear, an excellent production of
the 1950-1951 season, with no author's royalties to pay, opened
to critical applause, lost money, and closed after a short run,
although numerous people still wanted to see it. (See the in-
terview with Edith Atwater.)

There is another expense the producer often has to pay
these days, of a kind unheard of thirty years ago. Because of
the need to attract angels, he must often give readings, or
auditions. He arranges for actors to read the parts of a play,
and to do the songs and some of the dances of a musical. Along
with the performance, the wily producer supplies champagne
and caviar in order to induce a generous mood. If the angels
are not sufficiently impressed to invest their money, the free
show must be repeated before another group.

In his efforts to find a play that has already been tested
before an audience, and thus avoid some of the dangers of ex-
perimenting, the producer will keep in touch with what Is
going on in London, Paris, and the theatre abroad in gen-
eral. He may even do some traveling himself. And once in a
while he will transplant to Broadway a play that has already
beeft put on successfully by a noncommercial theatre in this
country.

The noncommercial producing groups share many of the
headaches of their commercial colleagues. They are faced, par-
ticularly, with the problem of selecting the right play.

Does your noncommercial group intend to put on a new
play? Then you need taste, good judgment, and experience
to help in selecting something good. You must select for the
kind of audience you have, not the one on Broadway. The

38

THE PRODUCER

play must say something, whether in a serious or humorous
vein, that this audience wants or needs to hear.

Compared with the Broadway producer, you have several
disadvantages in putting on new plays. Well-known dramatists
will not generally give you first choice of their best plays they
cannot afford to. And once you have chosen the play, you
cannot always give it a first-rate production. From director to
actors, you are likely to be dealing with amateurs who lack
experience and knowledge of the theatre. It is therefore far
from usual to find an outstanding new play put on effectively
by the average noncommercial theatre group. Only the best
university and community theatres can do the careful work
the play needs to appear at its best.

But even if your group is a small one, you have advantages
too. You are not limited by the dilemma of choosing between
smash hit or flop. You can be satisfied with moderate financial
success. You can choose the plays that commercial producers
cannot touch, the plays that are so strikingly different that a
Broadway audience would shy away from them. It may be that
your audience has better, less limited tastes.

Noncommercial groups tend to center their efforts on re-
viving well-known plays. On this point, practically every per-
son we have interviewed is in agreement: Don't choose a
Broadway play just because it has been a commercial success.
Where skill in acting and care in production are needed, you
will find it difficult to compete with the commercial theatre.
But where imagination and daring are required, you have your
chance. You can put on classics that, because of Broadway
expenses, the commercial theatre cannot touch. Broadway
shies away from plays with large casts; expenses for salaries
are too high. But for a large amateur group, the more in the
cast the better. Everybody is able to have some part in the
show.

You can put on plays that have been tried on Broadway
and have failed because they were not adapted to Broadway
audiences. But they may have things to say that your audience
considers important. Don't forget that some Broadway flops
have been successes abroad. In considering what to produce,
don't automatically limit yourself to what has already been a
commercial success.

Once you and the rest of your group have chosen a play,

39

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

you must take the same care in its production as if you had
thousands of dollars invested. You must select the best pos-
sible director, scene designer, manager, etc., go through the
agonies of casting, and try to arrange the widest possible sale
of tickets.

In general, you will do well to simplify as much as possible.
Remember that the actual physical production of a play can
be exceedingly complicated, and that you can easily be
swamped by the details of costumes, scenery, and props. To
handle these details successfully requires considerable expe-
rience. You can make your own job easier by eliminating
potential difficulties before you start. Unless you have the
facilities of some of our better-equipped university theatres,
avoid complicated settings and elaborate costumes, and shun
stage effects that require too great skill in lighting and ex-
ceedingly accurate timing. As much as you can, reduce the
chances for making mistakes.

Like the commercial producer, you have to worry about
box-office sales. He has an experienced press agent to publicize
his play. You can adopt certain of the press agent's methods.

It is not enough to send a notice to the newspapers, or to
make an announcement to a club or high-school group. For
publicity, you must be both thorough and imaginative.

First, suggests James D. Proctor, a press agent with wide
experience in a great variety of plays and musicals, list all the
newspapers, magazines, and radio stations in your community.
Study this list, and decide what departments or outlets would
be most interested in your play.

Second, gather all the facts about your play, and write
news releases.

Third and most important interview everyone concerned
with the play, from chairman of the production committee to
the carpenters on the set. Where you find an interesting and
unusual point of view about the play, dig deeper. Write down
the information, think about it, summarize the most important
points, and then barge into an editor's office or a radio station
ready to discuss the possibility of a feature story.

Take pictures that have news value, not necessarily those
that flatter the actors, but those that the reader will find in-
teresting to look at.

As Mr. Proctor summarizes it: "First, be accurate and hon-

40

THE PRODUCER

est. Second, be Imaginative within the area of truth and
reality.**

You can see by now that a producer's lot is not an easy one.
It was much simpler in the old days when a theatre owner
was the producer of his own shows, or when the producer was
known as the manager and did not have to face the endless
problems that are now occasioned by the high costs of putting
on a play. These problems will probably become more rather
than less difficult as time goes on.

Remember, by the way, that in a producing organization
the functions carried out by a single commercial producer
may be split up among several people, bearing the title of
director, artistic director, etc. But, whatever the tide, the
headaches are essentially the same. Some inkling of these
headaches and also of the creative challenge of the producer's
jobwill become apparent in the interviews that follow.

41

How Our Theatre Has Changed

JOHN GOLDEN

The dean of American producers, John Golden re-
cently celebrated fifty years in the theatre. During
his long career as song-writer, actor, playwright,
and especially as producer, he has seen consider-
able changes take place, but he has never stopped
bringing the theatre to the public. In a previous
generation, his Lightnin set a Broadway record for
length of run. When we interviewed him, he was
doing a revival of The Male Animal and planning
to put on additional plays.

Mr. Golden, have the changes in the theatre been for the
better? Has there been any improvement in acting, in the
quality of the plays?

G. Yes, there's been improvement. When I was young, heroines
were pure, the hero was good, and the villain was the dirtiest
dog that ever breathed. The audience accepted seriously lines
and situations that would bring a howl today. I remember one
play, The Phoenix, in which the villain announced in a voice
that carried through the theatre, "Little does she know that I
will lure her to my yacht, and ruin her at my leisure." And
all the while, the heroine he meant to victimize stood four
feet away from him, completely unaware of his plans.

In the background, of course, you had Sophocles, Shake-
speare, and Shaw. But they didn't have much influence on
the everyday theatre, not as much influence as ignorance
and prejudice. Do you know, for instance, why so many
theatres were called "opera houses/* why there are still about
a hundred "opera houses" in the United States today? Not
because operas were given in them, but because to many
people the theatre was a hideout for the Devil, and they
wouldn't permit it to exist under its own name. You had to
call it an opera house to make it respectable. You couldn't
give a vaudeville show on Sunday in New York or in many
other cities. You had to call it a "concert," even if the musical
program consisted of performers like Al Jolson doing songs

42

THE PRODUCER

like "Mammy." That kind of thing hurt the theatre, and we're
better off without it.

Has the acting improved? Yes, the actors are more like
human beings there's less hokum and more honesty. There's
less of the grand manner. You may have heard of Salvini, the
great Italian actor. One of the things that made him great was
a voice you could hear three blocks away. But there were a
few stars who didn't bellow. William Gillette was one of them.
He made all the rest of his cast do the shouting, and he himself
spoke in a quiet way that was very effective.

The theatre's more real now, closer to life. But it's lost
something too. It's better, but it isn't more fun.

Jou mean for the audience, Mr. Golden?

JG. For most of the people in it. Take the actors, for instance.
In the old days there was a wall of mystery between them and
the audience. Nobody could go backstage but the people who
worked there. Neither the actor's wife or children, nor his
friends. And, of course, no strangers. A star like Ada Rehan
always wore a veil in public, and she never dined in a public
restaurant. And when she left the theatre, she disappeared.
The public's curiosity about her was always whetted and
never satisfied.

Nowadays there are four thousand actors without jobs.
And there's no glamour in an actor who has to sell shoes or
wait on table. In those days, the average actor didn't have to
spend most of his time looking for work. He acted. There were
theatres everywhere. I remember playing thirty weeks in the
same play in New England, moving to a different theatre each
week.

How about the producer?

J G. The producer is becoming more and more unimportant. The
director is taking his place. The producer is now a man who
knows a lot of rich people and can persuade them it's more
fun to bet their money on actors than on race horses.

That isnt true of you, Mr. Golden, is it?

43

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

J G. No. I always put up all my own money. Nobody has produced
so many failures. You can't help having failures when you put
on one hundred and fifty-seven plays. But I've had fifty hits
and that's a pretty good average.

Why do you use your own money?

JG. Because I trust my judgment, and if the play's a success, I
don't want to have to share the profits. And if it's a fail-
ure, I don't want to have any explaining to do.

You say that the director is taking the producer's place?

JG. In the old days, the producer was head man. The author had
great authority too, and assisted in the staging. Formerly, the
stage manager did most of the directing, what there was of it.
Now, as you know, he handles the show only after it starts.
There were great actors before there were directors Edwin
Booth, Joseph Jefferson, and later William Gillette and David
Warfield. They became great without direction. You can in-
clude Frank Bacon too, although he did have direction later
on. But the theatre changed, thanks to Shaw and Ibsen and
what was going on in the rest of the world, and direction be-
came more important.

So did the director. He's become a great person. The job
made the man. Nowadays the director decides on everything
not only on the actors, but on the sets and costumes and the
play itself. Sometimes he begins with the author and adds
enough to the play to become co-author.

How about the author? Is his lot a happy one?

J G. It's frustrating. He has a most difficult job. He creates char-
acters that he can almost see. And then the play is cast, and
he has to give up all his dreams about how the characters look.
The theatre breaks a playwright's heart. Everything depends
on others. The success of opening night depends on the good
health of the army behind the curtain line and a dozen drama
critics in front, who have seen everything to be seen.

As an individual, the author's more important than anybody
else in the theatre. The theatre has enough actors and di-

44

THE PRODUCER

4. Martha Scoff, Robert Pres-
fon, oncf EHhH Nugenf In a
scene from The Male Animal,
by James Tfturber and El/Joft
Nugenf.

Courtesy of John Golden. Photo by John Erwin

rectors more than enough for the jobs it can offer. The only
thing it needs is good plays. And you can't have good plays
without good playwrights.

How about the cost of production?

JG. That's part of the trouble. Under present conditions, the stage
can't give many new writers a hearing. TV is the place for new
writers to learn.

Do you think that TV will replace the live theatre, Mr.
Golden?

JG. No, the live theatre will never die. There will always be
people who want to get together in one place and see live
actors. But in many ways, the future of tie theatre is with
TV. TV and the radio and the movies have made it almost im-
possible for the theatre itself to compete. A man puts down a
ten-dollar bill for two orchestra tickets to The Male Animd
and he gets forty cents in change. He thinks that's outrageous
-and it is. But I have no choice. Even at these prices, I still
haven't made any profit on the show.

45

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

Compare that with TV. The industry spends millions pro-
ducing its product-and then gives that product away! We
just can't compete with that kind of thing. TV is close to live
drama, closer than the movies. In the movies you take a scene
eight or ten times, from different angles. And if you don't like
anything that you get, you can cut the scene out altogether.
The movies are full of tricks. But on a live TV program, as on
the stage, the actor has to act, and no mistake about it.

Do you think that the quality of TV compares with that of
the stage?

JG. No, not yet. You have some good plays, well acted, well
produced. You have people like Worthington Miner who do
fine jobs. But in many ways TV is back where our theatre was
fifty years ago. The lines were crude, the humor was for chil-
dren. It was great fun for one comedian to slap another in
the face with a custard pie, or to slip on a banana peel The
movies had to go through that phase when they started, and
so did radio and television. Television is still in it.

The movies gave nothing to the stage. One well-known
actor, after doing a term in the movies, came to me for a part
in a play. He asked a ridiculously low salary. I wanted to
know why he'd accept so little, and he said he wanted to act.
In his last movie, a dog stole the show. The dog whined over
his dead master's grave, and after a while he dug into the
ground to get closer to his master. But they got him to whine
by beating him till his tail was between his legs, and they
got him to dig by burying meat in the ground. That's the
movies. You touch people's hearts by using tricks. On the stage
you do it by acting.

On TV it's acting too. That's why I have hopes for it.

Do you think you can bring young people closer to the theatre
by amateur productions, Mr. Golden?

JG. You can't bring them to the theatre that way. You can get

them to learn from amateur productions. Young people who

like each other and like to do the same things together should

form groups. If they like the theatre, they'll learn in it.

But such groups won't cure the Broadway theatre. We

46

PRODUCER

need good new playwrights. iVe done what I could to en-
courage them. I engaged a teacher of writing for the High
School of Performing Arts, and I go over there often. Two of
the youngsters, still in their teens, have sold plays to the
Samuel French firm. I hope they're even more successful in
the future.

The one big thing wrong is that there aren't enough pro-
ductions the public wants to see. The only prescription the
Fabulous Invalid needs is more good plays.

47

How a Producing Group Is Formed

THERESA HELBURN

As one of the founders and more recently one of
the two codirectors of the Theatre Guild, Theresa
Helburn has been active in play production for
more than thirty years. Beginning with an amateur's
interest in the theatre, she long ago attained a
professional knowledge of it that few others can
match.

Will you tell us about the origin of the Theatre Guild, Miss
Helburn? The Guild is really a continuation of the group
known as the Washington Square Players, is it not?

TH. Even before the Washington Square Players, a group of us
used to get together once a week at someone's house, have
dinner, and read a play aloud in character. It was the pleas-
antest way we had of spending our evenings. Many of the
people in that group were later involved in the formation of
the Washington Square Players.

In those days, few people used to read plays. When I was
asked to lecture on the drama at a large girls' school shortly
after I had finished English 47 at Harvard, I remember asking
the students whether they had read any plays, and they said,
"No." "Haven't you read any Shakespeare?" I inquired, and
the answer was "Oh, yes," in terms of such boredom that I
was shocked. At the request of the head of the school, I or-
ganized a Shakespeare class the following season and spent all
of three months just reading Twelfth Night aloud and discuss-
ing the meaning and intent of each line from an actor's point
of view. It was an exciting experience for us all.

Many years later I was interested to find that the Lunts,
before deciding on the new plays we suggested to them from
time to time, would get their group together to read a script
aloud. With other Theatre Guild plays too, we often used this
method for testing its needs and values. We organize what is
called an "Equity Reading," with well-chosen paid actors to

48

THE PRODUCE!

read the parts. This is always of great value to the author as
well as the producers.

I would suggest that young people who would like to make
a start in the theatre form reading groups. It's enjoyable, and it
might ultimately lead to a more ambitious theatre group.

Do you believe, Miss Helburn, that the Guild system of having
a group select plays, rather than a single individual, helped
it attain success? What happened when there were dif-
ferences of opinion?

T H. The majority vote carried. We sometimes had spirited fights
over plays, and sometimes my side lost plays that it hurt me to
give up. However, it's been ten or twelve years since that com-
mittee functioned. At present there are just Mr. Langner and
myself. When we both like a play, it increases the range of
audience appeal.

Courtesy of The Theatre Guild and Joshua Logan, Photo by Zinn Arthur
5. A scene from Picnic, by William Inge.

49

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

Do you think the committee system would be useful for com-
munity theatres?

T H. Committees are very unwieldy, but I'd say yes, if a committee
is really active. A majority vote is always better it gives you
more of a cross-section of your theatre audiences. And the
committee itself learns from the differences of opinion and dis-
cussions. Of course, if it has any inactive members, it should
get rid of them.

How many plays are submitted to the Guild annually? And how
are they submitted?

1 H. We receive about five hundred to six hundred plays a year,
but many of these have to be returned unread. Only in rare
instances do we consider unsolicited manuscripts. We try to
get the authors to submit them first to established agents.
Agents perform a useful function in filtering out the plays
that show no promise, and there are many of these. Of course,
we get a great many plays through our personal contacts
with authors. After thirty-three years in the theatre we naturally
have very wide contacts.

Does the Guild raise money for production in the same way
as other producers?

T H. We always used to use our own money exclusively, and any
profits on successful plays went to defray the losses of the
unsuccessful ones. Now that it costs so much more to put on
a play, we raise funds from the usual sources, but we always
put in some of bur own money, too.

Do your subscribers help?

T H, They help pay for the running costs. But they can be a liability
if the play is a failure. Subscriptions may be sold for several
weeks in advance, and the play may lose money every week
it's kept going.

Do you have subscribers in different cities, for your tours?
50

THE PRODUCE!

TH. We have subscribers in more than twenty cities. We offer
subscriptions to from four to six plays in advance, not only
for our own productions, but for good plays of other manage-
ments too. And this year we have been co-operating with the
Council of the Living Theatre in developing our subscription
audiences even further.

You have nothing like branches in other cities?

T H. No, that would be impractical, but we do use Mr. Langner's
summer theatre, the Westport Country Playhouse, for ex-
perimental productions and try outs.

Hq$ the increase in the cost of production affected the Guild
as much as it has other producers?

T H. It probably has affected us more, because we like to do plays
that have less obvious commercial appeal, and that has be-
come increasingly difficult. Formerly, if a play failed, we'd
lose from two to seven thousand dollars on it, but we'd make
that up on the success of the next play. Now, a flop means a
loss of twenty-five to fifty thousand, and we can't risk that
very often. A great deal of the fun of the theatre is gone.

It affects us in other ways, too. When we started, thirty-
four years ago, we set out to fight the star system and de-
velop a level of ensemble playing. Since then, the rise of talk-
ing pictures and radio and television, and the tremendous
rise in costs, have made the star more important than ever.
Luckily, however, the level of ensemble acting is also higher
than ever.

The theatre seems to be flourishing in other countries, Miss
Helburn y even in countries like England that are in a bad
way financially. It's only in the United States that the com-
mercial theatre seems to be in a bad state. Would you care
to suggest what could be done for the theatre here 9 and
what part the noncommercial groups might play in helping
keep it alive?

TH. I don't know much about the conditions of the theatre in
FranceI think it has many difficulties to contend with but

51

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

the theatre in England gets government help and has a tax-
free covenant for many ventures. And the press doesn't in-
fluence theatre-goers too strongly, whereas here, a couple of
bad reviews can kill a play before it has a chance to get
started. It's much easier to produce plays in England than it
is here.

As for keeping the theatre alive throughout the country-
everyone who works in the theatre in any capacity is part of
a potential audience for commercial productions. Young peo-
ple can best create and keep growing these new audiences
for the professional theatre by working with community groups
wherever they are.

52

The Producer in the
Noncommercial Theatre

OLIVER SMITH

Oliver Smith is one of the younger producers who
not so long ago was facing many of the same
problems faced by the average young man new
to the theatre. He became a producer by a rather
unusual path by way- of stage designing. He has
designed fine and highly imaginative stage sets,
and has been associated with ballet as a co-di-
rector of Ballet Theatre.

How do you become a producer?

O S. First you get the idea of what you want to produce. Then
you secure the money. If you select a play of quality, you
will have less trouble finding artists and money. My first
production was On the Town, in which all the people, from
writers and composers to actors and dancers, were young and
not too highly experienced. But it attracted %ioney, because
the collaborators were talented.

I don't think you can go to school and learn to be a pro-
ducer. That Tdnd of executive talent you have to be born with.

If you want your children to be actively interested in the
theatre, start them young, while they're still in grade school.
Have them give puppet shows, and charge ten cents' admission.
They'll learn box-office and publicity problems that way, not
to speak of the artistic end of a production. Children are
fascinated by anything they can make, anything they can
give identity to.

So you think producers are born, not made?

O S. The job takes an inner self-assurance. A false front is no good.
You have to trust your judgment, right or wrong and then face
yourself without being devastated when it goes wrong. As a

53

Photo by Vandamm

6. A scene from On the Town, o musical comedy by Adolph Green and
Betty Comcfen, produced by Paul Feigay and Oliver Smifft, and designed
by Mr. Smifh.

producer, you must face people of all types, you must be in-
terested in human beings. You learn to see your world in terms
of theatre. Of course, that's dangerous, as sometimes your
sense of theatre and reality gets mixed up.

How do you select your plays?

S, That's a very personal matter. I want to bring new literary
talent to the theatre. I'm looking for people who have warmth,
reality, and amusing qualities.

That must mean that you read many plays.

S. No, not many. I can tell from four or five pages whether a
play is for me. Sometimes I find playwrights among novelists,
sometimes an agent will find a playwright for me. All agents

54

THE PRODUCER

have readers who read all plays submitted. And, incidentally,
producers are extremely generous about getting a play pro-
duced, even when they can't handle it themselves and it goes
to another producer.

To return to that personal matter how did you train yourself
to tell a good play from a bad one?

O S. I didn't train myself. I was trained by my personal inclination,
my choice of reading matter, my academic background.

Well y what is it that in those first four or five pages makes
you feel, "This is it, this is for me?"

O S. The fact that the play gives me goose-pimples. Some producers
are cold-blooded; they ask themselves, "Will this make me
money?" A few are talented money-makers, but most of them
are no more likely to make money than those producers who
put on only those plays they feel are good.

I don't stick to a single type of play. I put on Sartre's No
Exit, even though I disagree with Sartre's philosophy, because
I thought it was a work of art. I put on Gertrude Berg's
Me .and Molly because I considered it warm and human.

How about musicals?

O S. Musicals are much more expensive to put on than they used
to be, and you go into them with a lot of care. You have to
organize them much better than before. Here the author and
composer work closely together, and the producer sometimes
works closely with both. George Abbott always works with his
authors. Creative artists like Rodgers and Hammerstein pro-
duce their own shows. In general, all the creative artists-
author, composer, arranger, etc. have authors' contracts, and
they have to respect one another's talents, as well as the
ability of the producer, or there would be tremendous con-
fusion.

What kind of plays would you suggest for a noncommercial
theatre to concentrate on classics, new plays, or Broadway
hits?

55

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

O S. There's room for everything in the theatre, but noncommercial
groups have no reason for existence if they don't put on
worth-while plays. They often want to put on only established
plays, because they have more difficulty in selling tickets for
new plays. And, besides, they find it difficult to get original
plays of value.

They might solve that problem by sending someone to
New York to see producers. The latter know of many worth-
while plays which they themselves cannot put on, and they'd
be glad to suggest them to the noncommercial theatres.

Should they try to put on musicals?

O S. No these require too much organization, too much talent in
performance. I've seen some that made me shudder. Revues
would be less excruciating. Variety entertainment comes na-
turally, and doesn't require such skill in pleasing an audience.

How do you select actors?

O S. By calls for auditions, and by agents. More by agents. For
musicals, I use both methods.

You hear of young actors and actresses going around from one
producer's office to another. Does this do them any good?

O S. Very little. It's very difficult to get to see a producer that way.
They only waste shoe-leather.

Then what would you advise a young actor or actress to do?

O S. Affiliate with an acting school or group which screens out the
untalented. More young people get in through directors than
through producers, anyway. If they can't affiliate with an act-
ing group near by, let them form their own group. The plays
they put on will attract directors, and some producers, and
their talents will be noted. They might try acting in summer
theatres too. As a last resort, to attract attention, some would-
be actors frequent places where producers are to be found.
If they have sufficient social charm, they may be noticed

56

THE PRODUCEH

and remembered. But the odds are against them. It's best to
try to attract personal attention by doing a good job.

Suppose the young people live a thousand miles from any
producer they know of? Should they come to New York
and try to build an acting group there?

O S. I wouldn't advise them to come to New York, although many
do. It's a rat race here, and most kids including some very
talented ones finally give it up and go home. Those who stick
it out are obsessed, but not necessarily talented. I'd suggest
that they organize off-Broadway groups like the Cleveland
Playhouse and the Karamu Theatre.

In your dual role as designer and producer, how do you try
to keep costs down, and yet create appealing and effective
sets?

O S. By using my imagination. The best designs are not necessarily
expensive. And I've seen expensive ones that were horrible. As
a producer, I don't want to waste my money on sets that ruin
the play.

To be stuffy for a moment, Mr, Smith, whither the theatre?
Where do you think it's going? Is it dying?

O S. Not dying. It's going through a period of transition. It can't
compete with television and the movies by doing the stuff
that they usually do. If it tried to, it would deserve to die.
It can live by producing plays that are gripping and vital.

One final question. What can young people, students, do to
revitalize the theatre, not only on Broadway, but nationally?

O S. They can do two things. First, create and build the theatre
in their own communities. Second, support good theatre,
amateur and professional both, wherever they find it. As they
help create audiences who love, understand, and patronize
good plays and good acting, there'll be no need for the
theatre to fear the competition of inferior forms of entertain-
ment.

57

THE DIRECTOR

ONCE THE AUTHOR has written his work, and the producer has
decided to put it on the stage, the director is usually the
single person most responsible for the success or failure of
the play. The oddity of this fact is apparent when we consider
that the director as such is a modern development. Before
the early part of this century, his duties were usually taken
by the stage manager, although sometimes in the most per-
functory way. And plays were successful before directors ex-
isted.

The Commedia dell' Arte of some centuries ago by its very
nature couldn't have had a director, any more than it could
have had an author. Once the manager of the troupe had read
the synopsis of the play and indicated the exits and entrances,
the actors were on their own. In England during this same
period, and indeed until the time of Garrick, many of the
functions of a director would have been superfluous. One of
the first duties of a director is to see that everyone has an
understanding of the meaning of the play as a whole, that the
entire production is keyed to that meaning. But before the
latter half of the nineteenth century, a play was usually not put
on as a whole. It was staged to provide parts for a few stars.
A tragedy gave a dramatic actor an opportunity to tear at the
emotions of his audience; a comedy gave a comedian a chance
to mug, to clown, to use his voice in funny ways.

In England, before Garrick, the other actors did little to
help the star along. Outside England, the old ruggedly in-
dividualistic methods persisted even after Garrick. An actor
wouldn't make his entrance in character. He would enter as
himself, chat with friends, straighten his costume, and pos-
sibly clear his throat. Not until he got into the center of the
stage did he assume his character and begin to "act/*

Nor was there much worry about the meaning of a play.
If a production of Shakespeare's The Tempest astounded the
audience with its scenic effects, it was successful. In fact, very
often the patched-up conglomeration of Shakespearean dia-

58

THE DIRECTOR

logue that served as plays could have no meaning as a whole.
It was enough that from moment to moment the actor could
stun his audience with the power of his outburst, with the
vividness of his rendition of the author's language.

In the modern theatre, however, everything in the play
must contribute to a unified effect. The scenery must match the
style of acting; the actors must work together, not merely com-
pete as individuals for the attention of the audience.

The director must therefore have a definite conception of the
play before he begins to work with the actors. He must make up
his mind beforehand what sort of effect the play is intended to
produce, and by what methods he will obtain this effect. He
does not have to plan every inflection of the voice, every
gesture of the little finger of every actor, although some di-
rectors do come close to doing this. But usually he does plan
exits and entrances, pieces of stage business, and the general
movement of his characters.

Even in this, however, not all directors work the same way.
Some find that the moment they begin actual rehearsals, much
or all of their planning must be discarded, and they must start
all over again. Others find that their plans are highly useful,
although they need to be changed in some details.

Those who plan in advance have a certain advantage. Both
commercial and noncommercial productions are short on re-
hearsal time, and things are speeded up considerably if there is
less groping around. The scenery can be designed only if the
director knows what he intends to do, and once it is selected
the director's freedom to change his mind about many details
of the staging is limited.

Directors, nowadays, begin with a reading of the play.
Script in hand, the actors sit around and go through their parts,
trying to gain an understanding of the characters, of how the
different roles, are to be played. It is better for each actor to
have the script as a whole rather than to depend on "sides,"
which contain only the lines of individual actors, plus cues, and
which necessarily center each actor's performance on himself.

After four or five readings, or possibly sooner, if the play
offers great difficulty, the director will discuss and analyze the
characters, and if actors have conflicting ideas about how dif-
ferent parts are to be played, he will help straighten them out.
Some directors simply tell the actors what they consider the

59

Courtesy of ANT A. Photo by Vic Shijreen

7. Helen Hayes and the cast reading Mrs. McThing, by Mary Chase.
Among those present are Brandon cfe Wilde, Jules Munshin f director Joseph
Buloff, and producer Robert Whitehead.

correct way; others start a discussion which will help the cast
thrash things out. At any rate, although many questions remain
unsettled, after a day or two the actors leave their seats and,
still reading from scripts, begin to walk through the play as the
director blocks out their movements.

There is no attempt, at this stage, to memorize lines. With a
new play such an attempt would be futile anyway, as there
will almost certainly be considerable changes in the rewriting.
It is difficult enough for the actors to learn how to express the
feelings of the characters and how to make the movements
required of them seem natural. There is no scenery, no stage
set. But the set has been, or is being, designed, and the actors
must move in relation to where the different pieces of scenery
and furniture will be. Hence, props are set out, while the posi-

60

THE DIRECTOR

tions of walls, fountains, and so on are noted by chalk marks, or
by tape lines. The actors concentrate on the first act until they
can run through it fairly well. Then they go on to the second
act, and so on.

Once past the first readings, there is considerable confusion
and indecision. If the director has planned everything in ad-
vance, he finds that some of his plans must be changed. The
actors don't like some of the things they are asked to do, and
they have their own suggestions. There are heated arguments
among the various actors fighting jealously to preserve the
importance of their own parts. Questions that have supposedly
been solved arise all over again. It turns out that an actor who
had agreed with the director as to the meaning of his own part
understood the terms of agreement differently. Until the very
end of rehearsals, and sometimes until the very end of the play's
run, there may be certain roles that are not interpreted to die
director's satisfaction.

Directors have different approaches to the solution of
these problems. Some are autocrats; they tell the actors what to
do, and consider their own decisions final. If the actor doesn't
get the point, they pass from telling to showing, and have the
actor imitate them. Others show nothing. They do their best to
explain, to get the actor into the mood of the character, to
make him grasp the motive behind the things he must do, and
then to have him find out for himself how best to express the
mood and motive.

At the halfway point in rehearsals, tempers are likely to be
frayed. Not every actor is doing a good job, and the director's
discussions are likely to sound to some of the cast like unfair
criticism. If by this time the actor doesn't see the characters
pretty much as author and director see them, there is trouble in
store for everyone.

A great deal depends on the nature of the cast. An expe-
rienced and talented professional actor often needs no more
than a slight hint of the director's meaning. A noviceand most
of the amateurs in noncommercial productions are novices or
little more will need to have things explained thoroughly
and then to be shown in the bargain. Some actors learn quickly
at first, but soon stop improving in their interpretations. Others
are slow to start with, but keep forging ahead. Some can

61

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

portray a wide variety of roles, others have difficulty in adapt-
ing themselves to characters that are new to them.

Whatever their problems, it is up to the director to help
them arrive at the proper solutions. As work goes on, he may
find it necessary to call special rehearsal sessions for a single
actor, or for groups of two or three, instead of for the cast as a
whole. In this way he can concentrate on the particular scenes
that need improvement without forcing the rest of the cast to
stand around waiting idly. At the same time, he avoids too
greatly embarrassing the actors who are not getting along well
in their parts.

But the direction of the actors is only a part of the director's
duties. He will consult, argue, and sometimes regrettably fly into
a rage with producer, author, scene designer, costume designer,
and any other member of the production whose work affects
what he is trying to do on the stage. He must help decide ques-
tions of make-up and lighting, and revision of the script, as well
as acting. He must see that everything contributes to the unified
meaning of the play,

Sometimes a director will assume one or more of the other
functions in a play. He may not only direct, but take care of
production as well. Or, on occasion, he will direct and also have

8. Newell Tarrant, the direc-
tor of the Erie Playhouse, a
community theatre, explain*
a piece of business to a cast
in rehearsal.

Courtesy of Erie Playhouse. Photo by Bryce Currie
62

THE DIRECTOB

a leading role as an actor. In relatively rare cases he will
produce, direct, and act in the same play.

Now, when he does this, he faces special problems. For one
thing, he stands a good chance of breaking down from over-
work. But even more dangerous is the possibility that his views
will become too narrow, too limited, too personal. The average
director may disagree with his leading man about how a role
should be played. In that case, the question is thrashed out
between them and this verbal thrashing gives each a chance to
learn from the other. But when director and leading actor are
the same person, the whole struggle may take place in that
person's single headand that sort of struggle is too often a
sham battle.

In a case of this kind, what does the director do? We asked
Jose Ferrer, who at any moment is likely to be acting in one play
which he has produced and directed, while producing another
and directing still a third. Mr. Ferrer's reply was: "Any con-
scientious director welcomes suggestions from the actors, the
playwright, and others who are working with him, and accords
them the greatest consideration. In a case like The Shrike, in
which I double as an actor and a director, such co-operation is
absolutely essential, especially from the viewpoint of those who
can watch from out front while I myself am on stage. With
The Shrike, we were particularly fortunate in that our play-
wright, Joseph Kramm, is also a director and worked with
me closely."

Mr. Ferrer also lays great emphasis on audience reaction.
It is almost unheard of on Broadway to have a "run-through"
before an audience a week after a play has started rehearsal.
Nevertheless, here Mr. Ferrer does the unheard-of. Why?

"Audiences/' he pointed out, "are, of course, the final judge
of any director's work, but they can also be collaborators. Their
reactions at "run-throughs' and dress rehearsals quickly indicate
weaknesses in a play and its direction which can be corrected
at further rehearsals and re-tested at additional Invitation
dress rehearsals.' Important to any director of actor, these pre-
liminary audience reactions are invaluable to the man who is
doing both jobs at once."

Invaluable in another way are the hints you can get from
Shaw, who read his own plays marvelously, and directed some
of them. Shaw believed in working out the stage business be-

63

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

Photo by Vandctmm

9. Jose Ferrer as /ago restraining Doug/as Wafson while Paul Robeson
Shakespeare's Othello.

forehand, as he tells in his booklet, The Art of Rehearsal, but
beyond that, many of his suggestions show an uncommon sort
of common sense. They are especially important for noncom-
mercial groups,

Don't criticize. Instead, explain. If a thing is wrong, and
you don't know how to set it right, keep quiet. If you can't help
the actors, leave them alone. Don't confuse and worry them by
telling them that something is wrong and that you cant put
your finger on it.

Don't try to cram too much into an actor at a single re-
hearsal. If he learns two or three important points at a session,
he is doing fine. Don't bring up anything that doesn't really
matter. Forget about trifles,

64

JL ttJE JL> 1 tt JtL <J T U Jtt

Don't get angry and lose your temper or your patience,
don't cry to heaven that the actors are a pack of fools for not
understanding what you are trying to tell them. TheyH re-
sent it, and do even worse. Don't be annoyed because you have
to repeat the same thing several times. You don't learn every-
thing the first time either, and some things you never learn.

If a scene isn't going right, don't keep repeating it and
getting the actors in the habit of doing it wrong. Cut it short,
and start again when everybody can come to it with a new
approach.

Shaw believed that after the first rehearsals were out of the
way, the actors should be permitted to run through their scenes
without comment or interruption from the direcor until the
end of the act. The act must be regarded as a whole, and not
chopped up, by interruptions, into little pieces. And he warned
against allowing the actors to take their tone and speed from
one another, instead of from what the author had written. One
wrong interpretation can infect an entire cast.

After the first week or so, the actors will begin to memorize
their lines. Some will have no trouble. Words, gestures, inflec-
tions, all will have been learned together as the meaning of the
parts became apparent. Others will find a great deal of dif-
ficulty in retaining the words, and in their desperation will
seem to forget everything else. The best thing for the director to
do is not to interfere and not to lose patience. After a time, the
words will begin to come without trouble, and then the director
can devote his time to perfecting the characterizations, to elim-
inating all the smaller flaws in the performance.

However, in some cases actors have too little trouble with
words. That is, they tend to substitute their own for those of the
author. Sometimes they do so in the belief that they are making
improvements; at other times, their alterations of the text will
be simply due to lapse of memory. Whatever the cause, the
director must not permit unauthorized changes. Actors who
like to improvise dialogue should be encouraged to write their
own plays.

The director will make hundreds and perhaps thousands
of notes. He will enter in his prompt-book dozens of details
about errors to watch out for, possible danger spots, lighting
cues, and so on. This incessant attention to detail is hard work,
and makes it more difficult for the director to act as the part-

65

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

time Pollyanna of the production and that too is part of his job,
for there will be numerous occasions when the author is dis-
gusted with his own script, the producer with the people he
has hired, and the actors with their roles. The director must
keep up morale, aided to some extent by the cheerful releases
of tie press agent,

In his concern with details and such a concern is inevi-
table if the production is to avoid the dozens of awkward spots
that will sometimes crop up the director must never forget
his main task: the staging of the play as a whole. The play
must make sense to the audience. The pace, the method of
speaking the lines, the nature of the scenery, everything must
conform to the play's central meaning. If the director slips up in
a detail or two, he will be able to correct his mistakes easily
enough later. But if he fails in his main approach to the play,
he fails in everything.

Sometimes the play is nearing the end of rehearsals when
it becomes evident that things are not going right. The pro-
ducer and the director discover at this late stage that they have
completely different ideas of the play. The director learns to
his amazement that all the actors have been shrugging off his
interpretation of the characters and sticking to their own.
The star proves incapable of fitting in with the other actors.
The sets turn out to be too brilliant or too gloomy. Glaring
weaknesses suddenly become apparent in the script.

Why, you may ask, didn't these things hit everyone in the
eye in the first place? Why did all these experienced men and
women of the theatre require so much work and so much
time to discover the obvious?

Well, nothing was obvious in the first place, except the
general nature of the script. All the weaknesses that were in-
herent in the production have been excused on the ground
that you can't expect things to be done right at first. It has been
assumed that hard work and the passing of time would elimi-
nate absurdities in the plotting, would give the actors a better
idea of the characters, would make for better teamwork. Every-
body's imagination has been working overtime, anticipating
improvements and glossing over inconsistencies.

And, in many cases, this assumption that everything would
turn out all right is largely justified. When it is not then there
are explosions, resignations, dismissals (subject to Equity rules),

66

THE DIRECTOR

a hasty search for a co-author or "play doctor/' the bringing in of
a new director, new actors.

If the director survives this stage, if he is not forced to
start hurried rehearsals with a completely revised and practi-
cally new script, or with new leading actors, he devotes his time
to smoothing out all the rough spots of the production and
preparing for the dress rehearsal. In most cases the actors will
have started becoming accustomed to their costumes and to
the settings long before this, especially if the costumes are
awkward and unfamiliar, or if the action requires tricky en-
trances or exits. But the dress rehearsal is more than a re-
hearsal with costumes and setting. It is a run-through of an
actual performance, with only the audience missing.

A commercial dress rehearsal is a solemn and expensive
affair. It requires the use of a theatre instead of a rehearsal
room, and the hiring of a full stage crew. Producer, director,
author, scene designer, all sit in the orchestra with their sec-
retaries and notebooks, making their last-minute suggestions
for change or improvement. All the details of acting, lighting,
dialogue and stage management are subjected to their critical
inspection. The action does not stop. An actor may slip up on
his lines, a spotlight may pick out the wrong person on the
stage. Whatever the mishap, it is noted while the show goes
grimly on.

Between acts, the director will visit the actors and try to
correct any alarming tendencies he sees. In a noncommercial
play, especially, there is a tendency to start off full of energy
and then to let down as the performance goes on, since the
discipline which the professional has learned in a hard school
is lacking. Nothing could be more fatal to a play, for the
audience's attention is keenest at the beginning, and needs
more and more stimulation from one act to the next. The di-
rector must be on the alert for this, and keep the pace and
the vitality of the players up to the proper level.

The dress rehearsal almost never runs off smoothly. There is
too much tension, and because this is the first complete run-
through under conditions simulating those of actual perform-
ance, everyone is in a sense playing his role for the first
time. Hence it is taken for granted that there will be a fair num-
ber of minor flaws. But if something seriously wrong appears,
the opening may have to be postponed.

67

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

In a commercial production, the first opening may itself be
little more than a dress rehearsal It may take place in New
Haven or Philadelphia, or some other traditional tryout city,
to test the reactions of audiences and critics. And a short run in
these towns may be followed once more by revisions and re-
hearsals, until all concerned seem on the verge of nervous
breakdowns, and the producer tears his hair at the thought of
all the money this is costing, money that may never by repaid.

In some ways, commercial play production resembles those
children's games in which, at any moment, no matter how far
along the action has gone, an unfavorable spin of the arrow
may set everything back halfway or even all the way to the
beginning. The author may have to look for a new producer, the
producer for a new director, the director for new actors.

If these perils have been escaped, if dress rehearsal and
tryout have been survived, if a fairly suitable theatre can be
hired, the play finally opens before a first-night audience of
critics, amateur and professional. Some of those present are
there to see the play. Others want the honor of being at a first
night, of being a "celebrity" among other celebrities.

The reaction of the first-night audience helps determine the
success or failure of the play. Its favor or disapproval affects
critics; its word-of -mouth reports lure many playgoers into the
theatre or keep them away. But it is usually a completely
atypical audience. And it is almost never the audience for which
the play was written. Everyone connected with the play knows
this, and is under greater strain because of it.

Once the play has opened, the director's work is done. From
now on it is the stage manager who sees to it that everything
goes on well, while the director wonders what ever led him to
direct. His work is difficult, wearing, and nerve- wracking. And
he is a favorite target of critics, who often find even more
serious mistakes in his direction than in the author's script.

None .the less, directing has its rewards, both artistic and
financial, especially if the play is successful. And there is not
the deadening effect from which the actor suffers, for instance,
when he is lucky enough to be in a hit and must repeat the
same role night after night for months.

By contrast, the director often feels lucky until it is time
for him to start directing another play.

68

How to Direct Comedy and Melodrama

GEORGE ABBOTT

As author, director, and producer, George Abbott
has long played an Important part on the Broad-
way stage. He has put on a wide variety of pro-
ductions, from farces like Three Men On a Horse
and melodramas like Broadway (of which he was
co-author) to musical comedies like A Tree Grows
in Brooklyn (where again he was co-author). To a
great number of theatre-goers his name has be-
come synonymous with the sMll and smoothness
of staging that only our professional theatre and
by no means all of that is able to supply.

Anything that kills the interest of the audience
is his enemy. But few of the people who enjoy
his shows realize how he has managed to produce
their enjoyment. To most theatre-goers, a George
Abbott show is one that is fast and swiftly paced
all the way through.

Is the action really so fast? Or is that just an illusion that you
create?

G A, Like so many other things in the theatre, it's an illusion. It's
caused by a change of pace in the writing and direction. If
you just go fast, you create a jumble of sheer noise. Sometimes
the illusion of speed is created by cutting the script, so that the
scene is trimmed to dimensions that make it seem faster. You
make use of contrast, just as a symphony orchestra will play a
slow passage and then a fast passage for dramatic effect. If
you keep your audience's interest, it will think that the action
on the stage is taking place rapidly, although actually the
action may be very slow.

Take Three Men On a Horse, for instance. In the scene
where the gambler played by Sam Levene is excitedly begging
Irwin to give him the name of a winning horse, nothing much
happens for a time. He simply keeps demanding the name of a
horse. But the audience is kept interested and amused and
then, suddenly, a a man runs in to announce the winner of a

69

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

10. Teddy Hart, William Lynn,
Shirley Booth f Horace Mc-
Mahon and Sam Levene In a
scene from Three Men on a
Horse, wnffen by Cecil Holm
and George Abbott, and d/-
reded by Mr. Abbott.

Courtesy of George Abbott. Photo by Vandamm

race that's important to the characters. That happens fast,
there's a quick laugh, and the audience gets the impression
that the entire scene has taken place at a rapid clip. Actually,
it hasn't.

Do you believe in plotting every detail of a production before-
hand, or do you like to improvise as you go along?

G A. I improvise as I go along. I'm working with actors, not autom-
atons. As they begin to talk and act, I get a picture of what
I want to do. When I'm working in a dual capacity, as writer
and director, I may very often throw aside my own script
directions. The fact and my imagination don't always jibe,
and I don't always follow my own visualizations.

Suppose, Mr. Abbott, that you are directing someone else's
play?

G A. The same thing can happen. I don't let the stage directions
become a straitjacket. If they cramp the play, out they go.

70

THE DIRECTOR

Do you feel that yon have had enough experience to know
what will please an audience, or do you find that tastes
change, so that you still have to depend on tryouts?

GA. Out-of-town tryouts help. Certain moods in die public mind
will not accept certain types of plays. Many present-day au-
diences avoid serious plays, and go to see nonsensical shows.
Some productions that wouldn't have lasted more than a week
a few years ago are now great hits.

How, in reading a jarce, can you tell whether it will be funny
on stage or just silly?

GA. If a farce is to be any good, it has to have character and
honesty. When you get a script with just an exaggerated situ-
ation, you know it will be silly. In certain kinds of high comedy,
even in the highest comedy of a man like Shaw, there's usually
an emotional reaction. It has to be there for good comedy.

Do you think that farces are more difficult to stage than
other plays?

G A. They're difficultbut no more than other kinds of plays. To
me, the hardest thing to do would be fantasy. I try to create
reality on stage, and there I'm on sure ground.

The critics write long essays on the difference between farce
and comedy, and on humor in general. Do you find that
their ideas are of any great help to a director or producer?

GA. They can't give you definite advice on how to put on your
play, or they'd be producers instead of critics. But all thoughts
on the theatre contribute to our general knowledge and aware-
ness, and the theatre has progressed in many ways through
the critics. They're right on an average, although they're prej-
udiced in some details. And producers pay attention to them,
before or after putting on a show. If the criticism comes too
late to affect one show, it will affect the next.

Critics have had a part to play, for instance, in the new
importance of musicals. Musicals, right now, are the most pro-
gressive and vital form of the living theatre. They're making the

71

MEET THE THEATBE

most changes, doing the most experimenting. And the critics

have had a hand in encouraging them.

Arent there certain plays, Mr. Abbot, where success is more a
matter of writing and direction than of acting ability?

G A. I think that, with a few exceptions, if a play is a good solid
play, it will go with almost any capable cast. We sometimes
change actors frantically in tryouts. But I feel that when that
happens, it's generally the play that isn't right, and it's the
script that needs changing more than the actors.

Sometimes appearance is even more important than ability.
An actress who plays a beauty-contest winner must look the
part. Each producer has his own bent as far as casting goes. I
happen to like to experiment with new people, partly because
I trust my own judgment, and partly because I remember
when I was looking for a job myself.

What, in general, are the pitfalls that youngsters should avoid
in acting and staging?

G A. The main pitfall is phoniness. I'd say, try not to pose, do what
you really think the character would do. Don't adopt someone
else's mannerisms. Don't try to do too much. You have to grow
and learn.

I think that no talent goes undiscovered too long. Home-
town clippings don't help with me, or with most directors or
producers. But if actors can find a producer who'll be im-
pressed by their experience, by all means let them use their
clippings. Personally, I see actors when I cast a show, and
I judge by the results of their experience, not by the amount
of it.

If an actor has dramatic instinct, taste will help him, and
will warn him to avoid bad acting styles. I remember, when
I was a beginner, getting lessons in ham acting from an old-
time stock actor. I just wouldn't learn it. I couldn't have ex-
plained why, I didn't have any theoretical reasons for it, but
I knew that the style he was trying to teach me was wrong.

The important thing for an actor is to act. He should go into
the little theatres, do anything that gets him on the stage. It's
only then that he has a chance to gpt anywhere.

72

The Kind of Theatre We Have

HAROLD CLURMAN

One of the original directors of the famous Group
Theatre, and later its sole director, Harold Clurman
has worked and written about the theatre from 1924
on. For the Group Theatre he directed such famous
plays as Awake and Sing and Golden Boy. In recent
years he has directed among others The Member
of the Wedding and The Time of the Cuckoo.
Almost from the beginning of his career he has
been writing articles and reviews which have
greatly influenced people of the theater, and he
is the author of The Fervent Years, the story of
the Group Theater.

What would you say are the characteristics of the American
theatre? What, for example, about realism and naturalism
on our stage?

H C. First of all, from the time O'Neill came on the scene, there has
been much more emphasis on naturalism and realism with us
than in the English theatre. The English have a tendency to
revert back to the models of classic theatre, they tend to fall
back on rhetoric and elocution. In this respect, the French are
like the English. They too rely on beautiful elocution, on witty
speech and clever writing.

Since about 1915, our own theatre has more and more de-
veloped in the direction of realism, of mirroring actuality.
This tendency has been urged along to a great extent by the
influence of the movies, which actually photograph reality. In
the old days, when we wanted a fat man on stage, we made
one, padding the actor's clothes and puffing out his cheeks.
In the movies, when they want a fat man, they cast one, and
nowadays we have a tendency to do the same thing in the
theatre. This has its bad aspects as well as good. It requires
fine art to project the illusion of a fat man when the actor him-
self is thin, and this art can be lost.

Incidentally, "realism" and "naturalism" are very often used
as synonyms. There's a difference. Sound realism tries to

73

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

11. D/no D/luco, Jose* Perez,
oncf Shirley Booth in a scene
from The Time of the Cuckoo,
written by Arthur Laurent*
and directed by Harold C/ur-
man.

Courtesy of Robert Wkitehead Productions. Photo by Vandamm

capture the inner, psychological reality, to create characters
whose behavior we recognize as true to life. Naturalism tries to
recreate just the outward image of reality. You can get natural-
ism in a museum of wax dummies, where every character looks
lifelike and has not a trace of flesh and blood about him.

The English have more naturalism, in a way, offstage than
on. That is, their actors always look like actors, whereas ours
might be taken for longshoremen, truck drivers, businessmen.
The good aspect of our way is that it makes our theatre
more expressive of the times we live in, it brings us closer to
reality when the actors go on stage.

We no longer have so much of the Belasco type of natural-

74

THE DIRECTOR

ism in our scenery. In its day realism brought something vital
in our acting. Now, though, there are people who are rebelling,
who would like more of theatrical artificiality back.

How about pace, Mr. Clurman? Do you think that high speed
is part of our American theatre tradition?

HC. Yes, American plays are paced much faster than English or
French. The way plays are staged aad cut makes them move
more rapidly. In France, as in England, the audiences don't
mind long conversations. Here audiences are bored with talk
unless there's violent stage action to go along with it.

We exaggerate the need for speed. It's as if the only things
we understand are nervously paced. This is a fault, because
often we miss the nuances, the fine artistic points.

You can't dissociate the subject matter from the tempo.
The feeling of a play, the inner rhythm, should set the pace.
Desire Under the Elms has a tempo suited to its feeling. To
speed it up would destroy it. All this business of speed is
silly. Anyone can make a play go fast by simply telling the
actors to talk fast, move fast.

On the question of the feeling of different plays, Mr. Clurman:
Do you think that the style of our theatre can be sharply
separated from the plays it deals with?

HC. No, they go very much together. This is so much the case
that when we do Shakespeare, whose approach to life was so
different from our own, we're at a loss as to how to tackle him,
and we fall back on English-inspired productions. Our Amer-
ican actors aren't trained to do Shakespeare, they haven't the
English traditions, social, national, or dramatic. As a result,
they feel uncomfortable and try to imitate the English style.

Would you say then that the American theatre has a single
distinctive style of its own or does it have many styles?

H C. It doesn't have enough different styles, it lacks variety. We
have a musical-comedy style, and a non-musical style. All our
styles tend to come back to one, to realism. The minute you get
away from a straight story, our audiences tend to become

75

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

bewildered. Wilder's Skin of Our Teeth, for instance, which
had a fantastic quality, threw them. In Death of a Salesman,
however, both the dream and life sequences were presented in
a purely literal, realistic way, and the audiences had no dif-
ficulty in following the transitions.

There are many more styles in the theatre than you can see
in a Broadway season. We don't often see eighteenth-century
comedies like those of Congreve because the style is too arti-
ficial for us. We can't do Strindberg's Spook Sonata because
that has to be done in an expressionist way, and expressionism
has had little influence on our stage. It was never very strong
here. It made possible some fantastic scenes, but created no
deep impression. Pirandello was likewise never too successful
here, because he can't be played realistically either. And yet, all
these styles should be attempted. They are all part of our
dramatic culture.

We don't even try to experiment with new styles. I'm not
committing myself for Cocteau, but he does represent a modern
style, and it's valid to do that type of play. But we don't do it
because we want everything to be uniform. That isn't a sign of
health in either the theatre or the audience.

Are there any single plays whose style and direction have
greatly influenced the American stage?

H C. Yes. Broadway and The Front Page both made a great impres-
sion in the 'twenties. Their hard-hitting speed and realism had
great influence. Recently, The Member of the Wedding has
made people realize that a play needn't have speed if it has
mood and character.

Do you think our theatre is as near dying as some people
feel, Mr. Clurman? Or does it seem to you to have enough
vigor to stay alive for a while?

HC. It is vigorous in so far as we have a number of playwrights
who are writing serious plays. Clifford Odets, Tennesee Wil-
liams, Arthur Miller, Lillian Hellman, William Inge, and Arthur
Laurents as a group represent an attempt to mirror American
life. In this sense we're more vigorous than England, which
since Shaw's death has only Christopher Fry. The French have

76

THE D1EECTOK

produced no playwrights who interest us except Giraudoux,
Sartre, and Anouilh. And the latter isn't liked here. His basic
feeling is a bitter one, and both his American-produced plays
were failures.

But we don't have a permanent company, or a national
theatre, or a theatre devoted to classics. There is less variety in
the American theatre, there is less production in general. France
has twice as many theatres as we do, always operating, England
and Germany have very important theatres in the provinces.
Our road is weak and almost completely dependent on Broad-
way.

Another weakness of ours is that our actors don't get enough
of a chance to play in the theatre. They have to get jobs in the
movies, radio, and television, so that very few have a chance
to develop as interestingly as actors should.

We hear a great many complaints, Mr. Clurman, that few
good plays are being written. What do you think stops them
from being written? Is it lack of talent, fear of censorship?

HC. It isn't true that no good plays are being written. Several
good plays are produced each season. What many people really
complain about is that not enough plays are sure to make
money. We exhaust our playwrights. We don't give them the
time or opportunity to grow. We insist that all plays be
successes or masterpieces.

Then, we don't supplement new plays by old plays. Mu-
seums are full of "old" art, orchestras play Mozart symphonies
as well as the newest compositions. We enjoy and understand
them more with each experience. Plays are also works of art that
should be produced again and again. European theatres insist
on old plays. In England, John Gielgud has done only one or
two new plays in ten years, and can depend successfully on
putting on old ones.

Our playwrights work under still another handicap. There's
a kind of censorship that affects them not only politically, but
with regard to style, social standards as shown in the moral
behavior of the characters, method of dramatic approach. Be-
cause it was different, The Member of the Wedding had dif-
ficulty in finding first a producer and then a theatre. Now

77

JM JUT A V^ 1*1, -f> f> JL JL JO. JCf

1 JK

12. Brandon de W/Jde, Ethel
Wafers, and Jyffe Harm in
a scene from A Member of the
Wedding, written by Carson
AicCi/llers and directed by
Harold C/t/rman.

Courtesy of Robert Whitehead Productions. Photo by Alfredo Valente

producers ask for another play that will be sure-fire like
Member.

Do you feel that just as Broadway producers type-cast actors,
they also tend to choose directors according to type?

HC. Unfortunately, they do. Producers judge a director on the
basis of the plays that he has already done, and they want him
to work in a standard way. After Awake and Sing I was asked to
do only plays with a New York setting. I had a hard time

78

THE DIRECTOR

escaping. I'd like to do any form of play a poetic play, a
musical comedy, anything I thought was good.

How do you think your own methods of direction differ from
those of other directors in the American theatre, Mr.
Clurman?

H C. It's hard for me to say. I always try to direct according to the
content of the play. Therefore the direction must have variety.
Some directors have a tendency to do everything the same way,
whether they're doing a serious drama or musical comedy.

What about your own personal experience, Mr. Clurman? Do
you think your being an actor was an advantage?

H C. It's useful to be an actor, but it isn't essential. What is essential
is to live backstage. There's no such thing as becoming just a
director. You have to go through activity in the theatre. You
have to experience some aspect of theatre life such as stage
managing, designing, producing, etc. I have taught directors
through work in the Group. The Group, incidentally, immersed
its members in backstage life, and with all its weaknesses was
one of the greatest influences on the American theatre. It had
an enormous effect, and developed outstanding talent of many
kinds.

To anyone who wants to become a director, I'd say that the
best way is to get a job in the theatre and watch directors at
work. See a play not once, for enjoyment, but many times, to
study it. Work in a community, get small parts as an actor, and
read and think over everything that's been written on the
subject.

79

How to Cast a Play

MARGARET WEBSTER

In both England and the United States, Margaret
Webster has directed plays of the great dramatists
of the English stage, from Shakespeare's Hamlet,
Othello, The Tempest, and Richard II, to Shaw's
Saint Joan. She has also directed modern plays,
and has staged such operas for the Metropolitan
Opera Company as Verdfs Don Carlo and Aida.
A fine actress herself, she is always interested in
discovering talent that is still unrecognized. When
we interviewed her, she had just finished audi-
tioning several actors, not for any specific play,
but for the purpose of discovering people she might
cast in later productions.

Miss Webster, how does one become a director?

MW. (throwing up her hands): I could speak for hours about
that and you want a one-minute answer!

Well, you become a director by learning to do everything.
You should have some acting experience. You needn't be a great
actor, but you must know what an actor has to do. You must
know how to tackle all problems, from high finance and diplo-
macy to the proverbial "sweeping the stage." You must be pre-
pared to do anything and everything in the theatre. Stage
managing, prompting, everything.

Once you consider yourself a director, you have to convince
a producer that you are one. That isn't so easy. There is no
short cut to getting a job. Many directors graduate from the
stage management field, and from writing their own plays or
producing them.

Does a director attempt all types of plays, or stick to one form?

M W. That depends on the individual. Most directors handle better
those plays for which they not only have sympathy, but with
whose background material they have some familiarity and

80

THE DIRECTOB

Courtesy of New York City Theatre Company* Photo by Hahman

13. Maurice Evans (front), Marsha Hunt (center rear), and mem-
bers of the supporting cast In a scene from George Bernard
Shaw's The Devil's Disciple, in production directed by Margaret
Webster.

personal experience. Their imagination is more active with such
plays. Other directors take a less subjective attitude, they
tackle anything that comes their way.

How can young people put on Shakespeare, Shaw, and Ibsen
so that the plays seem to be alive, and not museum pieces?

M W. By making the plays come alive for themselves first. By
studying not only the plays, but the period in which they were
written, the life of the people. By treating the characters as
human beings.

When you direct a play, and plan the action, do you know just
how the stage will be set?

81

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

M W. In almost every detail. I plan the action very carefully be-
forehand. It is absolutely essential for the director to work
very closely with the designer from the beginning.

How do you select actors? By reputation, or by experience?

M W. All the people concerned in the play author, producer, di-
rector, and so on make up a list of actors. Generally, casting
agents are consulted. Usually we have a good idea of whom
we want in the leading roles. Sometimes we get recommenda-
tions, or we know the personal quality of the actor. We attend
off -Broadway performances to look for actors. The Theatre
Guild has a casting director and several scouts. But generally
a number of auditions and/or interviews are held for the
smaller parts. In most cases, a director will not audition actors
except for a specific play. In this respect, my auditions of a
few moments ago were exceptions to the rule, for they were in
response to letters or recommendations I had received and
had no special purpose.

Acting is a heartbreaking profession, and there is not nearly
enough employment. In fact, anyone who wants to go into the
professional theatre in any capacity had better think twice
about it. I believe that no brilliant talent really gets blocked.
But I also believe that a great deal of run-of-the-mill talent is
completely lost in the shuffle.

How can you tell talent in an actor?

M W. When you go to the theatre, how do you explain why you
like a performance? There's no easy way to tell. After a while,
with experience, you develop a sixth sense about acting, and you
can judge quickly whether an actor has the personal quality
necessary for a part and is also able to project it to an audience.
The latter qualification is harder to judge under the quite
different and special conditions of a reading or audition.

Can you tell much from the way an actor reads a script?

M W. Sometimes. But often a man or woman who reads well can't
go much further than this first impression, and at times a bad
reader turns out to be the more sensitive.

82

THE DIRECTOR

Miss Webster, do you think that British young people are more
actively interested in the living theatre than American
youngsters?

M W. As audiences, yes. As participants, no.

To get back to that high finance that a director must know
about. Are directors well paid? And is it on a fee or a
royalty basis?

MW. Pay varies, depending on the individual, and a director is
usually paid both a fee and a royalty. But don't get illusions
about directing being a road to riches. The directing field is
not as crowded as the acting field, but it is unusual for a
young director to get a Broadway assignment.

If Broadway assignments are hard to get, do you think that
more directors should go out of town and help high-school
and college theatres put on plays?

M W. I myself used to direct amateur and school or college groups.
That is one way in which a person with capacity can learn a
great deal, and there is a definite value in the exchange of
experience between professionals and non-professionals.

But once a director has attained experience, he wants to
direct and get the best result in terms of standard. And you
see the highest standards, necessarily, with professional actors,
who have spent their lives learning their craft.

From the amateur's point of view, isn't it a good idea to have
at least one professional on the staff?

MW. Yes, the professional has breadth of knowledge, he is ac-
customed to Higher standards. When no one knows anything
and sometimes that's the case in the amateur theatre no one
learns anything. Amateurs should have help from someone
who has had experience in the theatre, whether as actor or
director, from someone who has objective judgement. High-
school students, for instance, may be told by their friends and
relatives that they're wonderful actors, that they should be on
Broadway, and so on. These opinions may be slightly biased.

83

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

Before getting delusions of grandeur, the students, for their
own good, had better get some objective criticism from an
honest professional.

Community theatres face many dangers. One of the first is
that they're not clear what they want. What are their aims
to develop new writing talent, or acting talent? To make a
contribution to society? Or simply to have fun? If the first,
then they should concentrate on new plays. If the second,
then they'll work mostly with well-established plays. It's easier
to give good performances in such plays. It isn't easy for an
amateur to create a new role in an untested play. The third
may lead to professionalism in the end, the fourth is an end
in itself.

Another danger facing community theatres is that they
sometimes tend to think that they are perfect, that the com-
mercial theatre has nothing to offer.

Can the commercial theatre do anything to correct this de-
lusion? Can it help young theatre people in general?

MW. It can, by getting good productions to their communities.
That isn't easy. The expense and difficulty of taking the
theatre off the beaten track of the biggest cities make touring
a tremendous risk. The theatre has to evolve new methods of
getting back to the road. But this is also a two-way process.
The public has to demand good plays, and be willing to
support them by securing advance subscriptions, including
low-cost student subscriptions.

There are endless problems involved. And you can take
everything I've said as no more than an indication of their
nature. To explore any aspect of the subject thoroughly, I
would have to pre-empt your entire book.

84

THE SCENE AND COSTUME DESIGNER

Is THE SCENE DESIGNER necessary in the theatre?

There are people who think he isn't. Some individuals claim
that more plays have been hurt by scenery than have been
helped by it. They point to the ancient Greek theatre, which
started with only an altar of Dionysus and never had very
much scenery, and yet was one of the world's greatest theatres.
They refer you to Shakespeare's apron stage, where the actors
were often without benefit of scenery altogether (although
they did wear elaborate costumes, and there was always
scenery on the inner stages), the place of action being an-
nounced by a mere sign.

These arguments convince few people. A producer who is
desperately trying to cut costs never eliminates scenery and
costumes. When a play is done on a bare stage or in modern
dress it is chiefly for experimental reasons, and not to reduce
expenses. And the very people who talk with regret of the
theatres of the past do not suggest that we stage all our plays
with masks, as the Greeks did, or tear a hole in the roof to
let the rain come in, as it did on Shakespeare's audiences.

Scenery has a very important part to play in the modern
theatre, not only to create illusion in the spectators, but for
an additional purpose. You must remember that the task of
creating illusion belongs chiefly to the actors. It is they who
convince an audience that the play takes place in a Siamese
palace, or a London drawing room, or a tropical jungle. Un-
less they are skilled enough to do so, the audience will keep
remembering that the supposed palace or jungle is nothing
more than painted canvas on the lighted stage of a darkened
theatre, But in order that the actors may convince the au-
diencewho will first convince the actors?

That is one purpose of the scenery and costumes, and,
according to Stanislavsky, the main purpose (although few
designers would agree with him). An actor with sufficient
genius may be able, by the power of his unaided imagination,
to transform himself into any character, anywhere, without

85

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

scenery or special costume. But a more ordinary actor needs
some help. We may say, inverting Shakespeare, that all the
stage is a world. The actor cannot entirely believe it is the
world in which he is a Danish prince or an English farmer or
an American sailor unless it looks and feels the part.

The more removed the setting is from the ordinary life of
actors and audience, the greater the need for imaginative
scenery. To create the illusion of a business office, all you
need is a desk, a couple of chairs, and a few telephones. To
create the appearance of a modern factory, you need a lathe
or two, or the suggestion of an assembly line. But to build
the palace of a king of Siam, the imagination of actors and
audience requires considerable help. So, for that matter, does
the imagination of the scene designer, who must do a great
deal of research to learn what a Siamese palace actually
looked like.

The scene designer first reads and studies the play. He
must decide what action and what moods he wants to em-
phasize with his scenery. All designers know how to create
striking effects, how to make audiences gasp. But a striking
effect must not be obtained at the expense of the actors and
the play itself. Actors and audience must be influenced by
the set and then accept it without being continually disturbed
by it, any more than you are continually distracted by the
furnishings of your own home. The set exists for the sake of
the play, and not the other way around.

How does the designer create environment, or "flavor," or
whatever he seeks?

First, he must decide what the playwright's purpose is in
each case. His decision will depend on his ideas concerning
the theatre in general and the given play in particular. If the
play is Romeo and Juliet, for instance, one American designer
might be most impressed by the tragedy caused by love;
another might see chiefly the power of hate to corrupt the
lives of innocent victims; while a Soviet designer might see
the characters in the grip of vast social forces they do not
understand. If Shakespeare were alive, he might disagree with
all of them. But, as Shakespeare is dead, he needn't be con-
sulted.

The director, however, must be consulted, and so must an
author who is present and living. If the playwright's purpose

86

THE SCENE AND : COSTUME DESIGNER

14. Sfage designer Jo
Miefz/ner (Yignf), director
Alan Schneider (second
from left), members of
the faculty, and students
discuss sef for a new play
erf Catholic University.

Courtesy of Catholic University

is systematically altered, the result may not be what he in-
tended, but it may still be interesting and moving (think of
the production of Julius Caesar in modern dress, for instance).
If, however, designer, director, and author all move in dif-
ferent directions, the play will not merely be distorted, it will
be wrecked.

Having decided what he must emphasize, the designer will
sketch the different settings roughly, in black and white. He
may note what objects should be in the set, and what colors
and lighting effects he will want.

This too, of course, will be done in consultation with the
director, as well as with the producer and possibly the author.
If there is agreement on the nature of the settings, the de-
signer will carry out the necessary research in museums and
books, and wherever else he finds it convenient, and make
detailed scale drawings and ground plans. He may construct
a tiny model of the most important or complicated set, and
the director may run through the play within the model, pos-
sibly using doll characters that can be moved about by hand.

87

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

If the drawing and model are satisfactory, the designer
will now make water-color sketches. If there is time, most
designers will also do the costumes and the lighting as well
as the sets, in order to insure that costumes and sets work
together to achieve the desired result. If the sets themselves
take up too much of his time, the designing of the costumes
may be assigned to others.

The actual scenery will be created from the working draw-
ings and model, and then painted in the manner shown by
the water colors. But before paints are applied or fabrics used,
they must be tested under the various lights to which the sets
will be subjected. Paints and fabrics sometimes change color
under lights of different kinds as unexpectedly as if they were
experiencing human emotions.

The designer will carefully supervise the actual creation by
carpenters and painters of the sets he has sketched, and will
then plot the lighting. By this time, the actors are far along in
their rehearsals. It would be desirable for the designer to see
the actors in contact with his scenery, to decide once more
whether his work is satisfactory and to alter it if it is not. If
he works for the off-Broadway stage, he may be able to do so.
But on Broadway it is by now usually too late. Whether the sets
are appropriate or not, the production is stuck with them.

At most, the designer may make minor changes. Usually
he will be able to make drastic and expensive alterations
only if there have been radical revisions of the script. And
this will be the case only if producer and director have de-
cided that the situation is desperate and that the expense
of a new setting is inevitable.

So much, then, for the technical process of designing. But
there are many artistic problems to the choice of design, and
these influence the technical methods all along.

Suppose you are designing for a community theatre. Only
rarely will you have at your disposal either the money or the
trained professional workers of the commercial producer. Hence
you will be forced to simplify as much as possible.

Some community theatres substitute drapes for setting.
Drapes are simple, inexpensive, and as conventional as the
screens of the Chinese theatre. They have a neutral effect;
they do not destory illusion, as a bare stage does, but, on
the other hand, neither do they create it, as a setting does.

88

THE SCENE AND COSTUME DESIGNER

Thus, a company acting before drapes starts off under a
definite handicap. If the play is not too difficult and the
actors not too unskilled, however, drapes may suffice for an
enjoyable production.

If you are dissatisfied with drapes, you may try to intro-
duce simple, symbolic scenery. The effectiveness of such
scenery will depend greatly on the mood of the play. If the
play is modern and realistic, the setting had better be fairly
realistic too. But if the play is poetic, or the time and place
of action are far removed from our own ancient Greece, for
example the unfamiliar costumes will themselves suggest the
scene, and the illusion will be strengthened by a simple set
which portrays an altar to one of the gods, the throne of a
king, and so on.

However, such settings depend greatly for their mood on
the lighting, and the effort that can be saved in the con-
struction of drops and flats must be made up for by great
skill and artistry in the use of a complicated lighting system.
And many community groups have only the simplest lights.

If your community theatre has painters and carpenters who
can create more elaborate sets, you can get a closer approach
to realism. No community group aims any longer at the
Belasco type of naturalism, in which the stage is cluttered up
with a complete replica of a farmhouse, ship, etc. You select
those portions of the actual scene that you need, and you
modify them for stage purposes.

You don't use actual wallpaper, for instance the spectators
are too far away, and the details of the design will be lost to
them. Instead you paint your flats with an enlarged design
to give the effect of wallpaper. You don't show a kitchen with
all the pots and pans, all the boxes and containers of food,
that a real kitchen would have. You show only as many as are
needed to convince the audience that the scene is a kitchen.
You simplify, both to make your work of set construction
easier, and to keep from drowning your scenes with unneces-
sary detail.

If the production is to be stylized, you not only simplify
most of the details, but you exaggerate some feature of the
set. Here, however, you must be warned that you are playing
with fire. Exaggerate the size of a spider web in a corner, use
dim lights, and you may convey a mood of gloom and neglect

89

LETS MEET THE THEAT1E

and also, without intending to, an impression of artiness
and absurdity. Scatter large frisking lambs over your walls,
toss a huge Teddy bear into the center of a rug, and you make
it clear perhaps painfully so that the scene is a happy nursery.

Stylization and "expressionism" have, in the views of many
professionals, been among the more distressing ailments which
have afflicted American amateur and community theatres.
They seem so easy, their effects are so simple to produce!
Build a crooked door or window, have your chimneys and
lamp posts leaning at odd angles and presto, you have "poetry"
and "art" in your production!

It usually doesn't work out quite that way. Nevertheless,
if you are putting on an expressionist play (and there are a
few such plays that do retain their interest), a realistic setting
is out of place. You will have to risk the pitfalls of expression-
ist design.

Courtesy of Kermit Bloomgarden. Photo by Eileen Darby, Graphic House

75. Stage sef designed by Jo Mielziner for Arthur Miller's
Death of a Salesman.

90

THE SCENE AND COSTUME DESIGNER

Remember, then, that the exaggeration of some features
implies the complete neglect of others, so that in this case too
you can often simplify set-building. But, again, any simplifica-
tion of the work of carpenters and painters must be made up
for by great skill in designing what set there is, and by
careful handling of the lights. You must have an eye for the
contrast of light and dark, of one color with another, of one
shape with another. You must remember that you are designing
for the actors, and that no scene is complete without them.
And, once more, you must never forget that one lapse of taste,
one exaggeration of the wrong kind, may make your entire
production ridiculous.

If you want to design for the stage, you have good reason
to study architecture. The designers are the architects, as Lee
Simonson has called them, of stage space. A century ago,
designers were scene painters. The stage setting consisted of
flats, and the living actors, along with their own flickering
shadows and the shadows of the furniture, mingled with the
painted people and the fixed shadows on the flats. In those
days, an actor would pretend to lean for support on the
painted pillar of a building. Nowadays, audiences would laugh
at such a sight, and anything the actor is to lean on must be
solid and three-dimensional.

With the extension of scene designing into three dimen-
sions, lighting took on a new importance. The art of lighting
began when theatres were moved indoors and performances
were given at night. Gradually, designers learned how to
heighten the effect of their settings by centering all the lights
on the stage, leaving the audience in relative darkness. Dur-
ing the past half-century, the art of lighting has grown tre-
mendously. OIL some stages, as in theatre-in-the-round, light
serves as the curtain which separates actors and audience. It
begins and ends scenes. It changes the entire effect of scenery
and costumes from one moment to another.

Many different kinds of lights are now used footlights,
which illuminate the actors from below; border lights, from
the side and from above; focusing spotlights, which direct
sharp beams; and soft-focus spotlights, which cast a directed
but more diffused light. The art of proper manipulation of
lights cannot be learned offhand, and in a community theatre
any amateur in charge of lighting had better do a great deal

91

:*==:s|".v.=r.:

No, 619
CONNICTOR STRIP

No. 610
SOROERLIGHT

16. A lighting board of the
type used In some high schools.

Courtesy of Kliegl Bros. Lighting

of experimenting before settling on the final lighting scheme
for any play.

The center of illumination must be the actors. Thus, most
stages need to be lighted at the bottom (where the set forms
a background for those characters who do not fly or mount
stairways, etc. ) and the center, toward which the actors tend
to gravitate. A long finger of light pointing downward gives
the effect of depth, while a horizontal shaft, which leaves the
space above it dark and mysterious, may emphasize the small-
ness and loneliness of the setting. The pattern of light may
change sharply as there is a sharp change in the mood of the

92

No. 832
F O T I I 6 H T

No 43M

f SIS Ml t, SPOTLIGHT

No. 1365
KL1EGLIGHT

No. 1155
FLOODLIGHT

No. 533
FLOODLIGHT.

No. N-6
K I I E G L A D D E R

THE SCENE AND COSTUME DESIGNER

play; or it may alter so slowly and imperceptibly that the
audience doesn't realize it is changing at all and thus help-
ing the tension to mount toward a climax.

The scene designer may use lights to solve the problems
posed by exteriors, which are usually more troublesome than
interior sets. The attempt to create the illusion of distance
by the use of perspective has always run into difficulties. For '
one thing, perspective that is correct from a seat in the front

of the orchestra mav be seriously distorted from a seat in a

j f

balcony. It is usually safer to rely on atmospheric perspective,
which creates the effect of distance by the increased blurring
of details. As we recede into the background, the lighting be-
comes dimmer, and at a certain point a gauze drop still further
conceals the details of the scene.

Along with a knowledge of lighting must go a knowledge of
how to paint sets. In stage scenery, every type of material-
wood, steel, concrete, brick is simulated with paint. But the
paint must not only give the appearance of the genuine ma-
terial. If it covers a large and prominent area it must create
an interesting surface in its own right. Thus, a red background,
for instance, is never painted a single shade of red, for this
would look dull and drab, and it would seem to lose intensity
as the light altered. (The nature of the light always varies
slightly, due to such causes as fluctuations of the line voltage,
aging of lamps, etc.) Instead, the flats are painted with many
washes of red which differ from one another in shade and
value, or different colors are stippled in against the red back-
ground. This gives the effect of a rich texture which does not
lose its effect as the light varies.

One thing that every designer must take into account is
the size of the stage on which the play is to be given. No
two commercial theatres are built to the same dimensions.
And a designer for a community theatre, which must often
rely on whatever stage it can find in auditoriums or high
schools, is in an even worse fix than the commercial designer.
The stage may be far too small, and there may be practically
no space for the storage of scenery. This is the more common

17. Various types of sfcrge
lights that can be used in
school productions. See also
top and bottom of page 92.

93

No. 353/955G

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

18. Lighting a sfage set.

Courtesy of Goodman Memorial Theatre

case, and when you are faced with a situation of this sort
you have no choice but to simplify your scenery to the limit,
cut down the size of your borders, and try by every means
possible, including type of design and method of lighting, to
give the illusion of more space than you have.

Once in a while, however, you will have a stage that is
too big, one that dwarfs your players and makes them look
lost. Here, of course, you try to give the illusion that your
stage isn't so big after all. But you have, in addition, another
choice. On a large stage you can arrange several sets, and you
can shunt the action from one to another, as was done on the

94

THE SCENE AND COSTUME DESIGNEB

Elizabethan stage, without any delay for scene shifting. The
trick again lies in skill and simplicity of design, and in the
effective use of lighting.

Not only the stage, but the orchestra and the balconies,
must be taken into account. Half your effects will be wasted
if the audience at the sides of the theatre or in the balconies
cannot see a good part of the sets. Before settling on your
final design, consider the sight lines from every part of the
theatre.

As a designer for a noncommercial theatre you may have
to depend on amateur stage hands. That is another reason for
keeping your scenery simple and the flats small On the other
hand, if you design a single set that can be left permanently
on stage, you won't have to worry about limiting the width
of your flats to five feet nine, which is the maximum that
will permit the flat to be loaded conveniently on a box car
for touring.

When it comes to costumes, you must have a considerable
knowledge of the fabrics that can be used to imitate the
clothes of different periods. The most important thing about
stage clothing is that it helps create the role of the actor. For
this purpose, less depends on the color pattern (although this
must be effective and must either harmonize or contrast prop-
erly with the scenery) than on the manner in which a garment
drapes the figure. It is this, more than any other aspect of a
costume, that gives both the actor and the audience the feeling
of a character. A costume must not be so awkward as to
prevent the person wearing it from moving properly. On the
other hand, discomfort may be a part of the effect you want.

For instance, the ruff that a dandy wore in Shakespeare's
day will choke a modern actor almost to death; but it will
also force him to keep his head up and impose the proper
dandyish manner upon him, just as a whalebone corset will
give the proper feeling of old-fashioned artificiality and im-
prisonment to an actress accustomed to the greater freedom
of modern clothes.

You see that although the scene and costume designer
must start from the loftiest considerations of the meaning of
drama, and of the proper use of light and space, none of his
intentions can be realized without an intimate and thorough
knowledge of a great number of practical details the nature

95

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

19. Walter Hampden In cos-
fume for The Crucible.

Courtesy of Kermh Bloomgarden. Photo by Alfredo Valente

of flats, which are bolted to the floor, and of drops, which
hang down from near the ceiling-the functions of different
kinds of lights, paints and fabrics, and so on. The designer
must be continually immersed in what seem like trifles, with-
out forgetting the larger purpose of what he is doing-that he
is working with inanimate materials to create a world for living
actors.

Perhaps something of what he has to do can be made
clearer by presenting at this point interviews with Howard
Bay and Mordecai Gorelik, two designers who are among the
most respected in the American theatre.

96

What Every Young Designer

Should Know

HOWARD BAY

If you follow the reviews of Broadway plays, you
have proabably come across the name of Howard
Bay over so long a period that you think he is
one of the older generation of stage designers. He
is nothing of the kind. Although he has been active
in the theatre for years, he is still one of its
younger artists. We interviewed him immediately
after the final rehearsal of Two on the Aisle, with
frequent interruptions because of the need to make
last-minute corrections and changes in the sets.

What do you have to "know to become a scene designer?

HB. Standard art training is essential However, that isn't even
the minimum. You'll have to study the architecture of different
periods, so that no matter where and when the scenes of your
play are laid, you'll be capable of designing appropriate
scenery. But you'll have to know more than just the architec-
ture of a given period. Haunt the museums, read books, find
out how the people lived. Learn enough so that, if necessary,
you'll be able to stage Shakespeare as he was staged in
Elizabethan England.

Then as a stage designer you must do considerable research?

H B. Yes and, most important of all, you must never stop doing it.
Not just in museums, but in the day-to-day living habits of
the people of your own times. Develop a third eye which auto-
matically retains all impressions of how different people live,
how they dress, how they furnish their homes. Sooner or later,
the most unexpected bits of information may turn out to be
useful.

But primarily you must be an artist?

97

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

HB. An artist and a craftsman both. And you must know some-
thing about science. About paints, for instance. Scenic paint-
ing is a highly skilled art, with many differences from easel
painting. So far as I know, there is no school that teaches it,
and it can be learned only in the studios where the work is
done.

YouTl have to know something about electricity, in order
to be able to handle the lighting of your sets. Some productions
have special lighting experts, and some of these, like Jean
Rosenthal of the New York City Center, are fine artists. But
you shouldn't have to rely upon anyone else. In general,
you're responsible for lighting the play whose sets you have
designed. You must know how to handle a switchboard, and
how to handle lighting effects so as to get the exact result
that you want.

It doesrit sound easy. Are all scenic designers so capable?

H B. Of course, not all are on the same level, but there are really
no incompetent scenic designers in the professional theater.
We the Scenic Designers Union take care of that. Member-
ship is open to everybody who can pass the qualifications
and pay the initiation fee. But those qualifications are set
deliberately high. An actor can get by for a time on looks or
personality, a producer on the ability to raise money. But
scenic designers must know their business from the start.

Is it worth knowing from the financial point of view?

HB. It is, these days. Television has meant considerable work
for scenic artists.

Designing for television must usually be more like designing
for a musical comedy or revue than for a nonmusical drama.
Are these sets more difficult to handle?

HB. Sometimes. The revues are much more difficult to design
than musical comedies. There is greater stylistic latitude in
musicals. They have a book which provides a certain unity of
conception from one scene to the next. But revues lack this

98

Courtesy of Theatre Arts Magazine. Photo by Walter Rvsenblum

20. Stage design by Howard Bay for a scene In the 1946 revival of Show
Boat, by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammersteln IL

Courtesy of Theatre Arts Magazine. Photo by Vandamm

27. Stage set by Howard Bay for Come Back, Little Sheba, by William
Inge.

LET'S MEET THE THEAT1E

unity. You finish one revue scene, and you begin the next
from scratch.

What about designing for school and community theatres?
Where can you learn that?

HB. Partly in the theatres themselves. These theatres don't face
exactly the same problems we face on Broadway. And with
all their disadvantages, they have the one great advantage
that their labor, being voluntary, doesn't shoot expenses up
too high. The materials, lumber and so on, are relatively inex-
pensive.

Remember too that the noncommercial theatres are at
least to some extent experimental theatres, and their scenic
artists must experiment too. They have no need for elaborate
sets. They can paint scenery on a simpler scale, and while
painting they can learn.

Don't universities with theatre departments have professors
who can teach scene designing?

H B. If there are professors who have worked as scenic designers
themselves, fine. Unfortunately, there aren't many.

Then you have a low opinion of university and other non-
Broadway theatres?

HB* Oh, no. Not in general. I have a low opinion of them when
they're not as good as they should be when they try to ape
Broadway, instead of striking out for themselves, and succeed
only in aping its weaknesses and not its strength.

I think that's the big danger that these theatres face-
imitating other theatres. And for their scene designers, here's
one special form of this danger I'd like to warn against
"artiness." The theatre is an art, yes, and scene designing is a
part of that art, but don't try to imitate "arty" settings. I've
seen a bad imitation ruin an entire production.

On Broadway, we've had productions ruined by bad writ-
ing, bad acting, bad directing, bad producing but not so
often, I'm happy to say, by bad scene designing.

100

The Designer As Creative Artist

MORDECAI GORELIK

Mordecai Gorelik designed the scenery for such
plays as Processional, Men in White, Golden Boy,
and All My Sons, and for such movies as None
But the Lonely Heart and Give Us This Day.
Author of the book New Theatres for Old, and of
the article on Theatre in the Encyclopedia Amer-
icana, he has been a Fellow of both the Guggen-
heim and the Rockefeller Foundations, and was
sent to Europe by the National Theatre Conference
to study the conditions of the theatre abroad.

What is the best way to learn stage designing?

MG. The American universities give good courses in stagecraft.
But we underestimate what theory means in relation to prac-
tice. I had an example of this when I taught design to G.I.'s
at the American University at Biarritz. I talked to them about
dramatic metaphor the poetic relationship of the setting to
the theme. But too many were interested only in knowing how
to get stage effects.

We Americans are pragmatic, we want to get things done
but we sometimes forget that things can't be done right
unless we understand the theory as well as the practice of
what we're doing.

Can you show how that applies in designing a set?

MG. If I were running a class, the first thing I'd ask a student
designer is: "What do you contribute to the production?" It
isn't enough to contribute atmosphere. A set is made for living
actors, and I'd make clear to the students that they can't
begin to design until they know what the actors are going to
do in relation to the setting.

In other words, you must know the script thoroughly?

101

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

MG. More than that, I must direct it in my own mind. The
director then works out the action on the basis of my model,
about which, of course, we have consulted in advance. The
designer's direction is in some ways more complete than the
director's direction. The director spends the four weeks of
rehearsal making discoveries, and he may end up with a totally
different conception from the one he started with, because
the four weeks haven't been merely a mechanical unfolding
of what he planned, The designer, on the other hand, has to
have his conception complete before rehearsals start. In some
ways, therefore, he has to be a better guesser than the director.

Courtesy of ANTA

22. Stage design by Mordecai Gore/fJc for Desire Under the Elms, by

Eugene O'Neill.

102

THE SCENE AND COSTUME DESIGNER
Does the director realize that?

M G. Usually. But few others do. I am convinced that not many
critics or producers, for example, have any real notion of what
the designer is doing for or against the play.

Can a young designer in a community theatre be of value to
the production?

MG. More than many people realize. The setting has a subtle
influence on the play, and on people's reaction to it. Before
a youngter starts to make a drawing, he should ask himself
what the play will mean to the audience. He must keep in
mind what interesting points the play makes scenically, and
what he can contribute to these.

He must remember that a set is environment. It may be
a house that people have built, as in All My Sons, or a
hospital where they work, as in Men in White. Environment
is something more concrete than "atmosphere." Environment
affects the lives of people, and people in turn make their
impression on environment.

I like actors to come into contact with the scenery, and
I therefore tend to put scenery in the middle of the stage,
where the actors can deal with it and feel an immediate
relationship to it.

How about designers in Europe, Mr. Gorelik? How do they
compare with ours?

MG. Design in Europe is on a high level, and there is a more
solid understanding of the designer's contribution. In some
ways designers have it easier there because they do not work
under such great financial strain as we do here. Here, at
every turn, we must think of how to cut costs.

In the 'twenties and 'thirties Europe experimented with
different forms of stylized theatre and produced outstanding
designers and directors. The technique used by these was
known as "theatricalist," because it emphasized the theatrical
aspects of the play. Theatricalism was opposed to the "picture-
frame" or "fourth-wall" stage; it believed in getting back to

103

'LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

Courtesy of ANT A. Pboio by Guy Gillette

23. Setting up the scenery for the American production of L'Ecoie des
Femmes (School for Wives), by Moliere, which was performed by o
French company starring Louis Jouvet.

the old platform theatre, as in Shakespeare's day. And it was
responsible for many brilliant productions.

But they dont produce in the same way now, do they?

MG. No, the era of brilliant technical experiment seems to have
passed. In Western Europe and America we seem to have
returned to an attenuated sort of naturalism, except in musical
shows, where theatricalism still has great influence. In Eastern
Europe well, here the whole question of ideology is concerned.
In 1934 the Soviet theatres adopted a policy which was called
"socialist realism" (which, they explained, means that the
plays have to be "realistic in technique and socialist in

104

THE SCENE AND COSTUME DESIGNER

content"). This means that they expect plays to have a
perspective of social, economic and political explanation. And
that applies to design, too: for instance, a setting of the Middle
Ages may stress the military basis of feudal architecture.

On the one hand, they are against what they now call
"formalism" and "faddism," meaning technical brilliance which
shows itself off at the expense of the content of the plays.
On the other hand, they object to the naturalism of Antoine
and Belasco as producing mere facsimiles, giving no insight
into the meaning of environment. I am told that Belasco
once reproduced an Automat in its entirety. Audiences gasped
in admiration at the lifelike quality of the setting. But his
sort of naturalism is objected to by Soviet designers. They
call it a kind of snapshot which tells nothing about the Automat
as a social phenomenon. Furthermore, their designers look
upon environment as being always in process of change
which is the reason, perhaps, why so many designs of the
Soviet theatre of the theatricalist period were conspicuously
dynamic. But the doctrine of socialist realism is still being
fought over in Eastern Europe, and how the whole thing
has worked out in practice I don't know. I didn't visit the
Soviet theatre on my trip.

But you did see most of the rest of Europe?

MG. I visited nine countries, from Ireland to Poland. Italy has
a few good theatres, but, in general, their theatre work is
below the level of their best movies. There is very interesting
theatre in Berlin and Munich. Both Central and Eastern
Europe have decentralized theatres, meaning that there are
fine companies outside the large cities. You can get recog-
nition by working in the smaller cities. In Eastern Europe the
dramatic companies are well subsidized, and are further aided
by national campaigns to organize and increase the size of
audiences. Ticket prices are low to start with, and factory
workers and students get seventy per cent discounts. Our
American theatre, too, needs that kind of support or it will
not survive.

Don't toe also have playwrights, producers, actors, and de-

105

LET'S MEET THE THEATBE

signers, who get recognition by working in out smaller
cities?

MG. True, but to a lesser extent, and with us Broadway usually
remains the goal. However, I think that even in our own
country, decentralization has to a large extent already been
accomplished. And my impression is that theatre is healthier
when it is decentralized. Of course, the quality of theatre
varies greatly from one community to another. The National
Theatre Conference realizes that there is still much to do
here, and that is one reason they sent me abroad, to learn
what foreign theatres are doing in the face of problems similar
to their own.

And you think that the picture is encouraging?

MG. It is if we take a serious attitude toward the theatre and
work hard for it. It begins to look as if Broadway is in for
a long period of discouragement, made even more critical
by high production costs and the competition of TV. This is
the time when the university and community theatres can really
take the initiative, if they can show the capacity and courage
to do worth-while productions not merely warmed-over Broad-
way hits. Production costs are still low in the playhouses
scattered all over the United States, and the local designer
often has a chance to experiment something which Broadway
can rarely afford today.

106

THE ACTOR

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW once remarked that from the point
of view of the author, acting is the art of making an audience
believe that real things are happening to real people. (Oc-
casionally, Shaw might have added, unreal things happening
to unreal animals, such as the lion in his Androcles and the
Lion.} Therefore, the actor's first need is to know how real
people feel and behave.

If you had been in a Moscow streetcar some fifty years
ago, you might have seen two men engaged in a loud argument
over who had stepped on whose foot. Actually, neither man
was guilty. The real culprit was sitting quietly at one side,
noting the way the two angry disputants raised their voices,
held their bodies, expressed their feelings on their faces. He
was an actor, sent out by Stanislavsky to observe people, to
start little arguments and see how his victims reacted. That
was one of the ways in which Stanislavsky trained his actors.

Unfortunately for the actor, real people are not always in-
volved in exciting arguments. Sometimes they behave in very
undramatic ways and seem downright dull that, in fact, is
why many of us go to the theatre to see imaginary people.
Therefore, the actor must know how to arouse an audience's
interest. He must learn a technique, a way of making the
audience pay attention even when he is doing nothing more
exciting than eating an apple, or listening to some other actor
talk.

Acting is thus something different from merely imitating
a real action. How different? Actors disagree violently, and
their disagreement produces many conflicting schools and
methods of training actors. And every school has a different
approach to the many problems that the actor and the direc-
tor must solve.

You are Hamlet, standing downstage that is, near the
audience talking to Polonius, who is upstage. Should you face
the other man, as is natural in ordinary life, and thus deprive
the unfortunate audience of a view of your face? Or should

107

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

you face the audience, and thus seem unnecessarily impolite
to the older man?

In the more or less good old days, the rule was to face
the spectators, who had, after all, paid to see you, and Devil
take the other actors. When actors and audiences learned, to
their astonishment, that there was such a thing as realism,
some actors began to perform "naturally" and turned their
backs on their audiences. Nowadays, the tendency is to eat
half the cake and keep half of it too. That is, the actor finds
some plausible, "realistic" reason why he shouldn't turn his
back completely to the audience. He may turn his face away
because shame keeps him from looking the other man in the
eye. Or he may turn half away to warm his hands at a fire-
place, etc.

Three men find themselves on stage having an intimate
conversation. If they were to perform naturally, they would
group themselves together in one corner and talk in ordinary
tones, that is, loud enough to be heard in the first row
of the orchestra. That, however, would leave most of the
stage empty, and create an unbalanced picture. So the three
men scatter, forming a triangle (they do not stand or sit in
a straight line, as that is also bad stage composition) and do
their talking in loud tones that are supposed to convey the
impression of quiet intimacy.

Now, not every actor can stand upstage center, the most
effective stage position, with every other actor to stare at
him and focus the audience's attention upon him. And in not
every scene can the actors scatter themselves convincingly
over the stage to produce pretty pictures. Thus, if the desire
for effectiveness is carried too far, the audience will not be
convinced that the scene is real, and the very effect aimed at
will be lost.

What is true of the arrangement of actors on the stage
is also true of the use of the voice, of gesture, of bodily
movement. A vocal inflection that is natural may be barely
noticeable, and if noticed may be flat and uninteresting, while
one that is exaggerated may be rejected by the audience as
too "theatrical." At every turn, compromise is necessary.

Exactly where should the compromise be made in the
direction of greater stage effect, or greater realism?

The answer will depend not only on the director and the

108

THE ACTOR

actor but on the play. If the play was written by Aeschylus
or Shakespeare or Moliere, then It was not meant to be acted
realistically. But that does not mean that the actor must not
make his character a "real" person who actually seems to
experience the emotions the playwright has given him. It does
mean that the degree of realism of the acting, as of the setting,
is affected by the playwright's own conception of the char-
acters and by the lines he has written for them. These charac-
ters, though living, are grander, more tragic, more villainous,
or more ridiculous, than life. And now and then they step
partly out of their scenes to confide little secrets to the audience,
in soliloquies or "asides."

Most modern plays are written in a more realistic manner.
They must be played with less obvious exaggeration, or the
characters will seem false and the audience will not believe
in them. This is not true, however, of poetic plays, which must
often be acted in a stylized manner indicated by the play-
wright's dialogue and stage directions.

Granted that as an actor you must give the impression
that you are a real individual the author has created, there
remains the further question: How do you achieve this realism?
Do you really feel the emotions this character is supposed
to feel, or do you just pretend to?

On this point, actors and critics have conducted two hun-
dred years of warfare. One group, traditionally associated with
French acting, has maintained that to the degree an actor
loses himself in the part, he stops being an actor, stops af-
fecting the audience. The actor, according to this theory, must
be calm and unemotional, aware of himself at each moment.
He must be able to perform each gesture, produce each in-
flection, in a manner carefully calculated beforehand. An acting
method which accepts this theory, like the Delsarte method,
divides the body and the stage into dozens and hundreds of
"zones/' and teaches the student innumerable gestures, move-
ments, and vocal inflections to be employed for the purpose
of achieving definite effects.

However, this theory has lost considerable ground during
the past century, and especially since the work of Stanislavsky
has become known. To Stanislavsky, the actor is not pretending;
during the play, and sometimes longer, he is the character he
pretends to be. He must "creep under the character's skin,"

109

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

he must experience the character's emotions and live a life
different from his own. And the more thoroughly he can do
this, the more effectively he will persuade the audience that
it is watching real things happen to real people.

Now, here too there must be a certain compromise. The
actor may live the part of a murderer but he'd better not
stab his victim with a real knife. Or, what would be even
more fatal, he must not turn his face away from the audience
and confine the play of expression to his back during his
big speech of the evening. That stage, as Stanislavsky said,
is his world, and the audience has no part of itbut in the
back of his mind is the knowledge that the audience is there,
and that if not for this audience, the stage world would not
trouble to exist.

Much depends on the personal temperament of the actor.
Whatever their theories, some actors find it difficult to assume
their stage parts. For an hour before the play, they must
work hard to get in the mood, to forget their own feelings
for the feelings of the character they are to become. But
once in the mood, many actors cannot help being emotionally
torn by their parts. They finish their roles emotionally ex-
hausted, and for a time have difficulty in escaping from the
shadows of their stage world and adjusting to the real world
around them.

On the other hand, many famous actors have no difficulty
whatever in snapping in and out of a part at a moment's
notice. They put on and take off a character with less trouble
than if it were a pair of shoes. Some of them play emotional
roles with no emotions of their own. Others, despite the
ease with which they don their roles, do feel strongly. .

On the whole, as Uta Hagen indicates in one of the fol-
lowing interviews, actors these days tend more to the Stanis-
lavsky method. They learn how their characters feel, and they
try to share these feelings.

This is especially important for young actors, not only
for the reasons Miss Hagen indicates, but because young
actors tend to be self-conscious and nervous. Very few per-
formers ever overcome nervousness entirely, especially on first
nights, when they feel that their fate is in the hands of an
audience which is making up its mind whether or not to use
those hands for applause. But the presence of an audience is

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THE ACTOR

especially terrifying to the inexperienced, and there is no bet-
ter protection against this terror than to become absorbed in
the character.

Everything you do on stage must be done in character, in
such a way as to be in accord with your feelings and to in-
dicate these feelings. If you sit down, you do so for a purpose
because you have received bad news and are too weak to
stand, because you want to relax, because you want someone
to sit beside you. This purpose will determine the manner in
which you sit. If your only reason for doing a thing is that
the author has written: Pie sits, or She turns away and covers
her face with her hands, or He stands motionless, his hands
clenched, the audience will immediately sense your lack of
purpose and refuse to believe you are the person you pretend
to be. Modern playwrights give elaborate stage directions
describing the motives and states of mind of their characters,
in order to help you convince the audience.

" However, as we have seen, it is not enough to get beneath
the skin of a character. You must project the character's
feelings far beyond the skin, in such a way that the audience
will unmistakably understand what they are. For this you
need the control of voice and body and facial expression that
comes from continual study, practice, and experience. You must
have both a keen eye and a good ear. You needn't involve
people in quarrels, but you must note how individuals behave
under all the circumstances of life when they are happy or
angry, when they receive good news or bad, when they make
plans or drift. You must know how a young girl's reactions
differ from those of a middle-aged woman, how the voice and
posture of a man change as he grows older.

You must do a great deal of reading, and you must learn
something about art, music, and science, as well as many
other interests which people have or else you will not be able
to portray a wide range of characters on stage. If you have
ever seen a young Hollywood leading man pretending to be a
world-famous surgeon, and have noted the laughter of the
audience, you will realize how silly it is to try to play people
you do not understand. You will increase your chance of
getting parts if you can play musical instruments, fence, dance,
or do acrobatic stunts. Even as an experienced actor, you will

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be continually taking lessons to increase your range of abili-
ties.

You will have to learn how to work with other actors, for
a play is not a solo performance. You will have to learn how
to pick up a cue at exactly the right moment, so that you
neither interrupt the previous speech nor permit a pause in
which the tempo drags and the audience falls asleep. You will
be forced to learn how to protect yourself against mistakes
of other actors, so that the wrong cues do not throw you
off balance, or the wrong interpretations induce you to follow
their lead. And you will have to guard against throwing other
actors off. Despite the director's attempt to cast a group that
can work together, you may come up against styles of acting
that conflict with yours. Someone who overacts may make your
own performance seem taine, someone who underacts may
make you seem too loud and pretentious. It should be the
director's task to see that there is no conflict, but if the
director fails, you must be capable of protecting yourself.

You will have to adjust to all sorts of theatres, with dif-
ferent kinds of stages and acoustics. On one stage you may
speak in your normal manner and be heard in every seat of
the house; on the next, you may be inaudible past the first
three or four rows.

You will have to know something about audiences too. Some
are quicker to grasp a point than others; some applaud at
the drop of a hat, or the lift of a voice, or laugh every time
at the fall of a comedian's trousers; others sit on their hands.
Beware of too much acting before audiences that are easy to
please. The audience is one of your teachers, and you must
be on guard against the bad teaching that will give you a
dangerous smugness and lead you to develop sloppy acting
habits. Avoid like the plague, however, audiences that are
too arty and precious, for if you succeed in gaining their
approval (you can't really please them) you may be hissed
off a more down-to-earth stage. Shun the smilers who are so
well-bred that they never laugh.

You will have to learn all the rules of acting, not that
you may be able to follow them, but that you may know
what has been done before and what can be done again.
A rule in any art is simply a way of doing things that a
previous artist has found to be effective. But every method

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THE ACTOR

24. Sarah Bernhardt as fhe
Queen in Ruy Bias, by Vldor

Hugo.

Courtesy of French Embassy Information Division

loses its effectiveness in time, and then new methods have to
be found. Learn to break rules not accidentally, because then
you may miss a way of doing things that is still effective, but
deliberately, with an understanding of what you gain by the
breaking.

Every new play is a new problem. You may start with
the intention of making your character a real human being
and then find that the playwright has created absurd pup-
pets, creatures who no more behave like human beings than
does Donald Duck. It's up to you then to fill the void with
your own personality, to make the audience forget that the
playwright has failed. But if a character has depth, as in the
plays of Shakespeare or Chekhov, better submerge your per-
sonality and play the part, to the best of your ability, as the
author intended. Shaw and other discerning critics rated
Eleanor Duse above Sarah Bernhardt because, although Bern-
hardt had great skill, she was always herself no matter what
the part, and was thus actually at her best in bad and silly

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plays. There are a few old movies of Bernhardt in which her
style of acting appears, to modem eyes, ridiculous. But Duse
was always the person she played, and real people do not
go out of fashion. Bemhardt impressed audiences; Duse moved
them.

You may, after helping to bring a weak play to life, end
up with a contempt for playwrights and the feeling that the
author is nothing, the actor everything. Don't let your ego
swell too much. Many a star has felt that he could shine in
anything, and has let himself be lured into a play whose one
virtue was that it gave him all the important scenes only to
fall flat on his face, as much a failure as the play itself.
Authors are of some importance after all, and some of the
best of them, from Sophocles, Shakespeare, and Moliere down
to modern playwrights, have been skilled actors themselves.
Don't bite the hand that feeds you your lines.

You will have to learn how to be at home in all sorts of
uncomfortable and possibly ridiculous costumes, and with var-
ious kinds of make-up. You will have to experiment with
straight make-up, which is used to counteract the effects of
artificial lighting and of distance from the audience, and with
character make-up. For straight make-up you will add red
to the lips and pink to the complexion, as well as emphasis
to the eyes. You begin by rubbing cold cream into the entire
face and neck, removing the excess, and then applying grease-
paint in streaks to every part of the face and neck not covered
by costume, and blending it in. The exact shades will depend
on your complexion. The entire purpose of this kind of make-
up is to emphasize your good features and make them more
perceptible to the audience.

With character make-up, on the other hand, you must
learn how to create an entirely different appearance. You
must learn to apply crepe paper and make it look like a
natural beard or mustache, how to change the shape of eyes,
nose, and face, how to add or subtract years from your ap-
parent age. As Edith Atwater suggests later on, once you
can make yourself seem genuinely old, you have essentially
mastered the trick. But this is not merely a matter of wrinkles,
shadows, and white hair. You must stand, move, and talk
with the weight of years upon you.

114

Courtesy of Goodman
Memorial Theatre.
Photo by Varies Fisher

2SA & 25B. Making up for
the part of John Brown In
The Moon Besieged, an
original play by Seyril
Schochen produced at the
Goodman Memorial
Theatre, Chicago.

We shall see, in the interviews with Helen Hayes and Uta
Hagen, among others, how greatly actors emphasize the need
for training their voices and bodies. The author's script and
the director's interpretation of it are conveyed to the audience
almost entirely by the things the actors do and say. And if
there are any limitations on their ability to move or speak,
the actors are handicapped from the start.

The training of both voice and body is a matter of prac-
tice. In many respects, body training is a simpler matter.
Muscular strength and flexibility are attained through certain
kinds of work and through sports, gymnastics, and dancing of
various kinds ballroom, modern, ballet, ethnic, and tap. If
you are at all like the average individual, you have taken
part in some sports as a smalL child and in others as you
grew older. And nowadays, even the elementary-schoolchild
has a chance to learn to dance. Body training, therefore, is
merely a systematic continuation of things you have begun
to do long before.

Things are different with regard to voice training. From
the age of a few months on, we learn our habits of speech
unconsciously from those around us. Our ears are gradually

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accustomed to noting certain differences in sound and to
paying no attention to others. By the age of three or four,
we have already undergone, without being conscious of it,
considerable voice and ear training much of it harmful from
an actor's point of view. Long before our teens, most of us
have formed habits of speech that will last us throughout
our lives, unless we make deliberate efforts to change them.

Why should we change them at all? Well, try making a
public speech, or try reading a passage from Shakespeare, and
you'll see, or rather hear. If you do your trying out in a fairly
large hall, someone in your audience is almost certain to cry:
"Louder!" And if you attempt to respond, you are likely to
find yourself shouting, still without being heard clearly in
the back of the hall. Some of your words may be unintelligible
because you mumble them, or pronounce them sloppily. You
may find yourself out of breath in the middle of a sentence,
or stumble over combinations of consonants that never twisted
your tongue before. (The word "consonants" itself may throw
you for a loss.) You may be disconcerted to find that your
voice becomes shrill and thin, that your audience finds it
boring or even -unpleasant to listen to.

In short, you may find that your voice is in the grip of
bad habits, and will not do what you, or the author of a play,
want it to do. Every would-be performer on the stage goes
through a similar experience. Some famous actors, like Sir
Henry Irving, have had to overcome stammering, in addition
to the more usual difficulties.

Do you want to hear what proper training can do for the
voice? Listen to a third-rate radio serial, and note how a
trained actor can create a character, or several characters,
with sound alone. Observe how the voice, rather than the
dialogue, holds whatever interest you can find in such a play.

Granted the need to train your voice, then, how do you
go about it? The first thing to understand is that you cannot
do it alone. Unless you have listened to a good recording of
your own speech, you can have no idea of how you sound to
others. And unless you have a well-trained ear, you can hardly
realize, even after listening to a record, how many faults you
have acquired.

You need a good teacher and for many individuals, find-
ing a good one may be perhaps the most difficult part of

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THE ACTOR

26. A speech class at Catholic
University concentrating on
orol interpretation.

Courtesy of Catholic University

voice training. The ignorance of a teacher of voice can ruin
the pupil's instrument. For a voice is not merely a combina-
tion of mouth, nose, larynx, and so on, which remain un-
changed no matter what is done to them. Improper training
can result in bad habits which are very difficult to correct,
and it can also strain the vocal organs and leave them per-
manently injured.

How do you select a good teacher? You cannot do it by
taking at face value the claims made in personal advertise-
ments. Some are downright frauds who know nothing at all
about the voice. Others are incompetent to various degrees
usually to very great degrees. A fewsingers or actors who
have had both good voice training and considerable stage
experience themselves are competent to teach others, So are
a large proportion of the teachers of voice and speech in high
schools, colleges, and the better dramatic schools. If you can-
not study voice in one of these schools, you might, at any
rate, speak or write to the teachers in them, and see whether
they cannot recommend a good teacher in your locality.

When you go to a good teacher, you will find that before
you begin your actual studying, he or she will study you. If

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your voice is very nasal, or hoarse, the teacher may recom-
mend that you see a nose and throat specialist to find out
whether there is any physical difficulty that should be cleared
up before you begin your training.

Once your teacher knows that your vocal apparatus is
reasonably healthy, he will begin teaching you how to breathe.
Most of us knew how to breathe properly when we were in-
fants, but have picked up bad habits since. We tend to em-
phasize the motion of the chest and shoulders, whereas, proper
breathing emphasizes the use of the diaphragm and abdominal
muscles. Incorrect breathing is usually shallow breathing. The
lungs do not get enough air, and neither the inhalation nor
exhalation of what air is taken in can be well controlled.

You will have to learn again to breathe from the diaphragm
and abdomen, and when you speak you "will have to practice
breathing rapidlythat is, through the mouth, as swimmers
breathe. You will have to keep up this practice until you can
breathe correctly without any longer having to think of how
you are breathing.

Breath control is the beginning of voice control. When we
are asked to speak more loudly, most of us tighten our vocal
cords, or vocal bands, as they should more properly be called.
The result is a feeling of strain and a rise in pitch, alongside
an increase in volume. After a time, the strain becomes too
much, and our voices grow weaker. Volume is properly at-
tained without strain by increased pressure of the abdominal
muscles.

Proper breathing also permits better control of pitch. When
our bodies as a whole are tense, our vocal bands are tense too,
and the pitch of our voices rises. A voice that is too high is
exhausting for the speaker, and often unpleasant for the listener.
And the fact is that most of us habitually speak in voices that
are too high. Note the pitch of your own voice or better still,
the voice of someone in your familyimmediately upon rising
in the morning, when the vocal bands are still relaxed, and
later in the day, after fatigue and tension have done their
work. You will note that the pitch is lowest in the morning,
and rises after the hours of activity.

An important part of vocal training is therefore the avoid-
ance of tension. Many teachers give exercises to train you to
relax. You may not be able to prevent unpleasant events that

118

THE ACTOR

upset you and contribute to general tension. But proper breath-
ing and voice production, along with special exercises for
muscular relaxation, will help you to avoid tension in the vocal
bands.

One of the results of voice training is thus likely to be a
slight lowering of your normal speaking voice, accompanied
by an improvement in its quality. At the same time, as you
learn to speak without strain, and you are farther away from
the top of your register, your voice acquires greater flexibility.

During the early part of your vocal training, you may
feel that what you are doing is very artificial and affected.
And in some cases this may be true. If you have been used
to speaking in a monotone, you may, when you begin to train
your voice, exaggerate the inflections, the changes of pitch,
that are needed to arouse interest. If you have been accus-
tomed to mumbling the ends of your sentences, you may
overcompensate by making unnecessarily painful efforts to
articulate clearly. And if you carry these and other undesir-
able effects over into your general conversation, your friends
will undoubtedly think that you are putting on airs.

It will be your teacher's task to remind you that the ob-
ject of voice training is to help you communicate more effec-
tively with others, not to set you apart from them. Any method
of speech that calls attention to the peculiarities of the voice
and its use, instead of to what that voice has to say, is a
bad one. A good teacher will not let you acquire affected
mannerisms.

Both as an actor and as an individual you want your
voice to be pleasant to listen to. You don't ordinarily want
it to be hoarse or throaty, or squeaky. It is true that some
actors have peculiarly husky or otherwise unusual voices which
have become almost like trademarks. But these actors are
occasionally limited in the roles they can play. It is much
better for you to have a voice so flexible that you can make
it hoarse or squeaky as a part requires, and make it sound
entirely different in another role.

You want to be able to speak English that is correct,
without offensively calling attention to its correctness. A good
part of your work will therefore consist of studying phonetics,
the science of language sounds, and practicing diction. You
will very likely prefer a teacher whose natural accent is not

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strilcingly different from your own. That is, if you were born
in Kansas City or Omaha, you do not want to end up with
an Oxford accent. Whatever your place of birth, you will
find it advisable as an actor to speak English that is clear
and easily understood, and lacks striking peculiarities that
indicate any particular region.

In your role as actor, in contrast to your manner of speech
in private life, an important characteristic your voice must
have is flexibility. Your own life may be quiet and relatively
unadventurous, without moments of great sorrow or tremen-
dous tragedy. A voice with a narrow range may suffice to
express your meanings and emotions. But on the stage you
must be able to express extremes of passion. You must be
able to handle your voice as a singer does, almost as if it
were an instrument apart from you, but under your control.

If you don't have clarity, or pleasant quality, or flexibility
of voice before you start, you cannot achieve them without
considerable practice. A good part of it must be done under
the direct guidance of your teacher. Much of it, however,
must be done alone from the beginning. Good teachers recom-
mend frequent short practice sessions during the day, instead
of one long one, in order to avoid strain. If you run across
a teacher who favors long exhausting sessions in order to
"strengthen" the voice, better leave him and find some one
else.

As you continue to study., you will find that you are
training not only your voice but your ear. In fact, unless
both sorts of training go together, you are wasting a good
part of your time. For eventually, unless you go to Hollywood
and a movie studio pays for your vocal coach, you will have
to stand on your own feet, or rather listen with your own
ears. You yourself must be able to hear what is happening
to your own voice. After a time you will not need to take
lessons so frequently, and eventually you will be able to
discontinue them altogether.

But before that time comes, you may have to do con-
siderable work. It will be effort well spent. In most plays,
no single characteristic so clearly distinguishes the good actor
from die bad as skill in the use of the voice.

Possibly some of the greatest problems you face will be
those you encounter offstage. What do you do when you

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THE ACTOB

don't have a job with a show? How do you live? What op-
portunities are there for actors in community theatres? How
do you remain an actor while selling shoes or waiting on
table? You would be surprised to know how grateful many
well-known performers are for what little unemployment in-
surance they can get. But to face your everyday problems,
you will need more than unemployment insurance. You wiU
have to cooperate with your fellow actors in Actors* Equity,
and you will find it useful to take advantage of the training
and help offered by a service organization like the American
Theatre Wing.

Offstage you will encounter people who regard you as a
glamorous figure and at the same time watch you warily for
fear that you will try to borrow money from them or steal
their hats. The old Elizabethan idea of the actor as vagabond,
rogue, and thief has not been entirely eradicated from many
people's minds. Very few of us think of the actor as a priest,
which he was in ancient Egypt and medieval Europe, or as
an honored representative of the people, which he often was
in Greece. A few producers tend to regard him as a slave,
as in ancient Rome.

Actually, the social position of the actor has been rising
for the past few centuries, and it attained great respecta-
bility when Sir Henry Irving was knighted in England in
1895. But too many of us the actor himself included still
think of the acting profession as something akin to quackery.

Actually, the actor is, or should be, an individual who
has attained skill in a certain field of endeavor that most
people find difficult. His profession teaches him often but
by no means always a certain openness of mind, a tolerance
for others. An actor, for instance, is less likely to be seriously
affected than the average person by racial prejudice. As an
artist, he comes into contact with an important area of human
culture, and he helps spread this culture to others. He cannot
help absorbing some of it himself.

Contrary to the impression of many people, he is not a
fraud who is always putting on an act in real life. The
strain of his profession is too great. Two or three hours of
acting at a stretch on the stage are enough.

Beyond his special art, he is still human, with all the
normal human hopes and fears. But he is by no means an

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LET'S MEET THE THEATBE

average person not if he has attained some measure of suc-
cess in a profession that nowadays is so full of discouragement
and uncertainty. He has demonstrated unusual courage and
persistence and other qualities which may become more evi-
dent as you read the interviews which follow, arranged in
alphabetical order.

122

the Actor Faces

EDITH ATWATER

A Broadway producer who has a casting problem
with regard to a woman's role is likely to think of
Edith Atwater to solve it. Widely experienced,
though still young, she is both skillful and talented,
and is versatile enough to have played in such
varied productions as Tomorrow the World, The
Man Who Came to Dinner, King Lear 9 and the
musical "Fldhooley.

You will read occasionally of actors who started
their careers at the age of six months, when they
were carried on the stage and made to utter loud
shrieks. Miss Atwater's interest in the stage didn't
begin quite that young. But it began early enough.

EA. I was interested in the theatre as a child. I made my own
scenery, and put on plays in the neighborhood. Later on I
studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and with
Richard Boleslavsky. It's a sad commentary on the state of
the theatre that a lot of the people I started with some of
them very talented have since left the profession.

What sort of training did you have?

EA. Some dancing, some singing that has to be part of any
training for the stage. But mostly acting. The most important
thing is to act and to keep on studying. The best training is
with a stock company.

Aren't some of the stock companies pretty bad?

E A. That doesn't matter so much. Even if you have a bad director,
it's better than not having a chance to act at all. Besides,
when you're a novice, you can't take advantage of good
direction when you get it, any more than a young pupil
just starting to scrape a violin can benefit much by studying
with Heifetz. After you've had some experience, however, you'll
profit tremendously when you do run across a good director.
It's good experience to put on a new play, to create a
part. It would be wonderful if we could find more creative
writers who could write new plays worth producing.

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LET'S MEET THE THEAT1E

Courtesy of Leland Hayward. Photo by Vandamm

27. Ralph Bellamy, Edith Atwater, Minor Watson, and Myron McCorrnkk
'in a scene from State of the Union, by Howard Lindsay and Russel Grouse.

Then, you must read the classics, like Shakespeare and
Ibsen. Shakespeare wrote to be played, and is very easy to
play, sometimes easier than a modern playwright. Everybody
can learn a lot from putting on his plays. For instance, a
community theatre that wants to do inexpensive productions
can learn how to work without scenery and with a minimum
of props. Actors can learn how to show they are at ease
without lighting a cigarette, Yes, it's very good training.

But suppose some of your group dorit feel quite at home
with Shakespeare, or any other playwright you choose?

E A. They 11 feel at home once they understand the characters.
The entire group should discuss them, fill in their backgrounds,
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THE ACTO1

learn why these characters, who seem so strange to us, didn't
seem strange to their original audiences. Once you under-
stand a character, you can bring it to life.

But being an actress is much more than a matter of
learning parts. One of the problems that bothers young people
in the theatre is make-up. Now, the first principles of make-up
have to be taught. Other people have learned what creams
and paints to use and how to apply them, and you may as
well profit by their experience. The most difficult thing is
to learn the trick of making a young face look old. If you
can do that, you can do anything. But once you've acquired
that ability, you have to do some experimenting. You must
try to understand your own face. Dramatic schools give courses
on make-up, but you don't need a long course if you have
an aptitude for it and are willing to experiment.

If you want to know how different types of people look,
at different ages, and with different hair styles, go to a
museum or library 7 . A playwright may give you all the de-
scription in the world, but the only Way to know how a period
hair-do looks is to find a picture, best in a museum or library.
And the same thing goes for costumes.

Once you are an actress, how do you go about getting a job?

EA. I don't know any more. I, and many other actors, used to
work all the time. But there are so very few plays in production
now that it's often a long wait between parts. It must be
frightfully discouraging for young people. The search for jobs
has become a rat race. You have to be awfully lucky, look
just right, meet just the right person at the right time.

It sounds like a gloomy picture.

E A. It is. The only way out that I can see is a sponsored theatre.
Decentralization of the theatre is absolutely necessary. There's
no growth now except in some small groups. Television is
pushing the theatre further into the background, and the
only answer the theatre can make in terms of quality-
costs too much money. That's why the commercial level is so
low. Good theatre costs so much that tickets are priced too
high. Take King Lear, for instance. The audience that sup-

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LET'S MEET THE THEATBE

ported it was composed of people who love the classics
and they're not wealthy. So the orchestra was empty, and
the balcony packed, and the result was that the production
lost money and the show had to close despite the tremendous
number of people who wanted to see it at balcony prices
or less.

I don't see any way out for the commercial theatre. I
know that the first thing a young actor thinks of is Broadway,
but actually the best place to start is in a community theatre.
The young actor has a painful thing to realize: that the
theatre does not support its own people, even those who have
been successful enough to have their talent recognized. The
only exceptions are a few stars who receive high salaries-
provided they can find the right parts and are lucky in
choosing plays that have long runs, And sometimes they're
not lucky, and they too are out of work for years. I tihink
it would benefit both the community theatres and Broadway
if stars were sent out to play with the community theatres.

From what you've said, it would seem that most people dont
gain much from the theatre.

EA. Not in terms of money, no. That's why so many leave it,
although they hate to do so. Being an actress drives you on
from one part to the next, and each new part is a new
problem. That's what makes the theatre interesting the prob-
lems rather than the "glamour." There's no glamour on the
inside, only hard work, and the realization of all the things
you have to learn. It's taken me years, to learn to be any good.
It takes a while, too, to get rid of some of the preconceived
ideas you hold about actors. Most people think that an actor
is necessarily an extrovert, always trying to be the center of
attention. But that isn't necessarily so. The extrovert has cer-
tain advantages to start with. But an actor may be shy,
introvertedand the very fact that he's so sensitive may make
him a better actor in the long run, after he's learned the tricks
of the trade,

How do you feel personally? With the commercial theatre
in so sad a state, would you want to give it up?

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THE ACTOR

E A. Personally, I don't want to change. With all its weaknesses,
I prefer to stay in the theatre. On the other hand, if I had
known in the beginning the terrific work that's needed, the
drain on my vitality, the discouragements and difficulties Td
meet, I might have thought twice. And then possibly done
exactly the same thing I've already done!

127

a for in a

KATHARINE CORNELL

It takes the fingers of only one hand (and not ail
of them) to count the actresses who hold a special
position as leading ladies both on the stage itself
and in the hearts of theatre-goers. One of these
leading ladies is Katharine Cornell.

It is difficult, within the limits of a few words,
to introduce Miss Cornell properly. Perhaps we
needn't even try, for to those who know our theatre
at all, no introduction is necessary. It may be
enough to recall that she was one of the greatest
of Juliets in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and
has starred in such Shaw plays as Candida, The
Doctor's Dilemma, and Saint Joan, as well as in
Chekhov's The Three Sisters and other fine plays.

As an actress-manager who has a wide choice
of new works, she has put on her own productions
for twenty-one years. Her acting has a quality
which has insured success for plays by less exalted
playwrights than those we have named, and it may
seem odd, therefore, that she does not appear more
often in new plays.

Is U especially difficult, Miss Cornell, for an actress who has
achieved your position to find a suitable new work? Do
you demand too much of a play?

KG. It's nice of you to speak so kindly of my position in the
theatre, but I must disclaim it. However, as for your question
itself I do demand a great deal of a play. It must have not
only a role that suits me, but the right general atmosphere
as well. And that's difficult to find, either in a comedy or
tragedy.

I feel very strongly about the dignity of human beings
and about the warmth that can be found in people, and I
want to convey these feelings in a play. I look for parts that
are close to me, for the speeches that express what I want
to say. Sometimes the play itself doesn't express this, or does
so in a very vague manner But you know that there are

128

THE ACTOR

many ways of interpreting a play, of bringing out values
which the playwright himself may not have intended. So
sometimes, by the manner of production, I can bring the play
around to saying what I want it to say.

I feel, too, that I have the responsibility of bringing good
plays to people, plays in which the authors speak as honestly
as they can. Youngsters, especially, are able to recognize what's
good. During the war, we did The Barretts of Wimpole Street
for our troops abroad. Many of the young men in the Army
had never before seen a live play, but the tour was most suc-
cessful. I've never seen such enthusiastic responses from au-
diences. It made me realize once more that if you give young
people the best theatre, they'll accept it and demand more.

Arent these among the reasons why you have done so
many of the classics, which are often considered so un-
profitable to produce? Isn't it true that such playwrights as
Shakespeare and Shaw offer not only the best roles and the
most effective scenes, but the qualities you want, as well?

KG. Yes, it's in the classics that we find the most profound ex-
pression of human dignity. That's why they've become classics.
Of course, to most schoolchildren, Shakespeare's plays do not
express dignity at aU they are merely indignities to which
the helpless students are subjected. Shakespeare should be
taught only by people who understand and love the beauty
and meaning of his plays, and have the desire to find and im-
part them. Shakespeare can't be imposed on people. They
must be free to accept or reject him.

But I don't want to imply that it's only in the classics that
I can find the things I'm looking for. Sometimes, when I'm
reading plays, I begin to think there are so few new writers
and yet there are many young authors who have great talent,
like Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams, for example. They
write fine plays. They don't, however, write the kind of roles
in which I can appear.

Doesn't the very strength of your personality prevent you from
playing certain roles?

KG. I don't think it's a question of strength of personality. It is

129

LET'S MEET THE THEATEE

Courtesy of Katharine Cornell. Photo by Graphic House

28. Katharine Cornell and Lenore Ufr/c.in o scene from Shake-
specie's Antony and Cleopatra.

true that there are certain roles I wouldn't try to play. But
there are others which the critics don't want me to play. They're
the ones who do much of the type-casting. They have an idea
of the kind of person I am, and they have their conceptions
about how certain roles should be played. For instance, some

130

THE ACTOR

critics, and many spectators, think of Cleopatra in Shake-
speare's Antony and Cleopatra as a tart. Now, Cleopatra was
a cultured woman who spoke eight or nine languages and
ruled a great country. She was a queen, with the dignity of a
queen. But when I played her that way, there were objections.

Do you think you could overcome these ideas about your stick-
ing to a certain type of role by having an author write a
different type of role just for you?

K C. I don't think great plays can be written for any one actress.
Sardou tailored his scenes to Bernhardt's measurementsbut
his plays are hardly alive today. Shaw sometimes tried to write
for a specific actress, like Ellen Terry, But if the play is good,
the characters come alive and carry the author along with
them, and then the entire contour of the play is changed.
That's what happened in Shaw's case. Ellen Terry wasn't al-
ways satisfied with the way the finished work fit her. Shaw
didn't make as skillful a tailor as Sardou. He was too fine a
playwright.

Suppose, Miss Cornell, we had a repertory system, or some
system of production that involved a smaller investment of
money. Wouldn't you find it easier to discover suitable
plays, to risk going against the type-casting to which you
have been subjected?

KG. Very likely. It would be wonderful to have repertory on a
year-round basis. There's been a great deal of talk about it,
although little has been done. The trouble is that there is a
terrible circle of expenses involved in production. If that could
be broken through, all of us in the theatre would benefit.
As it is, many of us need a great deal of determination to stay
in the theatre.

How about young people who aren't in it yet, but are trying
to get in?

K C. I think that the best thing they can do is stay in their com-
munities, and act there or write there because they feel they
must. Sooner or later, if they're good, they'll attain the pro-
fessional theatre, become part of it, and help give it new life.
And perhaps then we'll get more and more of those good
new plays all of us are looking for.

131

What Makes a Character Actor

CLARENCE DERWENT

Clarence Derwent has acted in a tremendous variety
of roles and has had very wide experience in the
theatre. He has been president of Actors' Equity,
and during the time of this interview was head of
ANTA and chairman of the American branch of
the International Theatre Institute. He has taught
acting to university students as well as to young
professional actors, and has written an autobiog-
raphy, The Derwent Story. He is known as one of
the best of character actors. What a character
actor is, he can best explain for himself.

C D. Today, a character actor is nothing more than an actor who
has passed the age when he can perform juvenile parts. It's
a very unfortunate interpretation, because fifty years ago all
acting was character acting in the real sense, that is, in the
art of impersonation. Because repertory abounded, as it still
does in England, there was no danger of type-casting. A com-
pany had to use what actors it had available. Versatility was
sought, and naturally it was infinitely better experience to
play a round of highly diversified parts than to do the same
part and reproduce one's own personality over and over again
during a long run on Broadway.

My first week on stage, I played Horatio in Hamlet, Sir
Benjamin Backbite in The School for Scandal, and roles in
East Lynne and Schiller's Mary, Queen of Scots. These were
completely contrasted parts, and although I'm sure that my
performances were abominable, I learned more in that one
week than the average actor learns during a year on Broad-
way. YouVe seen those advertisements that invite you to "Learn
while you earn." Well, for the young actor, that was repertory.
It was a school for acting in which the audience gave frequent
examinations and made awards. Sometimes the examinations
were difficult, as when at the age of nineteen I had to play
an old roue of eighty in Sappho, but the training in charac-
terization was first-class.

132

THE ACTOR

Is character acting anything new, Mr. Derwent, or is it some-
thing that has had a long history?

C D. Character acting has existed as long as the theatre. It is the
stimulus in the art that makes acting worth while. But methods
have changed. In England this resulted chiefly from the work
of two people, Granville Barker and Miss Annie Homf-
man, in Manchester. They introduced the realistic school, which
affected the British theatre to the same extent that the Mos-
cow Art Theatre affected the Russian.

Formerly, reliance on make-up was too great. We've veered
away nowadays from heavy wigs and lines, from make-up that
is too heavy and draws attention to itself. Now the actor must
rely on his ability to act and sound like the character he is
impersonating. That's why he needs training to cover a range
outside his own personality. Unfortunately, it isn't often that
he gets it. Most actors don't even develop their voices.

Doesrit voice training help?

C D. That isn't enough. There has to be a motive behind the
training. The actor must feel the need for greater ability than
he has. Por example, one night I would play Slender in The
Merry Wives of Windsor, and the next night a witch in
Macbeth. That obviously required an extended range of voice.
But most acting today doesn't require it so obviously, and
most actors use only the middle register.

How is it, Mr. Derwent, that they develop so little variety?

C D. Partly, it's due to the use of a microphone in radio and tele-
vision. With a microphone in front of your lips, you need
project even less than when talking in a room. And then again,
there's type-casting. An actor isn't usually called on to do a
part too different from the kind he's already done. The average
young actor would be ghastly, not ghostly, as the Ghost in
Hamlet. He doesn't have the necessary depth of voice. But he
would have it if he trained.

Most of us today have no idea of what a tremendous range
an actor's voice can have, what a wonderful instrument it can
be. Harvard and a few other places have old records of Edwin

133

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

Booth as Othello, as well as of Ellen Terry and Sarah Bem-
hardt and other great stars of the past. Listen to those records
when you get the chance, and you'll understand how they
could hold their audiences in good plays and bad. The music
in their voices made up for any deficiencies in the script.

We sometimes hear complaints, Mr. Derwent, that people in
the audience cant understand what the actor says. Would

voice training remedy that?

C D. Voice training and some knowledge. The troubles with au-
dibility and articulation in the current theatre are largely due
to ignorance. The average actor doesn't realize that his audi-
bility is dependent not on the vowels but on the consonants.
Nine times out of ten, if you tell him he can't be heard, heU
apply vocal pressure, and blast. If he'd only bite his con-
sonants, he wouldn't have to apply pressure, and would yet
be heard. Double consonants, especially, seem to be difficult,
not only for actors, but for most other people. The remedy lies
in taking care, and in practicing.

Do you think it's a good idea for professional and amateur
actors to play in the same production?

C D. An excellent idea. Until a few years ago, we in Equity didn't
allow our members to play with non-Equity members. Then,
because we realized there were reciprocal advantages, we
very wisely let down the bars. Fm not saying that the pro-
fessional is always better, but there's no question that the
contact gives a student something which no director can teach
him. Take the question of timing, for instance. In real life,
when you ask a question, the reply doesn't come immediately.
But a student who hears his cue picks it up immediately and
gives an unrealistic effect. The experienced actor invariably
allows a split second before picking up his cue, and this gives
the scene life and truthfulness. You don't get the same result
when the director tells the student to delay his answer. Then
you usually get a pause through which you could drive a
horse and buggy.

The professional can help in a dozen ways. The student
always has difficulty with gestures. The French, both the

134

THE ACTOR

Courtesy of Stanford University

29. A scene from fhe Stanford University production of Sheridan's The
Rivals. Clarence Derwenf and A//ne MacMahon (center and right), Artists
in Res/cfence, performing with students.

actors and the people as a whole fit movements very naturally
to what they are saying. But in England and the United
States we don't do that, we have a habit of restraint. Well,
an actor can't be restrained, and when the student realizes
that, he sometimes begins to gesture all over the place. But a
gesture should as a rule be felt, not seen. It's the same
thing as with make-up. The moment you're aware of it as
make-up, it defeats its own purpose. With certain exceptions
as when you pound a table or gesture without speech an
audience should feel the effect of the gesture as lending
weight to what the actor is saying, rather than be aware of it
as a gesture. The professional can show the student how the
thing is done, he can help him develop a mobility and flow
of gestures.

135

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

But what does the professional gain from the association?

CD. For one thing, a chance to play a greater variety of roles,
and improve his own range. And for another, he can acquire
some of the student's enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is a most useful
thing to have in the theatre.

When a professional acts in a university play, Mr. Derwent,
do you notice any tendency for him to take over?

CD. Not usually. Speaking for myself, when I'm acting, I don't
intrude on the director's province unless Tin asked to. If I'm
supposed to be an actor, I remain in character as an actor.

In your character as head of the American branch of the In-
ternational Theatre Institute, Mr. Derwent, what would you
say about our relations with the theatres of other countries?

C D. Intercultural exchanges are very important. Thirty-five years
ago, when I toured Holland, I started off with the idea that I
was going to bring enlightenment to theatrically backward
and ignorant audiences. When I saw the excellent scenery
and efficient backstage equipment for my first play, I changed
my views in a hurry. It's always useful to learn about the
theatre abroad, as well as in different parts of our own country.
It shakes us out of our complacent little ruts, gives us new
ideas, awakens us to new possibilities.

Technically, weVe probably ahead here, but in other re-
spects we do need to awaken to new possibilities. One of the
most tragic things about our theatre is that each year hun-
dreds of young people with theatrical training are poured out
of schools and find no place to exercise and develop their
skills. It's our loss as well as theirs. We need among other
things permanent resident companies for repertory. We need
to develop our theatre far beyond the bounds of Broadway.
That's one of the things we're working on now in ANTA.
As for our success that depends on the support we get from
the theatre-loving public at large.

136

an Prepares for Her Part

UTA HAGEN

Uta Hagen has triumphed in roles as different as
those o the neurotic Blanche in Tennessee Wil-
liams* A Streetcar Named Desire and the strong-
willed Joan of Arc in Shaw's Saint Joan, Before that
she had acted in Chekhov's The Sea Gull with the
Ltints, and in Shakespeare's Othello with. Paul
Robeson and Jose Ferrer. Her brilliant performance
in Clifford Odets' The Country Girl won her the
Donaldson Award and the Antoinette Perry Award,
as well as the New York Drama Critics* acclaim
as the best actress of 1951.

We interviewed her just before a performance
of Saint Joan,, while she was applying her make-
up for the role.

How do you learn a part?

U H. If, by learning a part, you mean learning lines and memoriz-
ing gestures I don't. I never memorize lines and gestures. I
search for the behavior of the character the author has sug-
gested through the words, and try to identify myself with its
actions. It's all in Stanislavsky's An Actor Prepares.

Do all actors and directors use the Stanislavsky method these
days?

UH. I think, basically, every good theatre artist does. Some say,
they don't, and then proceed to work in the way Stanislavsky
suggested. Among directors I can name many who use his
methods. Offhand, I can't think of any good ones who don't
either knowingly or unknowingly.

Acting isn't the art of showing off a bag of tricks. Acting
is a creative process. And the creative part of acting comes
from the artist. In any role, it will differ. Think, for instance,
how many actors have portrayed Hamlet. If there were only
one way to do the part, then, for the past three hundred

137

LET'S MEET THE THEAT1E

Courtesy of Theatre Arts Magazine. "Photo by Talbot-Giles

30. Ufa Hagen as Joan of Arc facing her inquisitors in a scene from
Shaw's Saint Joan, directed by Margaret Webster.

years or so, each actor would have been nothing but a stronger
or weaker carbon copy of the one who went before him.

So, in creating a part like Saint Joan you probably found it
necessary to study a great deal about her?

UH. I went to libraries and museums to learn about Joan and
the time in which she lived. I had seen other actresses in the
play, and I studied a film made in 1928 in which the Italian
actress Falconetti portrayed Joan. My intention through the
research was not to imitate, but to see what others had done
toward uncovering facets of Joan that would make me under-
stand her better within myself, attain an understanding which
is of course subject to more than the research of the material.

138

THE ACTOR

Jou know, Miss Hagen y that the country is full of young hope-
fuls who want to be great actresses. How can you test
yourself before setting your mind on the professional stage?
How can you find out whether or not you have talent?

U EL You can't. The need within yourself can be a guide for you.
If you are aware that from eighty to ninety per cent of pro-
fessional actors are out of work, and you are still determined
to act, go right ahead. Nobody can stop you.

But as a teacher of acting, cant you help the beginner in
that respect? Cant you discern talent where it exists and
encourage the student., or note its absence and advise her
not to waste her time?

U H. It isn't easy to tell talent. Talent evolves through mastery of
a technique. Before I started teaching I had specific opinions
about who was talented and who wasn't. Now I no longer
presume to judge. Some people show a big talent at first and
you think they are destined to go far. But often vanity, ar-
rogance, or laziness prevents them from developing. Others
seem incompetent at the beginning, but they work hard at
their craft and conquer their failings and then become fine
artists.

Suppose you re a beginner who wants to study acting y and
you live in a small town where there are no dramatic schools?

U H. You can still prepare for an acting career. A town has to be
very small not to have a teacher of singing and a dancing
teacher. The tools of the actor are his body and his voice.
Singing develops the entire vocal apparatus so that later your
voice will respond freely and* unself-consciously to any de-
mands made by a role. And in the same way, dancing gives
you the necessary physical coordination and limbemess that
will later serve the inner technique you must develop. And of
course there is a library of plays and theatre in the smallest
town.

Can you learn acting by studying other actors?

139

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

U EL From watching the work of non-professional theatres, I would
say that the greatest misunderstanding most people have about
working on a part is that acting is, to them, an imitation of
"acting," instead of the full extension and artistic expression
of themselves. If you have an understanding of yourself at
various stages of your personal development, you will find
that you are limited only by your own apparatus, by your own
personal experiencewhich is limitless compared to an imi-
tation process. Therefore the examination of your own reac-
tions, of how you and other human beings function, is of
the essence.

When these young people you talk about study by them-
selves they always copy an actress, usually someone in the
movies, because those are the actresses they see most. By the
time they come to study with a good teacher it takes six months
to undo the imitative habits. On the other hand, the study of
a performance such as Laurette Taylor's was should be in-
valuable if you are able to study it on the basis of a sound
technical knowledge.

It's only recently that the theatre in New York has made a
big step forward in training actors. In the past, only the most
unusual could survive. There were only isolated places where
really creative teaching could be had.

Does it make any difference what kind of play a youngster
starts to work on?

UEL With regard to acting problems, yes. In the beginning it's
more to the point to work on a simple play. A young person
can again get many bad habits by trying to push for the result
demanded by a play where the characters have a subtle inner
life too complex for the beginner to comprehend. Also, verse
plays are extremely difficult for the beginner as well as for
many professional actors, for that matter.

The most important thing is that the beginner learn to
evaluate and develop his work rather than dream of success.
One of the tragedies of the American theatre is that young
people try to become a part of it not because of their need
for expression and the love of the work itself, but because
they think of it as the means for worldly success. This is good
neither for them nor for the theatre!

140

THE ACTO1

Youve played throughout the country, Miss Hagen. What sort
of theatre audiences did you find?

U H. Every city has its own personality. Usually, university towns
have the best audiences, because the people who go to the
theatre are interested in the specific play they are going to
see. The audiences I dislike most are those who go to the
theatre to be seen, and not to see.

What is life like on the road? Do you learn much about act-
ing and the theatre that way?

UH. Nothing that you can't learn by staying in one city. You
have, perhaps, an extra stimulus in continually being re-
viewed and having to prove yourself anew in each city, but
the life is extremely wearing, not, as some people think, be-
cause there's too much to do, but because there's too little to
do. It's very lonely, and hotel rooms, trains, and the same
faces of your colleagues morning, noon, and night for months
at a time can become quite a strain. Still, it is a joyful obliga-
tion to be able to bring your work to people throughout the
United States.

What about community theatres? Have you had much chance
to see them?

UH. Most of those IVe seen need professional leadership and
time to mature. They don't contribute to the growth of the
theatre because they are a hobby rather than a full-time oc-
cupation. Theatre is not something that can be done after
hours. It needs complete concentration,

Well, Miss Hagen, with the Broadway theatre in such a sad
state, and the community theatres apparently not yet doing
the job they should what do you think the theatre will
have to do to survive?

U H. Work terribly hard, and hope devoutly!

141

What an Actor Uses for Money

ALFRED HARDING

Every actor knows Alfred Harding, editor of Equity
Magazine, and assistant to the president of Actors*
Equity Association. Called in as a newspaperman,
he has edited the magazine since the November
1923 issue and is probably the only executive of
Actors* Equity who has not been an actor himself.
But because of his unfailing Madness and helpful-
ness, actors have forgiven him this fault, and regard
him with both affection and respect.

He has fought for the rights of actors for so
many years that he has identified his own interest
with theirs. He knows that they do not have an
easy time of it.

Equity is affiliated with the American Federa-
tion of Labor, and gains much of its strength from
its labor support. We were interested first in get-
ting a picture of the organization.

How many members does Equity have?

A H, The figure varies from week to week. The top figure is about
sixty-five hundred.

And how many of these sixty-five hundred earn their living
solely in the theatre?

A H. Very few. Right now, about sixteen per cent of our member-
ship is employed. There is a median employment of about ten
weeks that is, about half our members have ten weeks' em-
ployment or more per year, and about half have less. During
a season, seventy-five to eighty per cent of the entire member-
ship will get some employment in the legitimate theatre. But
the average yearly income, including the incomes of the very
top level, is about eight hundred and forty dollars a year.
Actors can't live on that.

Does Equity try to find them jobs?
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THE ACTOR

AH. Equity has no placement division, but Chorus Equity does
make announcements of openings in Its placement office. If
we receive a call for twenty-four girls, well make the an-
nouncement, but we won't send out any particular individuals
unless we are requested to. There are not enough jobs to go
around, and we don't want to play favorites, or be charged
with playing favorites.

Does Equity cover the entire country?

AH. Yes. It covers road shows, summer stock, and so on. The
entire professional theatre.

When was it organized?

AH. On May 26, 1913. It established its position in a bitterly
fought strike in August 1919.

What are the dues, and what benefits has Equity gained for
actors?

AH. The initiation fee is a hundred dollars, and the dues are
eighteen dollars a year. An actor who has not paid up gets
thirty days of grace, and he can be carried along for a year
or seventeen months. If he wants to leave the profession, he
can get an honorable withdrawal card.

As for benefits, Equity has transformed the entire position
of the actor. In the old days, the actor who was starving would
accept work under any conditions the producer wanted to
impose. He would rehearse for weeks and then, if his play
failed to open, be discharged without pay. He would go on
the road and if his show closed, be left stranded far from
home, without money for food and railroad fare. Moreover,
before Equity, there was no minimum salary. Actors com-
peting for a job would be forced to take ten dollars a week,
or less.

Equity has changed all that. For rehearsals, an actor gets
paid forty-five dollars a week for a minimum of four weeks
for dramatic productions and five weeks for musicals and
"spectacular productions." He receives guarantees against be-
ing stranded on the road. Equity has established minimum

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

scales for actors, and no longer does the actor lack bargaining
power against the producer.

There are many minor benefits, but these are the most
important.

What are the relations of Actors' Equity to other organiza-
tions in the theatrical world?

AH. There are close relations with Chorus Equity, which has its
own office, treasury, and staff, and considerable local auton-
omy with respect to such matters as disciplinary action. The
magazine, Equity, is the official organ of both Actors' Equity
Association and Chorus Equity Association. Actors' Equity is
a branch of the Associated Actors and Artistes of America.
This makes transfer to other fields movies, radio, and tele-
visionsomething that can be accomplished without difficulty.
And along with the stagecraft unions, we belong to the A.F.L.

What equipment should a young actor or actress have to crash
Broadway?

AH. The more an actor has, in money, training, and contacts,
the better off he is. The chief requirement is the ability to
persuade a producer that he approximates what the latter
wants.

Once he is on Broadway, how does he get a job?

AH. There are three methods. First, to go to every office and
present himself in the hope that he will get to see the producer
and be able to show what he can do. In a good many offices
that's impossible, because the actor can't even get past the
receptionist.

The second method is to get an agent. However, agencies
can place established actors more easily than unknowns, so
they generally concentrate on known people, and those who
need help most have the greatest difficulty in obtaining it.

The third method is to join an acting group, and act in
off-Broadway plays, in the hope of coming to the attention of
directors and producers.

The European system is quite different. In Europe, as-

144

THE ACTOR

pirants to the stage can apply to a government-supported
dramatic school If they can pass the entrance requirements,
they have the opportunity to study, and after taking examina-
tions they are graduated with diplomas. By contrast, here we
have only private schools, some good, other useless, still others
plain rackets. And there are some colleges which have good
courses in the theatre.

In Europe they look upon the theatre as the repository
of the best thought, as a means of presenting a nation's ideas,
ideals, and aspirations to the people and to the world. With
that feeling, they believe that they are justified in supporting
the theatre financially. In this country, on the other hand, the
theatre has always been considered a form of entertainment
which must stand on its own feet and pay its own way.

Congress showed this indifference or hostility to the
theatre when it specifically wrote the Federal Theatre out of
the W.P.A. bill in 1939.

Do you think that the theatre needs a government subsidy?

AH. A subsidy would be fine but I'm afraid we can't hope for
one. Something must be done about costs, however. They have
gone up in every way, with the result that the theatre is no
longer interested in medium runs. A play is either a hit or a
flop these days. Moreover, for various reasons, including high
living expenses, actors don't want to go on the road, and that
makes for difficulties too,

How many Equity members, Mr. Harding, are working with
community theatres throughout the country?

A H. I couldn't say. There are only a few not nearly enough.

Our failings are two sides of the same coin. We should
co-operate with each other to a much greater extent than we
do. The professional theatre should regard the amateur theatre
as a source of new talent from which there will flow new blood
in all fields of theatre. We ought to encourage amateurs by
making our members available for counsel and working with
them. We should recognize that the amateur theatre is not a
rival competing for dollars. We should serve as a model for
them and should see that the best work is done in the amateur

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LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

field under the most favorable circumstances. Thus, the ama-
teur theatre would win new audiences and make it easier
for the professional theatre to survive.

Some of our members recognize the importance of the
amateur theatre. For instance, Clarence Derwent, former pres-
ident of Equity, was actor-in-residence at Stanford University
for a term, and worked with dramatic groups there.

Amateur theatres are too often satisfied with less than they
are capable of. One of the things they can get from profession-
als is the raising of their own standards. A prime requirement
of progress in any of the arts is a "divine discontent" with
your own achievements.

Too many of us, both amateur and professional, lack that.
Hundreds., perhaps thousands, of groups are springing up in
the country who think themselves superior to the commercial
theatre. On the other hand, many professionals consider their
theatre to be the theatre. We are both wrong. Each of us
has something the other needs, and the fault is as much ours
as theirs. The theatre is the whole theatre and not any part
of it. And whatever we do for it and wherever we do it, we
are all members of one family and by our relationship always
set apart from everyone else in the world who does not share
that kinship.

146

From London to Broadway

REX HARRISON

On the screen, Rex Harrison has been familiar to
audiences in such British-made films as Noel
Coward's Blithe Spirit and Shaw's Major Barbara,
as well as in the Hollywood productions of Anna
and the King of Siam and The Wourposter. These
titles serve as examples only, for the complete list
is too long to repeat here. The plays in which Mr.
Harrison has appeared include most notably Max-
well Anderson's Anne of the Thousand Days, S. N.
Behrman s No Time for Comedy, John van Draten's
Bell, Book, and Candle, and Christopher Fry's Venus
Observed. In the latter two he played opposite his
wife, Lilli Palmer, who had been enjoying a suc-
cessful motion-picture and stage career in her own
right.

Like many of our most gifted actors, Mr. Har-
rison is English by birth, and his first appearances
were before English audiences.

How do English audiences differ from those of Broadway?
Do they laugh, cry, and respond in general, in the same
places?

R H. I don't think that audiences throughout the world react very
differently to a good play that has wide appeal. Shakespeare
is enjoyed everywhere, and has recently been given success-
fully in Japan, for example. In England, audiences love the
excitement and vitality of American musicals.

There are -some differences, of course. Conversation pieces
don't go in America as they do in England. Shaw is an ex-
ceptionand a dangerous example for lesser writers of con-
versation pieces to follow, at least as far as American audiences
are concerned. London is slower than New York, and the
tempo of the theatre mirrors the tempo of the town.

No audience, however, can become absorbed in characters
whose emotional problems it can't understand. Death of a
Salesman was a tremendous piece of Americana, but its prob-
lems were completely alien to the English and left them cold.

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LET'S MEET THEATRE

I think youTI find that true in general-when a play reflects
die very special feelings and problems of one group or one
nation, no matter how well it is done, its appeal to other
groups will be greatly limited.

Are actors under less tension in England, where the dividing
line between success and failure is not so sharp?

R H. Yes, I think so. A play doesn't have to be a smash hit, it can
be a nice little success, without losing money. And that situa-
tion is reflected in the lessening of tension for the entire cast.
In England actors do suffer one torture that is spared them
here. Tea is served during one of the matinee intermissions,
and sometimes the dishes aren't completely cleared away be-
fore the performance resumes. The rattling can be very annoy-

Courtesy of Playwrights Company. Photo by John Swope

31. Rex Harrison as Henry V//I and Joyce Redman as Anne
Boleyn in a scene from Anne of the Thousand Days, by Maxwell
Anderson.

148

THE ACTOR

ing. I understand that you allow dishes only In your film
theatres, where the actors don't mind the noise.

How about what's taking place on the stage itself, here in
America? Playwrights like John Van Druten and Tennessee
Williams write most of their fat parts for women. And most
of the sensational successes appear to be scored by women.
Surely there are as many gifted young actors as actresses.
Does this mean that our theatre's emphasis is shifting totoard
women?

RH. To me It seems a case of cause and effect. During the last
two decades the American theatre has had a wonderful crop
of actresses and the English theatre a fine crop of actors.
When you have great actresses, you have authors writing
plays for women.

I think there are as many gifted young actors as actresses,
but here in America they don't usually remain on the stage.
For the past twenty years or more they have been, leaving
the theatre for Hollywood. And there are three thousand miles
between Broadway and Hollywood. In England, London is
both the film capital and the theatre capital. Actors can make
films without leaving the theatre. Both the films and the
theatre benefit, not to speak of the actors themselves.

However, the American theatre still has a large number of
good male actors. Awards for acting are generally given, I
believe, to both sexes.

Mr. Harrison, you and Miss Palmer have played together for
years now. Is it easier to work with someone whose style
you're familiar with? Community theatres differ from Broad-
way in that the same group is constantly working together.
Is that helpful, or is it better to be working with new people
all the time, as usually happens on Broadway?

RH. There are many advantages to group playing. You break
down the barriers of working with people who don't know you
or one another. So many actors, in unfamiliar company, are
afraid of making fools of themselves. They become self-con-
scious, and tighten up. They shouldn't mind making fools of
themselves in rehearsals. That's the place for it, and group

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LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

acting gives them the courage to do It. It's very good for an
actor to experiment and to expand his range.

There's a danger in that for a novice, but the bigger danger
is to be tight, to be too restrained. For teen-agers, rehearsals
are the opportunity to let themselves go. They have to learn
how to use their hands, how to scream hysterically, how to
laugh convincingly. They can learn from actors they know
more readily than from strangers. If they get too wild, a good
director will check them.

Group work doesn't stop an individual from improving.
As for disadvantageswell, I don't see any for the individual
so long as the group itself remains healthy. There's a grave
danger of doing too much, of putting on too many plays in
too short a time. When that happens, the actor just does his
best to get through and falls into all kinds of bad habits.

If the group avoids these dangers, the individual actors
will benefit from playing in it. It's always good to come in
contact with artists who can help young professionals. I know
that London or Broadway is always the goal of a young actor,
but it's dangerous to be exposed to either of them too early,
before you have the ability to face the challenge of audiences
who expect the best. Failure at an early stage can set you
back for years.

Do you and Miss Palmer have difficulty in finding good scripts
in which you can play together?

RH. One just has difficulty in finding good scripts. That's why
English actors are always doing revivals of the classics. I know
that American actors would like to do them too, but financial
difficulties stand in the way here. The result is that American
actors, although they're wonderful in American dramas, have
difficulty in most period plays. They simply don't get the
opportunity for proper training. Playing bits on television keeps
the actor going financially, and it's better than no chance to
act at all, but it isn't enough. What the actor needs is a
chance to act in repertory. I'm grateful that I had it.

Mr. Harrison, how do you feel about directing a play while
acting in it?

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THE ACTOR

R H. To young people in the theatre Yd say, dbn*t try to act and

direct at the same time. Acting can be difficult enough in
itself, especially when you're learning. Try to get into sum-
mer stock, or into some other group where you can play a
variety of parts and everything doesn't depend on a single
role. Avoid being exposed to the dangers of great success or
great failure right away.

The American theatre needs a prime mover, something
that will give it a good shove along the right path and get it
back into the communities again. The young actor should
prepare himself for the opportunities of the future by ex-
panding his abilities and getting more experience in the
theatre in every way he can.

151

the

HELEN HAYES

The name of Helen Hayes Is one that spells a
special magic for theatre-goers. Miss Hayes has
the ability to change her stage personality com-
pletely according to the needs of a role and to
maintain the attractiveness of that personality in
al roles.

Think of the wide variety of parts she has
played as the heroine of Barrie's What Every
Woman Knows, Ferenc Molnar's The Good Fairy,"
Maxwell Anderson's Mary of Scotland, Laurence
Housman's Victoria Regina, Shakespeare's Twelfth
Night, even a free adaptation by Joshua Logan
of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard. She has tri-
umphed in farce and the lightest of comedy, as
well as in serious and tragic drama.

To act such a variety of roles requires both a
great native talent and tremendous skill.

How, Miss Hayes, did you acquire that skill? When you "began
your career, were teachers as concerned with theories and
systems of acting as they are now?

H H. I began acting professionally at seven, and I wasn't exposed
to teachers. The theatre was my teacher. I learned in stock
companies as well as in shows, through the process of acting.
In those days the stock companies had good actors and good
directors, from whom I acquired a great deal.

By the time I was twenty, I had achieved stardom. But
there were many things that my thirteen years on the stage
hadn't taught me, and I felt that if I were ever to progress
from being a charming young thing I had to study. So, as a
star, I went to school not to dramatic school, but to teachers
of dancing, posture, and voice. I worked for about ten years
in order to enlarge my scope. I needed this to play different
roles. Without this training I couldn't have played Mary of
Scotland, and other tragic roles.
I believe firmly that the right teaching is very important,

152

THE ACTOR

especially today, when the theatre doesn't offer the variety of
roles it once did. You can't exercise your talents unless von go
to school. My daughter went to drama school to the American
Academy for two years.

Would you say, Miss Hayes, that there's a more serious ap-
proach to the theatre nowadays?

HH. There's a more desperate approach to the theatre, because
of the shrinking of opportunities. Young actors and actresses
feel a real inner sense of something to give, and they can't
get a fair trial. And at the same time, among audiences
throughout the country, there's a great hunger for the theatre.
People always reach out to it for things their personal lives
can't give them. Under present conditions, there are frustra-
tions on both sides of the footlights.

You dont stick to a single type of play. Hoio do you choose
a play?

H H. I choose a play when I fall in love with it. I've had success
with plays because I've retained that simplicity of approach.
I don't worry about whether the critics will like them.

It isn't easy to keep that approach. Friends will tell you,
"Your next play is your most important one/' and try to make
you forget your own tastes and choose a part that will be
"different" from what you've done before. They're trying to
be helpful, but all they do is confuse you. You have to be
wary of that kind of help. There are always exceptions, but in
general I feel that I have the taste of the public. Most of the
plays that don't succeed are put on just as a gamble, without
any real belief or liking on the part of the producers.

If anyone had told me, before the play was written, that
he had the idea of a play like Mrs. McThing, with witches
and gamblers, I'd have taken an aspirin. But once I read the
play itself, I found it so full of warmth and human feeling that
I fell in love with it. Several commercial producers saw it and
hesitated to go ahead with a fantasy of this kind. Luckily,
however, it was being done for ANTA, so we put it on.

153

LET'S MEET THE THEATEE

Did Mrs. McThlng make you reach for the aspirins for any
other reason? How about the children? How did you find

working with them?

H H. I was once advised by a great actress, Emily Stevens : "Never
be in a play with a child, a dog, or a railroad train." To
many professionals It's frightening and slightly discouraging
to see children going out and giving such performances as they
did in Mrs. McThing. To me, perhaps it was a kind of retribu-
tion. When I was seven, adult actresses had to contend with
me, and later I had to contend with Brandon and Mimi.
But It was a joy to work with them. They had honesty, and
a pure instinctive approach to the right expression.

How about playing for children, Miss Hayes? Are children as
audience more difficult to please?

H EL When the play is for children, it's just wonderful They take
It more literally than grown-ups do. They believe it, and it's
thrilling to feel this wave of excitement come across the foot-
lights.

But when It's an adult play that's different. My lowest
experience was a special children's matinee of Harriet, which
was a play about Harriet Beecher Stowe, and was not aimed
at children. Our intentions were wonderful the price of a
ticket was only twenty-five cents, and although financially
the performance couldn't pay, we were happy at the thought
of how the children would enjoy it. Well, they packed the
place. And then, when the play began, they found that it
bored them, and they let loose at us.

They made airplanes out of the programs and sailed them
through the air, they ran up and down the aisles for drinks,
they yelled at one another and they drove the ushers and
actors wild. In the last act, one of the actresses could no
longer help herself and burst into a fit of laughter. I couldn't
keep from joining in, and so did the children. This was some-
thing they could appreciate. For that moment, they were with
us.

But the play itself meant nothing to them. I learned my
lesson never again to do another adult play for children.

I might make an exception, though, for Shakespeare. ChiL-

154

THE ACTOR

dren as a rale respond well to Shakespeare. For instance, they
loved Twelfth Night. Shakespeare was a wonderful story-teller,
and they love the stories, the beautiful language, the action.
My son, when he was nine years old, went to see Laurence
Olivier in the movie version of Hamlet in London, and on his
return said that was the best show he had ever seen. Children
respond to Shakespeare more in the way the Elizabethans
probably did. They are more direct than modem sophisticated
audiences, and they like the physical action.

To go from childhood to the opposite extreme, Miss Hayes,
how did you age yourself for the role of Victoria, which so
greatly impressed everyone? Did you evolve your own
make-up, or did you call in a technician?

HH. At first I called in a technician, a make-up artist, and he
went to work on me. It took him three-quarters of an hour.
But I had only twelve minutes between acts altogether five
minutes to clean my face of the previous make-up and take
off the costume, and seven minutes for the new make-up and
costume. In those seven minutes I had to rush madly. I had
to put on lines, and insert cotton plumpers in my cheeks,
and this had to be done with great exactness^ with plumpers
that were weighed each day and carefully balanced. If not
the same size they would have been uncomfortable and
created difficulties in speaking. And then had to come the
hair-do, the padding, and the costume. It was a more frantic
seven minutes than any I spent on stage, and that three-
quarter-of-an-hour make-up was out of the question. So I
evolved my own make-up.

While you wore it, did you feel yourself old, as if living the
character, or was the effect almost entirely external?

HH. No, I didn't rely on the external effect. Actually, I'm not
terribly impressed about make-up. I can't feel that it's so im-
portant, although that may seem like a paradox from a woman
who became so famous for putting on make-up.

I had a vision of Victoria, and I projected that vision.
The make-up was a springboard. In Mary of Scotland, short

155

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

Vandamm

32. Helen Hayes as the aged Queen Victoria in a scene from
Victoria Regina, by Laurence Housman.

as I am, I played the tallest queen in history. I thought tall,
felt tall all the work I did on posture helped and I looked
tafl.

Miss Hayes, why do you voluntarily give so much time to
ANTA? Do you think it will help the theatre very much?

HH. I certainly do. I became interested in ANTA because I be-
lieve that the theatre must live in communities. Companies
must work in the communities the year round. Young people
who want to be in the theatre should go back to the com-
munities from which they came, and work there. They should
join theatres, and organize them where none exist. It is of the
utmost importance for them to explore the non-Broadway
theatre, because the Broadway theatre is a shrinking one.
One trouble with that, though, is that community experience

156

THE ACTOR

means nothing on Broadway. You can get fine notices in
Omaha or some other large city other than New York, but
they won't impress commercial producers, or help you get a
job in a Broadway production.

That makes it all the more important to decentralize the
theatre, to bring it back to the people. Tm enthusiastically in
favor of community theatres. However, too many of them still
have a tendency to stage a play simply because it was a hit
on Broadway. And they have other weaknesses which we
professionals can be of assistance in eliminating. We both have
much to gain from each other.

I think that in addition to helping the community theatres,
ANTA should make its playhouse a testing ground for new
plays and new talents, including those that the community
theatres produce.

That will give you an idea of why I regard ANTA as im-
portant. I think it has a great part to play in bringing to the
people all the good things the theatre has to offer.

157

to People Laugh

BERT LAHR

Bert Lahr is one of those comic actors who look as
if they couldn't stop being fonny if they tried. If
you have seen him as the Cowardly Lion in the
movie version of The Wizard of Oz, or as a hero
of opera and space opera in Two on the Aisle,
or if you have listened to the sound of his raucous,
penetrating voice, you may feel that here is a born
comedian. But when we interviewed him in his
dressing room before a performance, he was en-
tirely serious, and he made it clear that he was
funny only when he wanted to be.

How do you become a comedian?

B L. You have to have a basis of talent to start with. From then on,
it's hard work that counts. But hard work without the talent
does no good. You can knock yourself out learning how to get
laughs and if there's no talent, you still won't get them.

What's talent in acting? It's a kind of magnetism, some-
thing that makes you stand out in a crowd. I can't define it,
but it's there. You can tell it's there when you walk on a stage
and people stop looking at the other actors and start looking
at you. Another actor falls on his face to attract attention, but
all you have to do is pretend you're scared, and the audience
forgets about him and looks at you instead. And for some rea-
son it couldn't tell you, it laughs its head off. That's talent in
acting.

Why do people become actors, Mr. Lahr?

BL. Because ninety-nine per cent of them are exhibitionists at
heart. I haven't made any Gallup poll, but I'd put the figure
close to that. People like to show off. Some of them have to work
for a living, so they can't get to a stage, and they become Lions
and Rotarians instead of comedians.

158

THE ACfOE

How do you know> when you have the necessary talent to go
on to the hard work?

B L. You can't tell, yourself, but an audience will tell you. A lot of
kids get the idea they're comics simply because they and their
pals laugh at their own jokes. My advice to them for their
own good is to be honest with themselves. If the audience
doesn't laugh forget it.

Doesn't a lot depend on your material?

BL. Sure, but a talented comedian will enhance bad material,
just as a poor comedian will rain all the good material that's
given to him. However, if you know your business, you try not
to accept bad material And once you create a distinctive style,
writers will write good stuff especially for you.

Courtesy of Arthur Lesser. Photo by Eileen Darby, Graphic House

33 A & 33B. Berf Lohr in two scenes from fhe musical revue Two on the
Aisle, (.eft, as Captain l/mverse-a satin* on interplanetary TV heroes.
Right, as Queen (shall we sayj Victoria.

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

How about the producer? Can he make a star?

B L. That's one thing a producer can't do. He can help you, he can
give you a chance to make yourself a star. From then on, it's up
to you.

Of course, to become a star you need more than talent
alone. A certain element of luck enters into it, fate, if you want
to call it that. You need faith in yourself while you're working
for a break. But if you've given acting enough tries, and you
still have no luck, try another profession.

You don't get very much from college theatres. I don't know
of a single good comedian who's come out of them. Maybe some
of the professors are good comics, but if they are, they don't
hand their talent over to their students. I don't think you can
study to be an actor. I say it again, if you don't have definite
talent, it's useless.

How about the experience to bring out that talent?

B L. Sure, you need experience. Experience will give a comedian
the right sort of deportment, it'll teach a comedian to execute
his talent more deftly. It'll mellow him, teach him what not
to doand that's as important as knowing what to do. It'll
teach him good taste.

How about what the critics call "timing'?

BL. I guess they mean nothing but rhythm, a natural gift for
knowing when and how fast to do a thing.

You say it's natural it doesn't come from experience?

B L. Experience helps here too, but you have to have the basis for
it to start with.

While were on the subject of experience where can a co-
median get it?

BL. There aren't many good places nowadays. Summer stock is
about the only way I can think of. Some actors think they can
get into a chorus and wait for a break there, but choruses, with

160

THE ACTOR
a few outstanding exceptions, haven't brought out comic talent.

How about television and the movies?

B L. The trouble with television is that you think it gives you some-
thing for nothing. You get a bad program, but you don't turn
it off because it's costing you nothing but your time. That
means that some comedians can get by with anything, and
they do. Getting by with bad acting isn't good experience.
But when you pay six-sixty for a seat, you expect something
good. And either you get it, or the show closes.

In movies, these days, the comedian usually doesn't have
much to do. The pretty boy and girl are the stars. Besides, the
people who make movies are always afraid of going over an
audience's head. The legitimate theatre is aimed at a different
type of patron, and it uses more sophisticated subject matter.

Sure, there are some things you can't say in the legitimate
theatre either, not because there's much censorship, but be-
cause audiences won't go for it. You can't make satire too
biting, for instance. They won't buy that. But maybe that
depends on who gets bitten.

Perhaps there'll be another trend, and enough profit to
support round entertainment, and make room for new faces.
Then you'll have more great comedians. Right now there
aren't so many. It used to be that a man with talent would
mold himself by entertaining discerning audiences. Today,
comics try to mold themselves by entertaining the average.

Young comics have a problem these days. They find a
successful comedian and just copy him, because all they want
is to make a lot of money, and they think they've found a short
cut. Well, it may turn out to be a dead alley. Years ago
you'd go out and fool around, try one thing after another,
until you got something that was natural to you, and different
from what the other fellow had. Today, everyone copies.

"You say there aren't many great comedians. How do you
judge?

B L. I take into account that there are different types of comedians.
Some, for instance, get laughs by telling jokes. Personally, I
have never told jokes. Children like one kind of humor, older

161

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

people another. 1 judge by a comic's method and deportment,
by his individualism. I don't judge by his material or execution.

Does a comedian learn to act all sorts of roles, or had he better

stick to comedy?

BL. Personally, IVe done dramatic shows like Burlesque and
Harvey. You hear that stuff about every comedian secretly
wanting to do Hamlet well, that isn't such a laugh. A great
comedian could do Hamlet if he wanted to, at least as well as
a lot of the actors who've played the part. A great comedian
must be a good actor and should be able to make an audience
cry as well as laugh, because there's a thin line between them.
And an actor who knows when to cross that line can play all
sorts of roles.

162

The Negro His Roks

FREDERICK O'NEAL

Frederick O'Neal is one of the best actors we
have. He can speak perfectly in a great variety of
dialects, and he can cany conviction in a wide
range of roles, from that of Capulet in Romeo and
Juliet to that of a poor-white Georgia farmer or a
Negro doctor or lawyer. He has narrated the story
of Ferdinand the Bull with the New York Phil-
harmonic Symphony Orchestra; he has been in the
moving picture Pinky, and in such plays as A Lady
Passing Fair, Head of the Family, and Take a Giant
Step. He was unforgettable in the all-Negro pro-
duction of Anna Lucasta*

The fact that he is a Negro actor and has
difficulty finding parts is the one thing that keeps
him from being better known to our theatre au-
diences. But his fellow actors know his abilities, and
they have elected him a member of the Equity
Council, the top body of Actors* Equity Association.

Mr. O'Neal, how did you get your start in the theatre?

F O*N. That was in St. Louis, about twenty-five to twenty-seven
years ago. School plays stimulated my interest, and I decided
I was going to be an actor.

One of the best ways to learn the craft is to organize a
community theatre. That's what I did. We organized the
Aldridge Players in St. Louis in 1927. They're still alive,
although not very active. We put on Hallelujah, Emperor
Jones, As Jou Like It, and so on. Among the other members
of the group there were Josephine Buck, a singer, and Winnie
Scott, a pianist, who also went on to become professionals.

Later I was a member of the Rose McClendon Players in
New York. Dick Campbell was Executive Director. Muriel
Rahn and others were also members of this group. And I was
one of the founders of the American Negro Theatre in New
York.

163

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

34. Frederick O'Neof as the
Judge In a scene from The
Winner, by Elmer Rice.

Courtesy of Pix Incorporated. Photo by George Karger

Jou must have been very serious about the theatre to join
so many acting groups.

F O'N. You have to be serious to get anyplace. Most of those in
the American Negro Theatre were serious, even more so than
a great number of professionals. The training program was
complete, as it should be for every little theatre group. And
it's worth noting that the people who taught acting, make-up,
scenery construction, and so on, were all professionals, top
people in their field.

And with all that experience you still find it difficult to get
a job?

164

THE ACTOft

F OT\ T . It isn't easy for any actor to get a job. But it's more
difficult for the young Negro actor. He has a very narrow
choice of parts, slightly broader than it used to be, but not
as broad by any means as it should be.

At present 1 know of only nine Negro actors working in
the Broadway legitimate theatre,

Simply because there aren't enough pans for more?

F O*N. That isn't the only reason. Producers could cast according
to the requirement of a part, without regard to color. Some
producers do. At the University of Wisconsin, for instance, to
a great extent they cast according to ability and not color.
But most producers have preconceived ideas about what parts
should be played by Negroes, and some have strong and
definite prejudices.

So a Negro actor has plenty of difficulties to face?

F O'N. Yes, he has the same difficulties as a white actor, plus all
those that arise because of his color. He knows that on the
road, for instance, he'll have difficulty finding hotel accom-
modations. That's another thing that makes him hesitate. And
he has less chance to learn his craft, for such knowledge
comes mostly through doing.

There's another thing, too. You know that many people
used to regard the theatre as a snare of the Devil, a den of
iniquity. That belief persisted for a long time also among my
own people, who were very religious, and it kept many of
our young people from thinking of the theatre as a profession.
The subjects the theatre dealt with didn't do much to change
their minds. The Negro background has been systematically
excluded from the history and traditions of our country. You'll
read in history books, for instance, that Lincoln freed the
slaves, but you won't read that the slaves fought hard for
their own freedom. Well, the theatre, like most other insti-
tutions, paid little attention to the things that concerned our
people. And Negroes weren't greatly interested in plays that
dealt with problems that didn't concern them, or that had
Negro characters only in the role of servants.

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LET'S MEET THE THEATBE

So a Negro actor has to think about a lot of other things
besides acting.

F O*N. Yes, We have a Negro Actors Guild, which cares for sick
and indigent Negro actors as part of the Theatre Authority
set up by the Four A's to distribute funds. Various unions-
American Guild of Variety Artists, Actors' Equity Association,
Chorus Equity, and Television Authority have set up com-
mittees to explore employment opportunities for Negroes.
And Actors' Equity and Chorus Equity have arranged to meet
the League of New York Theatres, and the Dramatists Guild,
to discuss greater integration of Negroes in the legitimate
theatre.

We don't spend our time on these problems because we
want to. We'd rather spend it learning and acting new parts.
But the problems are forced on us, and we have no choice
but to face them.

166

THE STAGE MANAGER

WHEN A SHOW actually opens, the work of the author, the
director, and the scene and costume designer is usually at an
end. There are exceptions cases where the play has received
a mixed press and the producer hopes to keep it running
with the help of considerable revision. But in the normal
course of events, whether the first night has been successful
or not, the captains and the kings depart (the producer-god
remains, of course), and their task is taken over by the stage
manager, who supervises all the details of putting on the play.

In a noncommercial group, the director and the others
often will not depart, and will continue to work on a play for
as long as it runs. Nevertheless, in every theatre there are a
hundred details which they will relegate to others tasks which
must be performed by members of the cast and the stage
crew. In amateur groups, these tasks are all too often neg-
lected. Actors forget to be on stage at the right time, props
are misplaced, the wrong lights are turned on. Frequently
these mishaps result from the fact that no one is responsible
for seeing that they don't occur.

In commercial productions, as in well-organized community
theatres, there is no shirking this responsibility. It belongs to
the stage manager, who must supervise the activities of the
stage carpenters, electricians, and prop men as well as of the
actors. Many duties, like prompting, will be relegated to an
assistant. But even with assistance, the stage manager is still
one of the busiest persons in the theatre.

Stage managing is not simple. At present, the American
Theatre Wing is conducting courses in it backstage of all the
shows now running on Broadway. The theatre will soon have
stage managers to spare. But in the past, the art has not been
easy to learn.

J67

What a Stage Manager Does

RUTH MITCHELL

Some people including some producers think that
a job of this sort requires a rough, touch approach
that only a man can have. Ruth Mitchell, who as
we write is stage manager of the Rodgers and
Hammerstein musical The King and I 3 does not fit
into this picture at all. She is pretty and petite,
and we mistook her at first for a dancer in the
show. But we quickly found that it was only half a
mistake.

RM. I did start out as a dancer and actress. But while I was
in one show, the need for an assistant stage manager arose,
and I volunteered. It meant only a small increase in salary
at first, and the work was exhausting, as I kept my position
as a dancer while learning my new job. However, Tm glad
I did it, for it was the start of a whole new future.

How does the average stage manager get experience?

R M. Usually, the best place is in summer stock. But it isn't easy
to get into Equity stage managing, you know, is part of
Equity.

What are your duties?

RM. To keep up what the author, director, and the other artists
have created. You work with them before the opening, so
you know how things are done. You or your assistant notify
the actors thirty minutes ahead of time, then fifteen minutes,
and so on, finally warning them to be on stage with: "Places,
please." You check the list of props, the things that are carried
or used on stage, to see that they are in place. Usually, you
and your assistant work on opposite sides of the stage, in
order to check the exits and entrances on both sides.

You re responsible too for seeing that the sets are in place
and the costumes in order, although here the wardrobe mi$-

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THE STAGE MANAGE!

Courtesy of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstem IL Photo by Zinn Arthur
35. Jtutii Mitchell, stage manager of The King and I, standing to fne right
of Yuf firynner as the King, and Constance Carpenter as Anna, during
a feJiearsaf.

tress has actual charge. When the show starts, you time each
scene, and you indicate where cuts are needed in case the
show runs overtime.

YouVe in charge of the lighting. There's a lighting plot
sheet to indicate the positions and intensities of all the lights,
and you have to follow that. Sometimes the lighting is so
complicated that you need a special assistant for that alone.

You're responsible for giving the stage hands the cues
for offstage noises. That too can be a full-time job, as it
was in Mister Roberts, where there were hundreds of ship
noises, voices over the microphone, and other sounds that
had to come in at exactly the right times.

You're busy from before the show starts until after it
closes. AH sorts of accidents can happen-curtains can foul,
scenery can be misplaced, etc. You have to see that, despite

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LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

accidents, the show the audience watches runs smoothly.
There's no time out during intermissions either, because you
have to prepare for the next scene or act.

Then, between shows, you conduct the rehearsals of under-
studies, and you direct the new actors who come in as re-
placements. If the top star is replaced, the original director
may be caled back for a time, but otherwise the job of
directing replacements is yours.

Such work can be creative, to a certain extent. Moreover,
you do have a chance to leam how others create. And if you
have the ability, you can go on to become a producer, di-
rector, or author, as some stage managers have done.

You make sure that all absentees in the cast are replaced.
Sometimes you may have to go on stage yourself. Equity
doesn't allow a stage manager to act as understudy, although
it does allow an assistant stage manager to do so. But in case
of emergency, say, when you learn a minute or two before
curtain time that an actor is ill, you're permitted to replace him.

If any extra jobs turn up during the play, they're likely to
be your responsibility. The cast of The King and I includes
fourteen children and I'm the nursemaid. They make the
show just as exciting for me as for the audience, especially
when they outgrow their parts and have to be replaced. They
bawl like babies at the thought of leaving.

Are there any other executive fobs about the production that
you havent mentioned?

R. M. Well, there's the production stage manager, who works with
the producer in pre-production work. And the company man-
ager, who is the producer's business manager for the show.
He makes up the payroll, and so on. But he has to do with
the front of the house, and has no part in the staging of
the show.

Is stage managing especially difficult for a woman?

RM. No. The only physical difficulty is in the number of hours
you must put in.

170

THE STAGE MANAGE!
But there is stiE prejudice against women as stage managers?

RM. Definitely. However, producers will overcome it if you con-
vince them you can do the job. Stage managing isn't easy,
but it's a necessary part of the show. And I feel that for me
it's been worth while.

171

MUSIC AND DANCE IN THE THEATRE

THERE is AN OLD and cynical bit of advice which experienced
critics have long given to new playwrights: if your words
sound too silly to be said, have them sung. Nobody demands
that the words of a song make sense.

That, as we say, is a bit of cynicism. It twists the truth.
It is true that many musical productions do not make a great
deal of sense as a whole, and that therefore nobody expects
the songs in them to be much better. Music of all kinds,
however, finds a home in the theatre, not in order to hide
the silliness of a playwright's words, but to produce an emo-
tional effect which words alone might not have. The same is
true of dancing. Before words can affect us, they must not
only be seen or heard, but understood. Some of Hamlet's
most eloquent lines mean nothing to a young student who is
unfamiliar with the words Shakespeare used, or baffled by his
poetic images. But music and dancing act much more di-
rectly, and they have some emotional effect regardless of the
degree of education of the spectator.

If the music and dancing are used together with a play-
wright's words, the emotional effect will be all the greater.
That is why, from the earliest days of the theatre, they have
been inseparable from drama, often being more important than
the words themselves. Many of the Greek classics lose their
effect upon us because the scripts we read cannot include the
songs and dances that were so important in the original pro-
ductions. And the same is true of scripts from Japan, China,
and other countries.

In Shakespeare's time, songs and dances had still another
purpose. They were used to break up what audiences con-
sidered the monotony of straight dialogue. Shakespeare's com-
edies were interrupted by frequent airs and jigs. Some of the
songs for which Shakespeare himself supplied words have come
down to us. But there were many others which the actors
added ad lib, of their own free will. And there are works of

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MUSIC AND DANCE IN THE THEATKE

Moliere which contain entire ballets which have nothing to
do with the play proper.

In modem musicals like Oklahoma! or Bloomer Girl, the
ballets, created by Agnes de Mille, are definitely part of the
action. They contribute to the essential feeling of the play,
and without them the performance would be incomplete. But
in many of the older works, the Jigs, airs, and ballets need be
left in only if there are highly skilled performers to do them.
Otherwise they will hurt the production, and had better be
omitted.

You will find that the problems of combining music and
dancing with the words of a play wiE face you in every kind
of script. You can most obviously expect to meet them, of
course, in a revue or musical comedy, where most of the per-
formers may have to do less acting than singing and dancing,
and will be chosen primarily for their abilities in these di-
rections.

Now, even a high school of moderate size may have enough
talented pupils to fill the cast of a musical production. Young
pupils may lack the experience and polish of a cast of Broad-
way professionals. But with careful coaching they can put on
a good show. The records of the Thespian Society prove that
each year many high-school groups throughout the country
do perform to the satisfaction of large audiences.

One of the danger spots of a high-school production, as
of an amateur production generally, is likely to be the ac-
companiment. On any stage, amateur or professional, you are
always faced with the problem of a singer who will omit a
word, line, or even an entire chorus. When that or some
other emergency occurs, an accompanist dare not go right on
playing his part, or chaos will result. To keep the show from
falling apart, you will need to have a good musical director,
who will sit in the orchestral pit before the stage, and keep
an alert eye and ear on what is happening. The moment
something goes wrong, he will signal the accompanist.

A first-class pianist won't even need the musical director's
signals. Hell hear what's happening, and follow every change
the singer makes so skillfully that the audience won't even
realize anything has gone wrong. A two-piano team, such as
provides the accompaniment in the summer theatre, will have
more trouble. And an orchestra will have to be very skilled

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LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

indeed for every one of its members to get the musical di-
rector's signals and respond to them correctly and without
hesitation.

That is why the best form of accompaniment for the
amateur stage is a single piano, played by a skilled performer,
who should be at least as good a musician as any of the
singers. Many high schools have such pianists, and they can
add immeasurably to the success of a musical show. The
musical director, usually a member of the faculty, will have
to possess even more skill and experience.

What sort of musical should an amateur group give? That,
to a large extent, depends on the talents the group has
available. Gilbert and Sullivan operettas have long been pop-
ular with high schools, and so have the operettas of Victor
Herbert and a few other composers. They make no great
technical demands of the singers, but they do require pleasant
and flexible voices, and Gilbert and Sullivan do call for a
good sense of comedy. If properly performed, these operettas
are almost uniformly entertaining.

Sometimes a high-school group will find it possible to
give an old musical comedy that was once popular on Broad-
way. And occasionally it will be able to put on an original
revue or musical written by its own members. You will find
original musicals more often in colleges, where there are more
students who have had the necessary training in writing and
musical composition. But they have been given by a few high
schools also.

A musical production has special requirements in addition
to the obvious ones of singers and dancers. The lighting is
different from the lighting of an ordinary play. It is intended
to convey much more the mood of a song or dance than the
appearance of a place, and there is a greater use of spotlights
to center attention on the performers. The sets and costumes,
too, are different. Like the lighting, they are less realistic and
more stylized. Their purpose is to provide striking and effective
stage pictures, and, as Howard Bay has pointed out, they
offer difficulties that other stage settings do not. In a revue, for
instance, the designer must start each scene from scratch,
without regard to the previous scenes. And it is not easy to be
continually starting all over again.

Some straight dramatic plays call for songs or dances as

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MUSIC AND DANCE IN THE THEATBE

part of the plot. In a story dealing with a musician or dancer,
music and dancing would be almost inevitable. In Death of
a Salesman, on the other hand, none of the characters actually
sings or plays a musical instrument. But there is a musical
background which continues throughout the play and con-
tributes greatly to the emotional effect produced by the words
and action. No performance of Death of a Salesman would be
complete without this music.

In the examples we have considered, with the exception of
some of the operettas, it is the play, and not the music or
dancing, which is the main thing. If you sacrifice the play
for the music, you will have an opera; if yotir play exists
chiefly to provide a framework for the dancing, you will
have a ballet or other form of dance which tells a story. Both
opera and ballet are part of the theatre. We are not considering
them here because they have special problems of their own,
and are outside the limits we have set for ourselves in this book.

There are some plays which have no songs or dances in
them, and were written without any thought of a musical
accompaniment. Even a play of this nature sometimes finds
itself being acted to music. But you had better be careful of
the kind of music you add. The movies long ago found out
that a musical accompaniment should not distract the audi-
ence's attention from the story itself. Music that is too power-
ful and melodies that are too striking make us forget the action
going on upon the stage, instead of centering our attention
upon it.

One of the things every dramatist learns is that no play
consists merely of words. Not only what the actor says but
what he does helps carry out the playwright's purpose. In fact,
entire plays have been given in pantomime, with gestures and
movements and bits of business, and possibly with sound ef-
fects, but without a single word. In tie movies and on tele-
vision you will find stretches two or three minutes long of
action without words. And even in the living theatre, which
cannot change scenes as rapidly as the movies and television
can, you will find long and effective stretches of pantomime.

Much of dancing is pantomime with the addition of stylized
motion (as in the ballet, for instance). In order to increase the
effect upon an audience, an actor not only approaches his
stage enemy with a defiant expression on his face, but whirls

175

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

around and then bounds into the air as he does so. A sane
individual in real life is hardly likely to act that way. But the
whirling and the bounding do help make clear to the audience
what the character feels. And such methods are, after all, no
more than exaggerated forms of the gestures and movements
used in ordinary acting.

For acting does not consist merely of gestures and move-
ments borrowed from real life. What the actor does is intended
to be seen or heard by an audience. On the street, a man may
clench his fist so imperceptibly that none of the people around
him notice it. Or his voice may tighten almost imperceptibly
with the anger he feels. But no actor wants his stage emotions
to go unnoticed. He will clench his fist in so conspicuous a
fashion that the spectators in the back row are sure to see it.
And his voice will make clear, to the best of his ability, that
he is in a rage.

What the actor ordinarily does, then, is to use exaggerated
methods for the sake of appearing realistic. In music and
dancing, he exaggerates still further and appears frankly un-
realistic, for the sake of conveying genuine emotion.

We have seen that voice and body training, such as the
singer and the dancer undergo, are almost indispensable
to the actor. The methods of the composer and choreographer
can be similarly useful to the play director. Good dance com-
position, for instance, involves not only the use of the dancer's
body; it requires the proper utilization of the entire stage
space. We talked about it to choreographer Zachary Solov,
who had for the first time in the memories of most opera-
goers made ballet at the Metropolitan Opera a spectacle
worth watching.

He pointed out that in order to get effective composition
and variety, the choreographer must, even more than the
play director, arrange his dancers carefully. He must balance
left against right, upstage against down. Or he may set his
dancers going in a circle. The director may do the same thing,
in not so obvious a manner, when the effect he intends to
create is that of a chase, either physical or emotional.

There is another kind of movement which the chore-
ographer frequently uses from one level to another. When he
consigns his dancers to the floor level, they seem to be
groveling near the earth; when they bound into the air or leap

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MUSIC AND DANCE IN THE THEATRE

up onto a platform, the effect is one of spiritual reaching up.
The rapid change from one level to another provides very
effective movement.

The stage director too can make good use of such move-
ment. He can utilize steps and staircases and pieces of fur-
niture, he can have a contrast between characters who are
sitting and standing. In what is known as "plastic" staging,
the set is designed with many different levels in order to
emphasize the possibility of up and down movement.

Ther^ are times when it becomes difficult to say whether
the actors are singing and dancing or not. When you chant
your lines, as you may in a Greek play, you are already
halfway between speech and song. When you rush wordlessly
from one side of the stage to the other to express a kind of
frustrated despair, your movements will not be "natural/*
They will be carefully stylized, in the manner of dance.

It becomes clear, then, that at least the elements of song
and dance are present in every play, no matter how "straight."
Singing and dancing, which were so conspicuous a part of
the theatre in the beginning, may sometimes be less notice-
able now. But they can no more be banished from it than
can acting itself.

177

The Composer in the Theatre

LEONARD BERNSTEIN

A musical comedy stands or falls as much by its
music as by its comedy. And just as there are few
first-class actors who can play a comic scene for all
it is worth, there are few top-notch composers who
can write well for the stage. One exception is
Leonard Bernstein. Still a young man, Mr. Bern-
stein has not only written the music for such
Broadway successes as On the Town and Wonder-
ful Town, but has composed in a more serious
vein (notably the Jeremiah Symphony and his
second symphony, The Age of Anxiety). He has
done the music for Fancy "Free and other outstand-
ing ballets, has conducted all our leading orches-
tras, and has appeared with many of them as piano
soloist. Mr. Bernstein is, for Broadway or for that
matter, anywhere an extraordinarily accomplished
musician, and we wondered whether that might
not be regarded as a handicap by people who
think a composer for the commercial theatre
shouldn't know too much.

Does training in musical composition help you to write better
musical comedies? How much do you really need to know
about music to write for Broadway?

LB. The more training a composer has, the better equipped he is.
Of course, at present the musical comedy is still, for all its
sophistication, in a fairly primitive state, and there is a division
of labor in writing the music. You can get away with being
a composer on Broadway without knowing how to harmonize
a simple tune. All you must be able to do and that requires a
great gift is to compose the tune. Some of the highest-paid
composers on Broadway can do no more than pick out their
melodies at the piano. But after them comes a host of busy
beavers, who take those melodies over. They do a lot of hard
work harmonizing, arranging, orchestrating. As musicians
they're much more skilled than the official composer. A good
many of them, in fact, are frustrated composers themselves.
But although they are fairly well paid, they receive little or no

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MUSIC AND DANCE IN THE THEATRE

Courtesy of Wonderful Town Company. Photo by Vandamm

36. Rosalind Russell held a/off by members of the Brazilian Navy in a
scene from the musical comedy Wonderful Town.

credit. And yet they're the ones who give the composer's
simple tunes the texture, the color, the richness, that make
it worth listening to.

Personally, I like to do every phase of the music myself.
I had time for that with On the Town, for which I did every-
thing but the orchestration of the songs. Wonderful Town
was more of a rush job, and the arrangements of songs and
ballets had to be done by others. Of course they were well
done, but I still prefer to handle all the music myself.

I think that when we finally get a school of American
opera it will have its roots not in the European opera, which
so many of our composers imitate, but in our own musicals.
And the better the composer is equipped, the better for the
future of the musical theatre.

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LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

To what extent is the knowledge of theatre helpful in writing
music for the theatre?

LB. To the fullest extent. At present, knowledge of the theatre
Is more Important for the musical-comedy composer than Is
musical knowledge, He has to know what kind of music is
necessary and where. And no amount of dramatic knowledge

can replace the dramatic seme, which you either have or
don't have.

How do you put all this knowledge to work, Mr. Bernstein?
Which comes first, the music or the words?

L B. Every team works in a different way. It depends on whether
the book- writers are also doing the lyrics. When I worked
with Betty Comden and Adolph Green on On the Town, we
did it the hard way, all of us working together on everything.
That may take a little longer, but it's more flexible, and the
results are worth it. Usually, however, the lyricist writes the
lyrics first and the music is then set to them. Jerome Kern, on
the other hand, used to compose the music first, and the
lyrics would be written to fit. To some extent it's a matter of
personal preference, and to some extent it's a question of
working according to a standard blueprint.

There is a cut-and-dried way for musicals to be born, and
the formula has lasted for a long time. There's a rhythm song,
a ballad, a ballet, etc., each set in its formula position in the
play. One of the rules of the theatre has been not to have a
ballad or a slow song near the end of the show, because after
sitting for a couple of hours the audience is supposed to be
too tired and restless to listen. But that formula can be broken,
and, more and more, musical writers and composers are
moving away from all mechanical formulas.

Isnt there a danger, Mr. Bernstein, of breaking with formulas
too fast, of getting away from what audiences are used to,
and being too highbrow?

LB. If you're highbrow in the wrong way, if you're heavy or
pompous, or pretentious, of course the audience won't like it.
I'm not for being highbrow on purpose. The lightness or

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MUSIC AND DANCE IN THE THEATRE

seriousness of the music should depend on the nature of the
musical play. The distinction of the music must be in the
handling of it.

Does the composer have any say as to where a song would
be most effective, or is the decision just put up to the
writers of the book?

L B. Of course he has a say. A show is a co-operative effort. There
must be constant conferences among writers, choreographers,
and composers. Everyone must have something to say about
the final results.

Does the composer present the choreographer with music
and just say: "Create a ballet"? Or is it done the other
way around?

LB. The ballet is also a mutual effort. Sometimes the choreog-
rapher has more to say. She or he will tell the composer, "I
need about thirty seconds of fast music, forty seconds of love
music/' and so on, but that makes it very difficult for the
composer, and there are cases when the music comes first
and the dancing is fitted to it. Composing for the theatre and
ballet is a complicated business of give and take.

How can youngsters interested in musicals get into the field?
Thousands of songs are written each year, many of them
tuneful and catchy. How can you tell what will be a hit?

L B. If a youngster has an exceptional talent, hell become known.
But it may take time. If you are unknown, it is next to im-
possible to get a hearing at a song publisher, and I advise
young people not to fall for the ads which promise publication
on a small fee. You may have to spend years just trying to
get your songs heard. And the situation is complicated by the
fact that the success of a song doesn't depend just on its
being good. It may be the result of a special publicity cam-
paign, of a tie-in to some public event, or of some quirk of
public taste that nobody could predict.

That's why when a young song-writer comes to me and
shows me what he has written, I may think that the songs are

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LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

pretty bad, but I won't say, "Forget about them, don't waste
time trying to sell them, you'll never be a success." He may
be a success. Some very bad songs have become hits, and I'm
not prophet enough to predict where the lightning will strike
next.

What types of musicals do you think a school should put on?

Will youngsters learn more from their own original work,
or from producing an established work?

LB. If there's enough talent available, originals are more fun.
On the other hand, inexperienced youngsters can learn by
doing already established musicals. Because there are larger
casts than in dramatic plays, a musical can involve a large
part of a class and all students will learn a good deal about
music, timing, rhythm, dancing, and singing a song. And,
what is even more important, they'll be involved in a large-
scale co-operative effort where they will learn to know one
another better and find out how to work together. That's some-
thing they have to know, no matter what else they do.

182

in the

AGNES de M1LLE

Ever since Agnes de Mille did the choreography for
Oklahoma!, balet has been a part of musical
comedy. Before that there had been time-steps,
kicks, and standard dance routines most of them
serving the same purpose as the pistol shots and
firecracker explosions with which some comedians
liked to awaken their audiences, and having no more
claim to being art. Miss de Mille's ballets were
lively, they didn't let the audiences fall asleep, and
wonder of wonders, they were also art. They made
those who watched them realize how essential a
part of a play dancing could be, and left behind
them dissatisfaction with the emptiness of the old
routines.

But the dances for Oklahoma! are only a small
part of Miss de Mille's creative work. She has also
choreographed Bloomer Girl, Carousel, and such
successful ballets as Rodeo and Fall River Legend.
In all her dance work, as well as in her autobi-
ographical book Dance to the Piper, there is evident
a warmth of human feeling not easily matched on
our stage. It is a warmth that audiences recognize
and respond to.

How are these feelings expressed in gesture and movement?
Do you express them the same way in a separate ballet as
in a revue or musical?

AdeM. There's a profound difference. In a revue the dancing
has to startle and amuse an audience which doesn't want to
be serious, which wants only to relax and watch something it
can easily understand. In a musical you're less restricted
in mood, but you're working with a book show and the dancing
has to fit into the story. You have to deal with characters,
costumes, and a set which are designed frequently for pur-
poses other than dancing. Often you have to illustrate a song.
In a ballet of your own the theatre is all yours.

In a musical I try to keep my patterns simple, direct, formal,
and brisk. In fact, I can't help trying, for some one is always

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LET'S MEET THE THEATME

putting a pistol to my head. Cut out three minutes of this
dance, eliminate the most important section of that, throw
out this one altogether. You have so little time to create the
effects you want that you have to eliminate any gradual
approach. Ballet for musicals is a compromise form, but
sometimes a compromise* can be very good. The very nature
of the restrictions makes for compactness, and forces you to
express a great deal in little time.

Do you aim chiefly to express a mood, or to advance the story?

L de M. I generally have both kinds of dancing. I like the dancers
to be characters in the play. I try to develop them. In the
old ballets, gesture was based on the classic technique, the
only exception allowed being in comedy. The new chore-
ographers try to evolve the gestures from the characters and
the situation. That isn't easy, and it may take me weeks of
hard and lonely work, and great quantities of strong tea, be-
fore I even begin to work out the pattern of the dances. From
the beginning I see my characters in color and costume, but
I spend hours of thinking and moving before I'm sure of how
any one of them will walk, stand, or gesture. I don't start
on rehearsals until I have a fairly good idea of how the whole
composition wiU look, and have made diagrams to help me.
Rehearsals of a new ballet aren't like rehearsals of a musical
composition, which is finished once it's put down on paper.
I have to continue creating, now using the bodies of the
dancers to experiment with. Good dancers are wonderful. They
not only help create, they take part in the creation themselves,
they invent gestures and movements, and they inspire you to
invent. When you work with them, you're really collaborating.
Nowadays, the demands a ballet makes on both chore-
ographer and dancers are greater than ever. A good dancer has
to be able to act while dancing, and you have to direct the
acting too. The dance is no longer merely a pattern of move-
ment, it must convey emotion to the audience. But you're
paid for your troubles in the actual performance. Once the
conductor raises his baton, the whole show moves into a dif-
ferent dimension, without benefit of trick cameras or a wide
screen. It doesn't matter whether a dance is good or not,

184

MUSIC AND DANCE IN THE THEAT1E

Courtesy of The Theatre Guild. Photo by Graphic House

37. A scene from fhe ballet in Oklahoma!, by Richard Rodgers
and Oscar Hammerslein II, choreography by Agnes a*e Mllle.

there's a dynamic change from the moment it begins, and the
straight actors suffer from the contrast.

Has the quality of the dancers in musicals changed much
since Oklahoma! ?

AdeM. The dancers are totally different. And so are the singers.
You no longer have chorus girls who can barely carry a tune or
perform the simple steps you show them. You have trained
singers and dancers. The latter have graduated from the
ballet and done modern dancing as well. A chorus girl of
the old type, who could do no more than a time step and a
break, couldn't get a job.

Now that we no longer have lines, size doesn't matter,
within reason. Looks matter more, but not so much as they

185

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

once did. A girl should be healthy, fresh, and sweet-looking,
a boy manly. A dancer needs talent and training. A choreog-
rapher won't insist on experience. Dancers have to be young,
from sixteen or seventeen to twenty-five or six, and by the
time they get their experience, they'll be finished as dancers,
unless they have enough talent to become stars.

One thing a choreographer does look for is ability to work
with people. The choreographer's own work is difficult and
nerve-racking and he doesn't want a girl who sulks, has hys-
terics, is dependent on her mother, or starts quarrels in the
company. He wants someone who knows her business which
is dancing and will work her best at it.

When youve choreographed a ballet and you re forced to use
a replacement who has less skill, can you simplify the danc-
ing without losing much of the effect?

A de M. I frequently have dancers with limited technical ability.
But I can't take a role that's tailored for one person and
transfer it to another individual. It goes beyond technical
skill. Character is all-important, the gestures flow from that,
and if a dancer, for whatever reason, can't repeat the gestures
as well as the facial and bodily expressions that go with her
part, if she has to substitute different gestures and expres-
sions, she's at the same time substituting a different character.
That's why, if in a modern ballet you replace one performer
by another in an important role, you usually change the en-
tire effect not only of that single role, but of the entire ballet.

What happens to your work. Miss de Mille, when the musical
goes on tour? Does it suffer from the changes in the size of
the stage?

A de M. I have to use the space that the scene designer marks on
the floor. Space limitation can be just as heartbreaking as time
limitation, and can change the ballet completely. I lost a
quarter of my best work in Carousel because of that. But
once your dances are set, touring won't change them. Most
theatres have fairly large stages, and if the scenery fits in
them, there'll be enough space for dancing.

Sometimes a show suffers on tour, just as it does on Broad-

186

MUSIC AND DANCE IN THE THEATRE

way when it has a long ran, and the actors and dancers fall
into a rut. But the cure for that is simply to insist on the
original high standards. The stage manager and producer must
keep the company on its toes. The mere fact that the show is
on tour isn't responsible for its getting worse.

What type of movements would you suggest as best for inex-
perienced dancers who want to learn, say for the purpose of
putting on a high school musical comedy?

A de M. They should learn folk and square dancing, with a good
teacher. A folk dance has been tested by audiences over a
period of generations, and you can be sure that if it is still
danced, it works. Dancers and choreographers can both learn
from it. It forms the basis of much modern work, certainly
of my own. Folk dancing gives beautiful movement, and once
a dancer has learned folk dances, he can go on with confi-
dence to other forms of dancing.

A dancer who intends to work professionally should also
study ballet for the placing of the spine and legs and feet
always with a qualified teacher. But I'd advise anyone who
planned to become a professional dancer to think not twice
but a hundred times before starting in. The difficulties are
overwhelming, the disappointments heartrending. Even when
you get to what so many people think of as "the top," you
can't rest there. There's always the danger of making one mis-
take and sliding down. And women have to face special dif-
ficulties when they look for work as directors and choreog-
raphers.

When you overcome the difficulties, you have a wonder-
ful feeling. But to most young people, I'd say that the way to
enjoy the dancing in musical comedies most is from the au-
dience, and not from behind the footlights.

187

THE

The Theatre

EACH BKOADWAY SEASON brings before the public several young
performers who prove that acting can be child's play. It is
true that not every child of school age can act with profes-
sional ease. But with proper training and capable direction,
most children can do very well, as an occasional grammar-
school class will show. The real difficulty that young children
face is in finding scripts that are suited to their needs and
abilities scripts neither too foreign to their interests on the
one hand, nor too cute and cloying on the other. As it is,
grammar-school children do manage to put on tens of thou-
sands of plays. They are less self-conscious than, and as good
as, many adult groups who do plays and skits in Parents*
Associations, YMCA's, YMHA's, and clubs.

On a more ambitious level than young children are many
of the high-school groups. Of approximately twenty-five thou-
sand high schools in this country (we owe this and the other
estimates and information concerning high schools to the kind-
ness of Mr. Leon C. Miller, Executive Secretary-Treasurer of
the National Thespian Society), slightly more than half, pos-
sibly fifteen thousand, may produce a play now and then.
Vocational, technical, and rural high schools are too ill-
equipped to grasp often at the glamour of the stage. Of the
fifteen thousand play-producing schools, possibly one-third
cannot meet the standards of the Thespian Society. Of the
others, approximately twelve hundred and fifty are at the
present writing enrolled in the national organization.

Working under great difficulties, many high schools prefer
to give one-acters, rather than full-length plays. During a
school year, the Thespian troupes put on approximately twice
as many productions of one-act as of full-length plays. Some,
however, present a full evening of one-act plays in order to
give more students a chance to perform. Relatively few schools
have as many as four full-length productions per season. Most
manage two or three, and some can give only a single per-

188

THE OFF-BROADWAY THEATRE

38. A scene from The Wfns-
iow Boy, by Terence Rattlgan,
produced by fne Sosse High
School Thespians of fyons-
y/7/e, Indiana.

Courtesy of The National Thespian Society

formance, Some schools also put on operettas, revues, and
pageants.

Good full-length plays written especially for teen-agers
are hard to find. For the most part the schools rely for their
major productions on past Broadway hits, chiefly comedies,
like You Cant Take It With You and Arsenic and Old Lace,
and a few more serious plays, like Our Town and Pride and
Prejudice. Classics, if given at all, are given rarely, either be-
cause they are considered too difficult, or because the taste
for them has been killed.

Few high-school teachers have the time to establish con-
tacts with college and professional theatres. In most cities,
high-school theatre is extracurricular, and the play director
may teach anything from chemistry and mathematics to his-
tory or English during the day. Very few high schools have a
dramatic arts department.

189

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

The scenery Is usually made in the school workshops. But,
according to Mr. Miller, only a few schools have elaborate
lighting systems. Border lights and footlights are standard
equipment, and only within the past twenty years are spot-
lights being commonly used. A large percentage of the high-
school auditoriums do not have even old-fashioned resistance
dimmers, let alone electronic dimmers. In such auditoriums.
a light is either on or off, and there is little chance for the
creation of subtle or complicated lighting effects.

For these high schools, the National Thespian Society, with
its magazine Dramatics, and its newsletters, is their chief
contact with the theatre.

Some of the secondary schools in large cities are better
equipped, and receive more support from the local school
authorities for their study of dramatic activities. For informa-
tion about them, we spoke to Christine Edwards, one of the
few teachers who have had extensive experience in the pro-
fessional theatre. Miss Edwards is Chairman of the Depart-
ment of Speech and Dramatics at Prospect Heights High
School in Brooklyn, and teaches television and the psychology
of speech at Hunter College. She has acted and staged plays
in many theatres, as well as in radio and television, and the
stars she has directed include Edith Atwater, Marlon Brando,
John Loder, and Margaret Wycherly.

She has found excellent dramatic groups in many schools
in the West. But she is most familiar with the school system
in New York City. Here, she points out, there are special
opportunities for students interested in the theatre. Not only
is there a High School of Performing Arts. The Board of Edu-
cation itself conducts a radio station, WNYE, and different
schools put on radio plays in competition on a weekly pro-
gram called Drama Time. The best students are selected to
attend the all-city workshop conducted under the supervision
of James F. Macandrew.

Miss Edwards herself teaches classes in acting and speech,
which are accepted in the curriculum as replacements for the
more usual courses in English. From the beginning, students
of acting are carefully taught technique by means of the Stan-
islavsky method. They learn to develop their imagination, to
get at a character from within. After the first term, they act in
scenes from plays. As a rule, the students who are cast in the

100

THE OFF-B10ADWAY THEATHE

39. A high-school stage crew
of Parkersbwg, Wesf Virginia,
puffing up a set

Courtesy of The National Thespian Society

play for the school year come from these classes. A call for a
general audition usually results in few volunteers from students
outside the classes.

The acting classes are of the same size as others, with
from thirty to thirty-five students in each. After the elemen-
tary classes, many students drop out, especially those who
had no intention of becoming actors in the first place, but
began their studies for other reasons. There are, therefore,
fewer advanced classes. By the time a student reaches one of
these, Miss Edwards knows his or her capabilities fairly well,
and finds it simpler to cast the play.

How does she choose the play? "In consultation with the
principal and the students," she said. "Every director usually
has a list of pet plays, those that seem most enjoyable and
instructive. One of mine is Icebound, a Pulitzer Prize winner
by Owen Davis. But it isn't just a question of what I want,
but of what the students want too. I had them read it aloud,
and they liked it. And when the principal approved, we went
ahead with it."

191

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

Courtesy of The National Thespian Society

40. A rehearsal scene from Katherine and Petruchlo at Central
Catholic High School, Canton, Ohio.

Students might do single scenes from Shakespeare and
other classics, but she felt that an entire Shakespearean play
was too difficult. It takes long experience and great skill for
an actor to speak the lines without losing either their music
or their meaning.

The time needed to prepare a single play is from October
or November to May. A period of four months may be con-
sidered a minimum. The ideal method, Miss Edwards feels,
would be to have the play studied by a class for some time
before the tryouts, with groups of students concentrating on
different aspects of the play on the historical period during
which the action takes place, on the reasons for conflict, the
nature of the characters, and so on. In practice, there is not
enough time for this.

Rehearsals take place three or four times a week, often to

192

THE OFF-BROADWAY THEATRE

six o'clock, and occasionally into the evening, Sometimes
they are held on Saturdays and during Easter week. In some
schools the students taking part in a three-act play receive
credit toward their diplomas, and if they work long beyond
school hours on certain days need not come in early the next
morning. This is not true of most schools, however.

A good student production, well managed, may make a
fair amount of money for the school's general organization
fund, and benefit the entire student body. For that matter, a
faculty performance can be equally good box-office. Miss Ed-
wards put on one faculty production in which the leading
role was played by the previous principal, a woman nearing
seventy and almost at the point of retirement. Her acting was
sensational and the show was a smash hit.

The big problems in high-school productions are connected
with the physical nature of the stage and auditorium. Fire laws
are strict and must be observed. Few high-school auditoriums
have direct exits to the street. Lacking such exits, they must
have either an asbestos curtain or a sprinkler system. The
flats and drapes should be fireproofed.

Miss Edwards feels that one of the great opportunities a
high-school play offers is for co-operation among students,
parents, and faculty. Both the art and the manual training
departments are of great help in the construction of sets. The
music department can supply the singers or instrumentalists
needed for a musical production. And girls from the sewing
classes can help make some of the costumes.

Sometimes special costumes can be borrowed from the
faculty or parents. Miss Edwards has found both groups very
helpful in contributing to the success of a play. She suggests
that notices of articles needed be posted on the bulletin board
far ahead of time. She has had luck in picking up old chairs,
rugs, and other furnishings by combing the neighborhood.

Co-operation can also be carried beyond the limits of a
single school. An all-boy or all-girl school working alone is
limited by the fact that there are few good plays which call
for all-male or all-female casts. And it is psychologically
inadvisable for girls to play male roles, or vice versa. The two
schools working together can put on a much wider variety
of plays, and can combine their talents in such skills as sewing
and carpentry.

193

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

Miss Edwards finds that with a cast of students who
have been taught the technique of acting before actually be-
ginning work on the play, good performances can be ob-
tained.

In addition to the play put on by the dramatic class, the
high school may also do a senior class play, and a play to
celebrate the holiday seasons. It is not until the students ac-
tually begin to work on such plays that they realize how much
they can gain in a knowledge of English, speech, ability to
co-operate, and even in emotional stability. In this last re-
spect, psychologists have long recognized the value of the
theatre, and Miss Edwards has given classes in therapeutic
dramatics for emotionally disturbed children and teen-agers.

Educators have found dramatic classes to be instructive.
Students find them to be fun. High schools would benefit
from more of them.

194

The University Theatre

FROM THE HIGH-SCHOOL to the university theatre is a great
step. College and university theatres are staffed with full-
time teachers and are in many ways on a professional level
They often have advantages that commercial producers envy.
Many have specially constructed buildings, more elaborate
and more suited for play production than most Broadway
theatres. And there is no profit-consuming rent to pay. Their
equipment too is usually modem and complete. George Freed-
ley, who has made a special study of the college and com-

Courtesy of Yale University. Photo by Commercial Pholo Service

41. A scene from Children of the Ladybug, by Robert Thorn, as presented

by the Yale University Department of Drama.

195

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

munity theatres, estimates that eighty per cent of university
theatres have equipment which equals or surpasses that of
Broadway.

Because the intention o the universities is to teach, the
student actors, directors and designers receive no payment.
Instead, they pay to learn. Here again the Broadway producer
has reason for envy, for his constant complaint is that what
profits the high theatre rents leave are eaten up by wages and
salaries.

Do the college and university theatres make proper use of
the advantages they have? Many of them do. They produce
not only popular plays, but good plays that have for some
reason or other missed popularity. Some of them welcome new
plays that are not "commercial." Others experiment with new
methods that Broadway is often reluctant to try.

A few universities operate more than one theatre. The
University of Washington School of Drama, for instance, has
not only a Playhouse, but a Showboat Theatre and a Pent-
house Theatre. The latter was the first theatre in the world to
be built purely for arena-style production, and its long years of
experiment with production-in-the-round preceded the present
popularity of this form of theatre.

The Baylor (University) Theatre in Waco, Texas has pre-
sented a wide variety of great plays, from Shakespeare to
Oscar Wilde. It has devoted time to such classics as Carlo
Goldonf s comedy The Mistress of the Inn, which it presented
in the season of 1946-1947. Goldoni is played in Europe, and
his comedies are full of life and humor even by our own tastes
but it is a long time since he has had a hit on Broadway.

University theatres axe usually alike in not having to worry
too much about the box office. But in other respects they
differ greatly from one another and from the commercial
theatres. Let us take a good look at one that has some rather
atypical advantages and see how it operates.

The Columbia University Theatre, as we learned from Dr.
Milton Smith, professor of dramatics, derives considerable ad-
vantage from being near Broadway. In putting on its plays,
it sometimes has access to professional talent that the average
university theatre cannot reach. A Broadway actress may take
a difficult part, a graduate of the school who has become a
professional designer may do the scenery. Many of the stu-

196

THE OFF-BROADWAY XHEATBE

dents themselves have played on the professional stage, usually
with road companies. Columbia is therefore in an especially
favorable situation, and as a result it can occasionally put on a
better production of a given play than Broadway itself.

The theatre does four or five major productions a year as
a subscription season, and several laboratory productions. The
major productions receive from five to ten performances each.
Dr. Smith tries to choose scripts that pose interesting problems
in acting, directing, and designing.

The major productions are done in as close to a profes-
sional manner as possible. Students who have never acted
before have a chance to show what they can do in tryouts,
which are much fairer than readings. Just as on Broadway, a

Courtesy of Catholic University

42. A rehearsal of Sing Out, Sweet Land, written and originally
directed by Walter Ken for Catholic University. The play was
later successfully produced on Broadway.

107

LET'S MEET THE THEATEE

Courtesy of Carnegie Institute of Technology. 'Photo by Daniel Franks

43. A scene from an original play by student playwright Louis Adelman,
presented by the Drama School of Carnegie Institute of Technology.

player may turn out to be unstated to the role for which he
has been selected, and may have to be replaced. In casting,
Columbia, like any other university, is at a disadvantage com-
pared with the professional theatre. A commercial producer
has hundreds and thousands of professional actors from whom
to choose. The university production has only a few dozen
students. It is sometimes difficult, therefore, to find the right
actor for a given part;

Supplementary productions are done exclusively by the
students, and are intended to give new people a chance to
learn. These are open by invitation only.

Because of casting difficulties and the limitation of re-
hearsal time, the acting tends to be the weak point of a
university production. At Columbia the students paint and

198

THE OFF-BROADWAY THEATRE

build sets two nights a week and rehearse three nights. The
total time spent on rehearsal is from a fourth to a Surd that
spent on a Broadway play. In view of the relative inex-
perience of most of the actors, this is a serious handicap.

An actor who has spent years in the profession usually
learns quickly how to deliver his lines with effect. A student
actor must be told, and very often retold. A professional actor
has learned to make his actions emphasize his words and
vice versa. The student cannot as a rule do so, with the .result
that his movements tend to be stiff, his words to sound stilted.
Where the professional actor seems to be the character he is
playing, the student seems to be only an actor.

This is true chiefly of conventional situations, in which the
professional is experienced. The presence of a few such actors
in the cast makes the director's job much easier. He can trust
many details to them and keep his eye on the main line of the
play. But with novices he must teach while he directs. He
must explain everything detail by detail. He must move the
players carefully around the stage, making sure that they do
not mask one another from the audience's view. The most
apparently trivial oversight can lead to a loss of effectiveness
in a scene.

44. The performance over,
student stagehands strike
the set and take Inventory.

Courtesy of Syracuse University. Photo by C. George Chapin

199

LETS MEET THE THEATEE

The student will sometimes have an advantage, however,
in plays whose situations are not stereotyped, plays in which a
professional actor may ruin a scene by calling upon his bag
of tricks. The student has no bag, or else a very small one,
and he realizes that the few tricks he knows are not yet very
effective. He will therefore be readier to explore the meaning
of the play, to admit that a character baffles him, and to
listen to the director.

It is true that even if he does get the idea of the play, he
cannot manage his voice and body with the perfect assurance
that comes only from years of experience, and he may be
unable to project this idea to the audience. But at least he will
be less likely to act in a stereotyped manner. The plays of
Ibsen baffled most of the commercially trained English actors
of from half to three-quarters of a century ago. They could

Courtesy of Catholic University . roow uy -410777 a.,

45. A scene from Oedipus the King as directed by Alan Schneider for
Catholic University.

200

THE OFF-BROADWAY THEATRE

not change from the bombastic style to which they were ac-
customed to a quieter, more realistic manner. These plays
still continue to baffle many of the actors who are lured into
acting in them, simply because they are different from what
most actors are used to. The student is not used to much of
anything on the stage. He has a better chance of understand-
ing Ibsen.

In the university theatre, as in the theatre as a whole, the
choice of a play is the difficult thing. There are always classics,
but few actors want to perform in classics alone. The hit plays
of some years back are soon dated, and young university

46. Student stagehands at
Syracuse University.

Courtesy of ANT A. Photo by William M. Rjtlase

201

LET'S MEET THE THEATME

actors, more ambitious and more critical than they were in
high school, are often contemptuous of the taste of the older
generation. The hit plays of a current season, on the other
hand, are unavailable. University theatres sometimes fall back
on plays in which a potential producer is interested. A com-
mercial tryout would cost tens of thousands of dollars whereas
a university tryout costs practically nothing. In order to see
his play on the stage, a canny producer will therefore offer
it to the university royalty-free. To make his gift seem even
more alluring, he may possibly throw in a few costumes or
props, or subsidize it in some other way.

The students and director usually enjoy doing a new play
which offers problems they have not solved before. They would
enjoy it even more if they could put on plays that their
audiences and producer-sponsors would consider good. Un-
fortunately, few university theatres have been able to locate
plays which can be transferred successfully to the commercial
stage.

Nor do the universities seem able to incubate their own
playwrights. Some years ago, Professor Baker's famous course
in dramatic writing at Harvard turned out prominent authors
ranging from Eugene O'Neill and Rachel Crothers to Philip
Barry. But when Professor Baker transferred to Yale he had
less success, and since his time the crop of university play-
wrights has dwindled away.

In other phases of the theatre, the universities are more
successful. Their courses on speech, pantomime, the study of
roles and scenes, and so on, have helped many fledglings to
become professional actors. And their classes in stagecraft
and design, as well as in business practices, have been of
benefit to apprentice designers and producers.

Unfortunately, no love is lost between the universities and
many professionals. The close contacts between Columbia and
Broadway are exceptional; in general, co-operation, although it
is increasing, is still very limited. We have already noted, in
some of our interviews, the harm this lack of relationship does.
It sets a bar between the two kinds of theatre. And it in-
tensifies the evils of inbreeding. Most professionals never think
of teaching. And most teachers spend their entire careers at a
few universities, without ever becoming part of the commer-
cial theatre. There is a great deal missed by both sides.

202

THE OFF-BROADWAY THEATRE

Courtesy of Stanford University

47. A student performance of Richard III designed and directed by Dr. A.
Nicholas Vardac of Stanford University.

Perhaps another difficulty which the University theatre
faces is the nature of its audiences. The success of a produc-
tion, as we have noted, is not measured in money, and hence
there is no worry about having the small auditorium filled.
The students have enough friends and relatives to occupy a
large proportion of the available seats, and people who live
near the university take the others. The audiences are serious,
sympathetic, and understanding perhaps too understanding. It
is good to have an audience that will make allowances for
student deficiencies but not too many.

As it is, the universities deserve credit for one important
thing they do it is they, along with a few community theatres,
who keep the classics alive on the American stage. Most pro-
ducers shy away from Shakespeare, Ibsen, Moliere, and Aeschy-
lus as if those unfortunate gentlemen were internationally
famous pickpockets, lying in wait to rob them of tens of thou-

203

LET'S MEET THE THEAT1E

sands of dollars. The occasional exception who risks his shirt
on King Lear or Hedda Gabler knows that he is almost sure
to lose it, and is regarded by his fellow producers with the
tender sympathy they reserve for a good man suddenly gone
mad.

The university theatres, academic and cloistered as some
of them may be, nevertheless have this virtue which cannot
be too often stated: they do not have to choose their plays
with the idea of making money. And when they look around
for a script, they discover that many ancient works still seem
a bit more alive than most of the material written for Broad-

CourUsy of ANT A

48. A Midsummer Night's Dream as sfagecf in the basketball pav/f/on in
circus style by the University of Oregon's School of Drama.

204

THE OFF-BROADWAY THEATRE

way during the first three or four decades of our own century.
So they do Shakespeare, or Moliere, or even Euripides.

And meanwhile, they do teach many students a great deal
about the stage. Imperfect as they are, they can give excellent
reasons for staying alive.

205

The Summer Theatre

IF YOU WANT TO begin your training for the stage in a summer
theatre, one of the most useful props you can have is a hammer.
This is not, as you might imagine, in order that you may
practice knocking, and thus start on your way to becoming a
critic. It is because, as an apprentice, you will be expected
to do a little bit of everything and a great deal of one particu-
lar thing putting up and tearing down sets. And as hammers
are always getting lost, many summer theatre managers have
decided to make you bring your own and take over the re-
sponsibility of keeping track of it*

Summer theatres are commercial theatres. Their number
and number, to some extent, means importance far ex-
ceeds the number of active Broadway theatres. On the At-
lantic Coast alone, from Maine to North Carolina, there are
approximately a hundred and twenty-five Equity companies
and from twenty to twenty-five non-Equity companies (and
we axe not counting all the hotel and camp groups which
put on plays, without aspiring to the dignity of the name
"theatre").

Through most of the 'twenties and 'thirties, the summer
theatre was a stock theatre where a small resident company
put on a series of plays throughout the season. The visiting
star system is often supposed to have begun with the appear-
ance of Basil Rathbone in 1925 in Dennis, Massachusetts.
Actually., according to Lyman Brown, an authority on the
subject, it had begun long before. By the 'thirties it was in
full swing, and in the postwar period it flourished like the
green bay tree, or like the rankest of weeds, and to a great
extent displaced the older system. By now, visiting stars have
become an almost indispensable part of the summer theatre.

Summer theatres vary greatly in so many details that it is
difficult to paint a single picture that will serve as a portrait
of all of them. Perhaps we can make clearer some of the
features in which they all differ from their year-round com-

206

THE OFF-BROADWAY THEATRE

merclal brethren by centering our attention on one theatre
and seeing how it works.

The one we chose is the Sea Cliff Summer Theatre at Sea
Cliff, Long Island, operated by Thomas G. Ratcliffe, Jr., and
Louis Macmillan. The theatre building itself is a converted
Methodist tabernacle. Its auditorium seats 599 people, the
maximum permitted for this type of building by the New York
State building code. It has no balcony or gallery, and is small
enough so that no member of the audience needs opera glasses
to see what is going on upon the stage. The stage itself is
smaller than that of a Broadway theatre, but still large enough
even for summer-theatre versions of musical comedies.

The Wharf Theatre at Provincetown was started in a fish
house, and other summer theatres have taken over large barns.
The Sea Cliff Theatre has no odor of departed fish or cows
to contend with. But as a penalty for being part of nature, it
does have an occasional insect performer, such as a moth
which seeks the spotlight in competition with the actors.
There are not many, however. "Bug bulbs" light up the out-
side of the theatre without luring insects from all over the
surrounding countryside. And, fortunately, Sea Cliff is not af-
flicted by the mosquitoes which have been known to attack
other summer theatres.

The apprentices number fifteen. Selected from about three
times that number of applicants, they receive no wages and
pay for their own room and board. They are here to learn
about theatre, and they do, although at Sea Cliff there are no
formal classes, as there are at one or two other theatres.

Those theatres which offer classes charge a season tuition
fee of from two to three hundred dollars, and do not have
the apprentices as part of the regular company. The appren-
tices put on plays separately.

At Sea Cliff the auditorium is swept, after performances,
by a paid employee. There are professional designers and
professional box-office personnel. The ushering is done by Girl
Scouts, who work for drama merit badges; a weekly donation
for their services goes into a Girl Scout fund. Most of the
other detailed work is done by the apprentices. They take
phone orders for tickets, they construct sets, they take turns
running the switchboard, handling props backstage, helping

207

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

the stage manager, assisting the publicity man with releases,
and so on.

They also act, although not as often as they would like to.
At the beginning of the season they are given a tryout which
serves several purposes. It lets Mr. Ratcliffe see how well
they can perform and some, he says, have considerable talent.
It is also meant to make them realize how much they still
have to learn, to instill a proper humility, and to make them
satisfied to wield their hammers. It does have this effect on
many of them. Others remain convinced, however, that they
can do better than the regular actors, and sooner or later they
have the chance to prove their beliefs. Before the season is
ended, every apprentice will do at least a walk-on, and most
will be given speaking parts.

There are eight actors who have contracts for the season
(the minimum prescribed by Equity is six). Almost all of them
are hired on the basis of Mr. Ratcliffe's personal knowledge
of their ability. From season to season he interviews a long
procession of applicants. During the 1952 season, he saw three
hundred. In these interviews there is time for the actor to
give a brief resume of his experience and to show how he
speaks and carries himself. Allowing fifteen minutes per in-
terview, the total time spent in interviews alone is forty-five
hundred minutes seventy-five hours. This cuts seriously into
the manager's schedule, without giving the applicant a chance
to show any real acting ability. Mr. Ratcliffe says that he
feels it is his duty to give an actor a hearing, and no one
who writes for an appointment is turned down. There are no
auditions, however. Too many good actors give bad perform-
ances at auditions, and too many bad actors read well the first
time, and then fail to improve.

The odds are against any actor's being hired unless the
manager has a personal knowledge of how he has performed
previously throughout an entire season. There are one or two
fortunate exceptions each season, chosen usually on the basis
of striking physical endowments, as well as of apparent acting
talent. Apprentices, of course, have a better chance. More of
them are hired, and the requirements are not so severe.

The actors hired must have considerable all-around ability.
While performing in one play, they may have to get ready
for the next one. And sometimes they may have only one or

208

THE OFF-BROADWAY THEATRE

two rehearsals in which to perfect the delivery of their lines
and learn their stage business, and decide on how to work
with an imported glamour girl and her leading man ( or a male
star and his leading lady).

These, and many other difficulties and complications^ re-
sult from the visiting star system. Because the Broadway theatre
is at so low an ebb, and because the movies are also cutting
down on the number of pictures being produced, many stars
whose names are box-office attractions find themselves at lib-
erty during the summer. And because they want to act or at
least appear on a stagealmost as much as they want to
breathe and sign autographs, they look around for a play to
suit their talents. Most of the time this is an old hit which they
would like to revive; occasionally it is a new play which a pro-
ducer would like to see tried out at little cost.

Let us suppose that the manager of the Patamisquam Play-
house, situated near the imaginary (we hope) village of Pat-
amisquam, Massachusetts is willing to revive the one-time
hit The Great Love, with Janine Smith as star. The Great Love
will then undergo a week of intensive rehearsal. Janine, who is
paid for only that single week of learning her part, prefers
not to let things drag. But if another week of rehearsal
is absolutely necessary, then, in view of the fact that all re-
hearsals must be paid for. Janine will accept half her usual
salary for each of the two weeks. As star salaries range from
seven hundred and fifty to three thousand dollars a week,
even a half-salary is far above the Equity minimum.

The dress rehearsal takes place on Sunday night, and is
likely to be just as discouraging as a dress rehearsal of a
Broadway production. There has been so great a rush in put-
ting the play together that loose ends seem to turn up every-
where. These cannot all be tied together before the first per-
formance on Monday night, and during the first day or two
the Patamisquam audiences may be viewing a rather slipshod
performance of The Great Love. But by Wednesday, many
difficulties have been ironed out. The actors are sure of their
lines and business, the backstage crew is working with greater
calm and efficiency. The Thursday matinee serves as another
run-through, and from then on the audience sees a good show.

In the meantime, next week's production of The Great Hate
has begun rehearsal and is almost ready. But Janine Smith

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LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

does not wait around to see how the new play turns out. After
her Saturday night performance, she packs her trunks and
departs for another summer theatre, and the beginning of a
tour in The Great Love that will last for several weeks.

The next theatre may be the Sea Cliff. Here the produc-
tion of The Great Love will present fewer problems. Janine
already knows her part, and she is likely to be touring with a
leading man or two leading men who also know their parts.
It is only the supporting roles that have to be cast from the
actors of the Sea Cliff company.

These actors will do their rehearsing at Sea Cliff, perhaps
while appearing in Love and/or Hate, without seeing Janine
Smith in her play at all. On Sunday, however, Janine makes
her appearance with her leading men, there are one or two
quick run-throughs of those sections of the play in which the
Sea Cliff actors appear, and then a dress rehearsal on Sunday
night as usual. And on Monday night, the Sea Cliff theatre
presents Janine Smith in The Great Love.

This system is a hectic one for all concerned. Janine may
have to undertake a difficult role with insufficient prepara-
tion and master it as she goes along. The Sea Cliff actors must
be quick and versatile. They must be able to learn new roles
in The Great Love while playing eight shows during the week
in Love and/or Hate, and they must be able to adapt their
acting at the last moment to the requirements of the star.
The managers of the theatre must continue producing Love
and/ or Hate while getting ready to produce The Great Love,
and while making plans for the still more distant future, which
will see the appearance of other stars in Oh, Love! and Oh,
Hate! and still other revivals.

Scenery does not go on tour. The apprentices at Sea Cliff
build and put up a new set each week, making full use of
their fifteen hammers.

The summer theatres, like the all-year-round commercial
theatres, continually work under the shadow of financial dis-
aster. At Sea Cliff, the weekly expenses, excluding the sal-
aries of the visiting star and her cohorts, amount to $5,000.
Twenty years ago this would have been more than enough to
keep a play running on Broadway. A highly paid star may
raise the level of expenses to more than $8,000. In the face of
such high costs, a heat wave or a rainy week end which keeps

210

THE OFF-BROADWAY THEATRE

the audience away from the box office will leave the theatre
with a disastrous loss.

Nowadays, Broadway producers, in trying to keep their
costs to a minimum, do the same thing with their casts, and
are always on the lookout for two- or three-character plays.
But the summer theatres, with all their actors and apprentices
anxious to act, can offer less skimpy casts. And in case a play
calls for additional performers children, a minister, a chief
of police, etc. these can be picked up wherever convenient.
The actors and the business staff can among them manage

Courtesy of Seacliff Summer Theatre, Long Island. Photo by ]. Peter Happel

49. Kim Hunter, Art Smith, and Robert Emmett in a scene from
They Knew What They Wanted, by Sidney Howard, as per-
formed at the Seacliff Summer Theatre.

211

LETS MEET THE THEATRE

to supply a reasonable number of children o various ages.
Other characters can be enlisted from the local residents. A
work permit must be secured from Equity at a cost of five
dollars (paid by the theatre). But the temporary actor does
not usually demand a salary. He is sufficiently rewarded with
the honor" of being permitted to act before an audience.

In former years, an Equity rule required any apprentice
who appeared in three parts during a single season to become
a member if he wanted to go on acting. The chief result of
this rule was to swell the number of unemployed actors with
Equity cards, and it was therefore changed. Now an appren-
tice is permitted to act any number of times during his first
season. If he acts in three parts during the second season,
however, possibly at a different theatre, he must become a
member of Equity. An Equity card, however, does not assure
him of a job. This new rule makes things more difficult for the
youngster who is merely stagestrack, but it is no great ob-
stacle to the talented youngster who is determined to get
ahead in the theatre.

When a musical is put on, the pool of talent among actors
and apprentices, even with local help, no longer suffices. In
a musical, practically every member of the cast must be able
to sing or dance, and the original producers of Love Me or
Hate Me! will usually send the complete summer company on
tour, leaving possibly three or four acting roles to be filled by
the Sea Cliff company. The slight difficulty that this drives
expenses up even higher than usual bothers no one but the
managers.

A few summer theatres, the "music circuses," put on noth-
ing but musicals. Sea Cliff provides its accompaniment to the
singers with two pianos. But the music circuses have small
orchestras, and the members of their companies are chosen
not only for acting talent but for appearance, and singing
and dancing ability as well. Like other theatres-in-the-round,
the music circuses are faced with special problems in staging,
some of which we discuss in the chapter on "Music and
Dancing in the Theatre/' The expenses of putting on musicals
on Broadway are terrifying, but the music circuses have solved
this problem fairly well from their own point of view, and,
although their number is still small, it seems to be increasing.

Until a few years ago, many producers packaged all

212

THE OFF-BROADWAY THEATBE

their plays, sending on tour not only the star and her satellites,
but the other players as well. In view of the fact that the
resident players had to be paid whether they worked or not,
it became almost impossible for the theatres to end up their
week with a profit, and managers protested. And most of them,
as members of the Stock Managers' Association, have made an
agreement not to accept such packaged casts in the future.

In general, the managers of summer theatres do not seem
to lead placid lives. Their operating season is a short one ten
weeks, at Sea Cliff. Eleven- and twelve-week seasons have
been tried without great success. But preparations are lengthy,
and very often the managers must start as early as March to
get the actors and line up the plays and stars they want.
Even at that, they very often do not know from one week to
the next what play they will produce. They may have signed
a contract to bring Janine Smith to their theatre. But weeks
may go by without Janine sending in her signature to the
contract. Suppose that she claims she never agreed to appear
at Sea Cliff or Patamisquam in the first place. What does the
manager do then? Committing suicide or shooting Janine is
not the answer, although very frequently he is tempted to do
one of these things.

Even after the star has made a definite commitment, she
may cancel the contract by giving notice at least three weeks
before the date when she was supposed to appear. (The
manager has no similar right to cancel.) If she does not give
notice in time, neither hell (as exemplified by hot weather) nor
high water (in the form of a summer flood) will prevent her
from acting. If she reports that she has broken a leg, the
manager will grudgingly admit that she has an excuse for not
appearing, provided that the leg is really broken. If he sus-
pects that it is in one piece, the case may go to arbitration,
and the star may have to pay a penalty equal to the salary
she was supposed to get. Mere illness, however, is no excuse.
Janine may be running a temperature of a hundred and ten,
and she may have a hectic flush that will shine through any
make-up. No matter. It is the tradition of the summer theatre
that she must go on.

The Sea Cliff theatre is located in a well-to-do residential
section of Long Island, and most of the people who attend it
are all-year-round residents. But most of the other summer

213

LET'S MEET THE THEATEE

theatres rely mainly upon the patronage of visitors and vaca-
tionists, and it is this audience which to a large extent de-
termines the nature of the theatre. Not knowing in advance
whether a production will be good or bad, the audience seizes
upon the name of the star as the most important factor, and
makes it impossible to get rid of the star system. "Light sum-
mer reading" has its counterpart in the "light summer play/'
Many vacationists prefer comedies and farces to more serious
plays, although an actress who really wants to test her skill
and has a great box-office appeal will deliberately produce a
serious play that has been a hit in past seasons.

The classics have had small place in the summer theatre,
despite the fact that their authors usually demand no royalties.
But some managers are determined to put them on, and you

Courtesy of ANT A

50. A scene from The Trojan Women, by Euripides, as performed
at the Hillbarn Summer Theatre, San Mateo, California.

214

THE OFF-BROADWAY THEATRE

may run across an occasional production of Shakespeare or
Moliere. Shaw's Candida was revived in summer stock before
being sent on tour in the fall.

To many an author, royalties from summer stock come as
an unexpected windfall. Even an ancient farce which most
theatre-goers think of as dated or dead may be resurrected as
a "vehicle" for a star's beauty, personality, or skill, and its
author may have the pleasant surprise of receiving an income
from a work which Broadway has long forgotten.

For a play to which the original producer has lost his
rights, that is, a play which has not been performed seventy-
five times or more in a year, the royalty is $150 per week. For
a recent Broadway hit which is released for summer stock, the
royalty will be either a $300 guarantee or four per cent of the
gross, whichever is higher (in some exceptional cases it may
be $600 or $700). For a new play, the rate will be around
$200, although this is subject to negotiation.

The production of revivals has several advantages for the
summer theatre, which, we must not forget, is primarily a
commercial theatre. In the first place, the play has been
audience-tested and shown to be a superior piece of merchan-
dise, at least while it was in fashion. The script is in finished
form very rarely does a director waste time rewriting much
of an old comedy, although the lines could often stand being
brought up to date. If there are any difficult production prob-
lems, they have been met before and solved.

With an untried play, the producer must begin from
scratch. The summer theatre is not a good enough market for
a new play, and the producer always has his eye on Broadway.
The play is thus subject to all the usual troubles of a new
work continual rewriting, recasting, change of interpretation,
and so on. Moreover, the producer is continually trying to
assemble the best possible cast for a run on Broadway, so that
he insists, even more strongly than the producer of a revival,
upon sending out the play as a unit and thus raising the
cost to the theatre visited. And because he is more interested
in the money the play will make in a long run on Broadway
than in what he will get for a single week at Patamisquam
or Sea Cliff, he is always tinkering with his production, using
the audience merely for tryout purposes.

All these considerations complicate the lives of the man-

215

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

agers. They are all of them highly skilled men or women they
must be in order to put on a new play each week under dif-
ficult circumstances. Many, even among those the general
theatre public regards as having purely commercial interests,
would like to put on only good plays. But the temptation to
do so is an expensive one, almost as expensive as on Broadway.

The fact is that some summer theatre audiences will wel-
come bad plays about as cheerfully as they do good ones more
cheerfully if a bad play has a famous star and the good play
has none.

Whatever success a play may have in the summer theatre,
here at least, except for theatres very close to large cities, the
critics do not usually determine its life. Occasional reviews
appear in village or county papers, but they are not read by
most of the visitors, and the local critics have no influence
comparable to that of the critics of the Broadway stage. The
summer theatre does not appear to be any better off for their
absence or lack of influence, or for the fact that its success
depends almost entirely on word-of-mouth reports by the
audiences.

The position of the summer theatre, which depends so
greatly on the star system, is an uncertain one, and may
change suddenly from one year to the next. Most managers
hope that the change will be in the direction of less emphasis
on stars and more emphasis on the quality of the plays. Mean-
while, the summer theatre has very quietly been doing some
excellent things. It may come as a shock to those who think
of it as an unimportant appendage to Broadway to realize
that it gives employment to many more actors than Broadway
does. And for a single week, the gross take of all summer
theatres will be far beyond that of all Broadway theatres
during a week of their season. It has even been claimed that
the total gross for a summer exceeds the total taken in on
Broadway for a complete year, although that seems rather
doubtful. What is beyond doubt is that the summer theatres
are no longer small and financially insignificant. During the
1951 season, the Sea Cliff Theatre grossed approximately
$92,000, and there were about a half-dozen other summer
theatres that did about as well.

Perhaps the most important thing about the summer theatre
is that it does put on excellent performances of many fine

216

THE OFF-BROADWAY THEATRE

plays ( as well as of some bad ones ) , that it does give farmers
and villagers and vacationists a chance to see worth-while
living theatre. Performances may lack the complete polish that
thorough rehearsal will bring to a Broadway production, but
in general they are good, and some are first-rate. And in the
quality of plays, nothing stands in the way of the summer
theatre but the taste of its audiences. On Broadway, revivals,
even of former smash hits, face many difficulties. In summer
stock, the best plays of past seasons are readily available.
The managers are eager to produce them. Let the audiences
but show their desire to patronize good plays, and the good
plays will appear before them.

The summer theatre is still growing. Let us hope that it is
only in the springtime of its career.

217

Theatres Throughout the Country

DURING ANY GIVEN SEASON, there are some fifty or sixty pro-
ducers who actually put on Broadway plays. But in the rest
of the United States there are several hundred thousand, pos-
sibly half a million, groups who from time to time produce a
play. Many produce only a single play and then disband.
But even so, think of what this ratio means one drama group
for every three hundred people in the United States! If there
were as high a ratio of physicians, our death rate would be
much lower than it is. In the face of such a fact, it begins to
seem a little absurd to ask solemnly whether our theatre is
dying. The real question is: What sort of life is it leading?

A life as varied as that of the American people. Some
groups dramatize Bible readings or sermons, as did the early
mystery and morality players. Others devote their attention to
classics, or to light comedies, or to plays that will teach spec-
tators to know their children or their neighbors better. Some
are stimulated into activity in summer and hibernate in winter
Others disband in summer, and do not revive again until the
school year begins.

Now the number of fairly good dramatic groups is large
but the very good ones are few indeed, and the number of
producing groups that put on bad plays and do them badly
is all too great.

Consider the hurriedly organized companies which flourish
each summer, not the summer theatres, of which we have al-
ready spoken, but the fly-by-night troupes which whip up
productions in the hotels and camps. It is their job to kill an
evening's time, and usually, if the killing is effective, it matters
little to them how the crime was committed, or whether the
play itself has also been slaughtered in the process. Here and
there we find honorable exceptions to this rule. We have seen,
for example, summer hotel productions of such one-act plays
as Edna St. Vincent Millay's Aria da Capo, and Lady Greg-
ory's The Rising of the Moon, well staged and well acted.

218

THE OFF-BROADWAT THEAflE

Courtesy of Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carre

51. A scene from Street Scene, fcy Efmer Rice, 05 performed at
Le Petit Theatre du Weux Carre, a community theatre In Hew
Orleans.

But for the most part these groups have few standards and
fewer scruples.

What plays shall they put on? Those that have been suc-
cessful on Broadway in the past are good, of course, for they
are reasonably sure of an audience. Even better, however,
are plays that are currently successful on Broadway. What if
the owners will not give their consent to production? The best
thing is not to ask the owners. A slight change in the name of
the play, possibly of the leading characters, and the author's
work is better disguised than a man would be with beard
and mustache. Now the author need never even know that his
play has been produced, and need not bother his little head
about royalties.

What of the actors? They may not have acted before, but
they are willing to try. They may be professional or amateur

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entertainers, given to putting on comedy routines for friends
and acquaintances, not to say relatives, and with some ex-
perience ( between long hours of developing flat feet by wait-
ing on tables) in acting before summer audiences. The di-
rector? Any man who has ever been backstage is capable of
being a director. The scenery? That isn't too bad, because it
is almost nonexistent. Time for rehearsal? That's hardly neces-
sary with such geniuses at work.

Some scripts are almost foolproof, and the resulting produc-
tion may, despite everything, entertain its audience fairly well
More likely it will accustom the spectators to incompetence,
leave them dissatisfied, and do its best to set the theatre back
a hundred years.

We have already discussed the high-school and college
theatres. These usually have few worries about money. By
contrast, community theatres, with a few exceptions, are al-
ways facing financial difficulties. They must therefore engage
in continual efforts to enlist the help of their community.
Naturally, the degree of success varies. In one case, that of
Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carre, in New Orleans, the theatre,
which is operated in association with Tulane University, is
able to help the University. Usually, however, the theatre
does not attain such a degree of affluence and has the danger
of a deficit to contend with.

Many community groups, like the Harrisburg Theatre, have
only amateur actors; some, as in Dallas, are staffed entirely
by professionals. Others combine amateurs with professionals.
But all the more important community theatres have long had
paid directors, and many also have paid designers, technicians,
and business managers.

Those which secure widespread community backing are
fortunate in many ways. It is not only that they possess
assurance of financial support. The participation of a large
number of people guarantees audience assistance at many
stages of production, from the choice of plays to the securing
of props. It insures the conversion of a small acting group
into a genuine community endeavor.

Consider the Erie Playhouse, for instance. In a city which,
by the last census, had fewer than 120,000 inhabitants, it has
grown to have a paid membership of more than 7,000 (both
from Erie and the neighboring area). If New York City with

221

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

Its 8,000,000 were to show a comparable Interest in things
dramatic, the metropolitan area would have close to half a
million members of community theatres, and community
theatre would be a sensational success.

The Erie Playhouse puts on performances six evenings a
week over a season of nine months. It produces new scripts as
well as classics and recent hits. It has a Drawing Room Theatre
in which plays are put on in-the-round, and a Student Theatre
with classes 'for both children and adults. It teaches all the
different aspects of theatre from acting to promotion. It has
a playwright-in-residence.

Of great significance is the fact that, unlike the commer-
cial theatre, it is not inbred. It helps train and organize
amateur groups that give shows in clubs, churches, and other
community theatres in and near Erie. It brings theatre to the
community.

The Shreveport Little Theatre, in a city of even smaller
population, is even better known nationally. Over a period of
thirty years it has become a source of great local pride, and
has won the respect of other community theatres and of com-
mercial theatre people.

And as a member of the Southwest Theatre Conference,
it has had great influence in stimulating the growth of the
theatre over a wide area, including Texas and New Mexico.

In London, Ontario, which is north of the border, there is
a community theatre from whose example our own theatre
could very well profit. London has a little more than 90,000
inhabitants. But the London Little Theatre operates a 1200-
seat house and has 10,000 members. Despite the fact that its
standards are on a high level, and that it has paid stage hands,
it manages to offer six plays for five dollars. It has two rehearsal
rooms and an excellent stage, and is equipped to do all kinds
of plays, including the touring attractions it books.

A few thousand miles south of London, Le Petit Theatre
du Vieux Carre, in New Orleans, has a larger community to
draw upon for support. Also beginning as a small group, it
has grown and expanded until now its membership is limited
only by the size of the auditorium. It has long served to bring
good plays to a region which the commercial theatre always
neglected. Now it also has a Children's Theatre, and offers

222

THE OFF-BBOADWAY THEATRE

the members of its community a chance not only to support
it, but to become an active part of its organization.

Of special interest is the Karamu Theatre of Cleveland.
Subject to disci imination in so many ways, Negro playwrights,
directors, actors, etc., have always faced difficulties even
greater than those of their white colleagues. In an effort to
solve some of their problems, they have founded Negro com-
munity theatres in different parts of the country. Several have
led a precarious existence in New York. But it is the Karamu
Theatre which has had the longest life and has now attained
the position of one of the leading community theatres in the
country.

As we have already indicated, one of the types of theatre
which has won wide popularity during the past few years is
theatre-in-the-round. Its chief advantage is that it needs no

Courtesy of the Baylor Theatre. Photo by Jimmie Willis Studio

53. A model of the Baylor Theatre, a community fheofre in Texas.

223

LET*S MEET THE THEATRE

conventional theatre building with stage and auditorium. Any
large room will do.

But the community group that depends on this type of
theatre faces an entirely new series of problems. The actors
must be highly skilled in order for their work to stand the
close scrutiny of the audience, and they must learn new
techniques, both of acting and of make-up (the latter is re-
duced to a minimum, and there are great difficulties with
character make-up). Remember that the actor traditionally
hates to turn his back to an audienceand in theatre-in-the-
round he always has his back to half of it.

Producers and directors sometimes run into trouble in se-
lecting and staging plays that are suited to an arena. They
must learn how to get along with a minimum of scenery, as
well as how to use lighting as a substitute for scenery. They
must realize what kind of scenes to look for and what kind to
avoid (the enforced intimacy of actors and audience in theatre-
in-the-round detracts from illusion and glamour, and magni-
fies the unpleasant, the frightening, and the horrible).

Theatre-in-the-round is a useful solution for the problems
of some community groups. But it cannot possibly be a cure-all.

With all the advantages some of them enjoy, there are
certain respects in which the best university and community
theatres operate under difficulties. Many of the people who
take part in their productions, particularly the actors, are
amateurs and/or novices. In the university theatres, for ex-
ample, it is difficut to build a permanent organization where
the more experienced personnel are graduated each year, just
as they begin to gain competence, and are replaced by raw
and untrained apprentices.

Broadway producers can call on the best professional talent
the entire theatre possesses; community theatres are usually
limited to the best of a small group. And if outstanding talents
do make their appearance, they are often lured away by the
high salaries of Broadway or Hollywood. Perhaps it has been
the noncommercial theatre's good fortune that in recent years
Broadway has been able to lure only a few talented individuals
each year, and its loss has defenitely been the community
theatre's gain.

Despite its increased attraction for talented individuals,
the noncommercial theatre has still no reason for complacency,

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LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

and a hundred of the leading community and university
theatres are united in the National Theatre Conference, which
is engaged in a never-ending effort to improve the quality of
productions. From time to time the Conference subsidizes
playwrights and conducts surveys of the state of the theatre
here and abroad.

A bridge between the community theatre and the com-
mercial is provided by the Council of the Living Theatre.
This works with the Theatre Guild and commercial producers
in arranging tours and organizing audiences in the twenty-
two cities where subscriptions are sold. The plays sent on
tour are commercial productions, but the purpose of the
Council is not primarily to help individual producers earn
profits on their plays (although it does not object to that
either). It is rather to build audiences for the living theatre,
and with this in mind the Council seeks out active community
leaders who are interested in theatre, arranges for publicity
of all kinds, and conducts subscription drives. Commercial
producers co-operate by sending on tour attractions that will
help sell the entire series of subscriptions.

One organization of the American theatre that may yet be-
come very important is ANTA, The American National Theatre
and Academy. ANTA's charter was granted by Act of Congress
in 1935 "to extend the living theatre beyond its present limi-
tations by bringing the best in the theatre to every state in
the Union." Unfortunately, Congress was more generous with
good intentions than with cash. ANTA had no money for its
noble purposes, and for more than ten years it remained
dormant.

In 1946, however, ANTA awoke and acted. In that year it
was reorganized for the purpose of actually founding a theatre
"national in scope, professional in standing: a people's project
organized and conducted in their interest/* ANTA was thought
of as "a place of meeting, a unity of all phases of the theatre."

How does it try to play its many roles? In the first place,
ANTA's aim is to help the theatre achieve its proper place of
honor as a cultural force. This is not only a matter of national
pride, but of national mental health. In any country, a dying
theatre is a symptom and a warning that the entire spiritual
and intellectual life of a people has lost its strength, (Remem-
ber that the decay of the Greek theatre and the degeneration

226

THE OFF-BEOADWAY THEATRE

of the Roman theatre were reflections of what was happening
outside the theatre. The vigor of Shakespeare and his fellow-
dramatists, on the other hand, mirrored the vigorous upsurge
of life in Elizabethan England.) ANTA is helping, by sup-
porting productions of the classics of the past and the best
plays of the present, to keep the American spirit and intellect
alive and vigorous.

ANTA formerly operated its own playhouse. Now it plans,
eventually, to arrange tours throughout the country in order
to bring the best of the theatre to every state. And as a part
of the International Theatre Institute, it co-operates with the
theatre in other countries.

At the same time, ANTA works with the high-school groups
that belong to the National Thespian Society, and with the
university and community theatres of the American Educa-
tional Theatre Association and the National Theatre Confer-
ence. It also co-operates with commercial producers, and has
gone to considerable trouble to help a play like Death of a
Salesman carry out a successful tour.

Much of ANTA's work is on the individual level, and if
you are at all interested in the theatre as a career, you should
know something about what ANTA can do for you. If you are
an actor and want, despite all the advice to the contrary, to
try your luck on Broadway, it will advise you how to go about
this. (The first requirement is that you be able to support
yourself for a year.) It plans to conduct a Workshop which
will be first a resident acting company, and eventually a
national repertory company. It has a counseling service for
young actors and a placement service that helps actors locate
openings outside New York in community theatres and summer
stock. Its main call, by the way, is for directors and technicians,
so that actors who know how to direct, handle scenery, and
so on, are in an especially favorable position.

If you are a young playwright who wants to get in touch
with the commercial theatre, ANTA will send you a list of
accredited agents.

If you want to start a small acting group, or a community
theatre, or if you are already working with such a group and
running into trouble, ANTA will show you how to solve some
of your problems. It will advise you on how to obtain com-
munity support, on how to run the financial end of your busi-

227

LET'S MEET THE THEAT1E

55. The Interior of The Cleve-
land Playhouse.

Courtesy of Cleveland Playhouse. Photo by Parade Studios, Inc.

ness, how to manage and produce, choose plays and directors,
etc. If your group is willing to work seriously to put on good
theatre and has substantial community backing, ANTA will
not only aid you with publicity, it will send a field worker
and help service the plans you make.

In fact, community theatres are one of ANTA's chief in-
terests. Whether you want to establish an amateur or a pro-
fessional group, ANTA feels that the more good theatres the
merrier. Like Margo Jones and her theatre in Dallas, it does
not consider other groups as competitors but as collaborators
in the building of an audience.

Supported so largely by professional theatre workers (many
of whom put in long hours of volunteer labor), ANTA is
naturally interested in the health of the commercial theatre.
But it emphasizes, as so many of the people we have inter-
viewed have emphasized, that it is a mistake for a community
theatre to depend on Broadway. A community theatre must
have a character and vitality of its own or it will becdme
second-rate. Those community theatres that do have a nation-
wide reputation are, as we have seen, the ones that put on
interesting new plays or revive old ones in total disregard of
what Broadway is doing.

How does ANTA get the money to support its many activi-
ties? Most of it comes from individual contributions and sub-

228

THE OFF-BROADWAY THEATRE

scriptions, and from its own fund-raising activities. It receives
royalties from a Decca album which contains recordings of
famous scenes of plays of the past. It has put on both a tele-
vision program and live performances, the latter including
the ANTA album, in which numerous stars do special numbers
from plays or musicals.

The income ANTA thus obtains has already been used to
bring improved theatre to many communities. But the amounts
needed for the American theatre as a whole are far more than
ANTA or its supporters can lay their hands on.

For economic problems confront not only Broadway, but
theatres in cities other than New York as well. A first-rate
theatre must have, to start with, a suitable building. And al-
though rents and real-estate prices elsewhere are not as bad
as those in New York, a reasonably well-equipped theatre
building may cost tens of thousands of dollars (less if it is
an old building altered for the purpose of staging plays, or
converted into a theatre-in-the-round). Then there is the cost
of management and production, and so on. No matter where
put on, commercial plays are expensive when done properly.
And with all the amateur help that community theatres may
get, their productions also may involve investments of many
thousands of dollars.

Indeed, the situation is so bad that most theatre people
consider that high costs are among the chief stranglers of the
theatre. And despite all that can be done by such organiza-
tions as ANTA and the Council of the Living Theatre, many
individuals (from angels and producers to writers, scene de-
signers, and actors) have arrived at the conclusion that the
commercial theatre needs a subsidy from the government if it
is to live at all, while the noncommercial theatre needs a
subsidy if it is to grow.

Again and again, theatre people point with envy to the
fact that abroad, wherever the theatre is flourishing, it does
have government or municipal administration support. This
is true of practically every country in Europe, no matter what
its form of government.

Most Americans in the theatre do not favor a system which
gives direct control to the government or any other political
body. They do indorse a system such as that of the Arts

229

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

Council of Great Britain, which helps maintain not only the
theatre, but music and ballet as well.

The Arts Council helps finance up to fifty per cent of the
cost of production of any play which it believes will further
cultural interest. Now, it is precisely such plays that usually
have the greatest difficulty getting commercial support. With
an Arts Council subsidy to back them, serious plays can be
produced more frequently. At the same time, if a producer is
so uncouth as to want to make money on a play that looks to
him Hke a gold mine, and doesn't strike a note of culture, he
can go right ahead without interference from the Arts Council.

The producer who has Arts Council Support forms a sep-
arate nonprofit corporation, which pays salaries to actors, di-
rectors, and other employees, and also pays the producer's
office for its services in running the play. The producer may
recover his share of the investment, but the profits, if any,
go to the Arts Council, which uses them to finance still other
plays. The producer will naturally not get rich this way, but
if he puts on a good play he will gain prestige that will help
make his next commercial production more successful. Mean-
while, the theatre remains alive, along with many deserving
actors, authors, and other workers in it.

This system encourages revivals (Hke the Laurence Olivier-
Vivien Leigh revivals of Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra and
Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra}. It helps lend variety to
a theatrical season which might otherwise be top-heavy with
light comedy and mild melodrama. It plays a useful role in
building up audiences who in the field of drama, without
relying for their opinions upon others, know good from evil,
and support the good.

Perhaps while waiting for the federal government to de-
velop an interest in drama, there are better prospects for
developing theatres sponsored by municipal governments. The
New Orleans Recreation Department (NOKD), subsidized by
the city, puts on plays in high schools during week ends.
Palo Alto, California and Richmond, Virginia subsidize com-
munity and children's theatres. Milwaukee, Wisconsin oper-
ates its municipal theatre on a play-a-month basis, its plays
going outdoors in the summer.

Other cities could well learn from the examples these
communities have set. They would probably find that with

230

THE OFF-BROADWAY THEATRE

proper organization and management their theatres would
soon build a considerable body of patrons, and be able prac-
tically to support themselves, requiring little or no money
from the city treasury itself. In France and Germany, mu-
nicipal theatres have a dominating* position, and there is no
reason why they cannot become equally important here.

With a subsidy system of any kind, the American theatre
would still have many problems to solve. There is, for in-
stance, the need to break down still further the dividing line
between amateur and professional theatre, between the com-
mercial and the noncommercial. Many amateur groups have a
smug belief in the superiority of their own tastes, their own
feeling for art; at the same time, many people in the com-
mercial theatre have contempt for anything that is not done
with professional skill and smoothness, and regard amateur
art as mere artiness. Professional theatre life remains narrow
and inbred; on the other hand, even talented amateurs some-
times are remarkably ignorant of the way things can be done.

Courtesy of Dallas Theatre. Photo by Squire Raskins

56. Theatre in the Round at the Dallas Theatre, Texas. A per-
formance of Southern Exposure, by Owen Crump, directed by
Margo Jones.

231

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

Each has much to gain from the other. The professional
has the "know-how"--but this too often means knowing how
things were done in the past and wanting to keep on doing
them in the same way. The amateur, on the other hand, often
blunders but he does sometimes discover fresh new ways of
doing things. Remember that it was an amateur theatre that
discovered O'Neill in the United States, and that it was com-
binations of amateurs and professionals who were the chief
early supporters of Ibsen and Shaw.

The American theatre has far to go in solving its problems,
but it has already taken some of the necessary steps. As an
individual, you can help in various ways: by urging producers
to send good plays to your city, by supporting them when they
arrive, and by helping to organize and support all sorts of
dramatic activity.

You can begin without making elaborate plans, and with-
out raising any money at all. Your group may be a social
club, a school class, or just a circle of friends interested in
the theatre. You can take the first step, as Miss Helburn has
suggested, by forming a play-reading group. From then on,
as you become more ambitious, and as you have time and
energy to devote, you can make more far-reaching plans, even
to the organizing of a permanent community theatre.

A theatre and its audience must grow together. Your
audience may not be quite ready, but it is probably growing.
When there is an average of one dramatic group for every
three hundred people, you can be sure that more and more
individuals are becoming interested in the theatre. And as
the work already started goes on, there is good reason to hope
that both the number and the quality of theatre groups will
improve as time goes on.

Many observers, watching the Broadway theatre stagger
under one economic and artistic blow after another, have be-
gun to think that the American theatre as a whole could be
characterized by the title of one of Tolstoy's plays, The Living
Corpse. Well, every living thing has parts that are dying. But
let these gloomy observers lift their eyes from Broadway and
observe the rest of the nation, and they will see that the
theatre as a whole is by no means in its death throes. More
probably, it is only experiencing the pangs of new birth.

232

THE NATURE OF OUR THEATRE

Now THAT WE HAVE reached the conclusion that the American
theatre is very much alive and will continue to live, the ques-
tion remains: What kind of theatre is it? What is it approach
to the things it deals with, what is its style?

"Style" is itself a word that has had many definitions and
has been often analyzed. If for an individual we can say that
"the style is the man/' then for a theatre the style is the people
and the age in which it lives. Perhaps the most helpful com-
ment about it was made by Shaw. The alpha and omega of
style, he said, is effectiveness of expression. The first requisite,
he added, is therefore to have something which you passion-
ately desire to express.

What does our own theatre desire to express? In the work
of our serious playwrights, at least, it portrays the life around
it. The plays of Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, and Clif-
ford Odets give you a picture of how various kinds of Ameri-
cans live. It is not the sort of picture you would get from a
camera and sound recorder keeping a record of what hap-
pens. It is an artist's picture, each author carefully selecting
the people, the circumstances, the details of living that are
important to him.

The result is a kind of stylized realism, a realism colored
and sometimes weakened by the mood of the playwright.
Whereas Miller's individuals are caught in difficult situations
which their own lives and characters have created, Williams*
heroes and heroines are usually trapped more by their own
neurotic natures than by external circumstances. And an .Odets
cast is likely to be groping blindly, looking for a way out of
the confusion that affects an entire society at cross purposes.

A performance, however, results not only from the author's
script, but also from the activities of producer, director, and
the rest of a company. And as Mr. Clurman has pointed out,
both the script and the method of staging are limited by
what is considered in good taste, profitable, comprehensible
to an audience, etc. Both playwright and director, therefore,

233

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

Photo by Wes Werdland

57. A scene from Stairs to the Roof, by Tennessee Williams, as
performed af the Pasadena Community Playhouse.

are continually affected by the pressure to conform to pre-
vailing standards.

A few playwrights do not feel especially constrained by
this pressure. They write, it seems to them, with perfect free-
dom. But many of their colleagues feel a censor peering over
their shoulders. "The audience won't like this, it won't under^
stand that , . .Lawyers are very touchy; better make the villain
an accountant. . .Better choose a different heroine, someone the
spectator can sympathize with/' To some extent playwrights
try to head off the censor by censoring their own work in
advance. They try to write dialogue that is shrewd, analytical,
keen, penetrating, and important-all this without offending
anyone. That is a more difficult feat than riding over Niagara
Falls in a barrel and coming out alive.

234

THE NATURE OF OUR THEATRE

However, some people have survived the trip in a barrel,
and each year some good plays do manage to be successful
on Broadway without being trivial. And in one field, that of
musical comedy, things are looking up. In the old days, musi-
cal comedy never did have much to say. Now that it says
something beyond the fact that love is wonderful, critics and
audiences welcome its improvement.

In all these productions, successful and not so successful,
what is distinctively American what is of the mid-twentieth
century?

First, they are almost all realistic. But our realism, as Mr.
Clurman has observed, has special features of its own. The
theatre of Garrick was realistic as compared with the theatre
that preceded it. But Garrick's realism was different from that
of Shaw or Ibsen or Chekhov, just as there is a world of
difference between the naturalistic detail of Gorky and of
Belasco. Our own realism tends to be tough and hard-boiled,
brutal and cynical. The pace is fast (often senselessly fast, as
Mr. Clurman has said), and in the best examples there is a
feeling of vitality which has startled, and sometimes pleased,
European audiences. By comparison with the characters of
The Front Page, the nobility and gentry of most English
drawing-room comedy seem like walking corpses. Compared
with the men and women of Gorky's The Lower Depths, how-
ever, the inhabitants of The Front Page seem little more than
puppets being moved around in a frenzy by an expert manipu-
lator.

Perhaps we can understand the style of our theatre better
by looking back to see the changes that have taken place since
the first decade of the century. In those days, a setting was
usually intended to be a reproduction of what was considered
a homely and familiar background, such as a farmhouse, or an
interesting one, like a drawing" room. The acting usually made
it very clear that the characters were of two fairly standard
typesthe good people, with hearts of gold or at least of oak,
and the villains, always plotting evil. And around the entire
play there glowed an aura of sentimentality, in which the
simple good triumphed over the simple evil. Every other na-
tion has had its own brand of sentimentality in the theatre
and in literature, but this particular variety was on the whole
of a primitive and naive sort.

235

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

58. A scene from Sophocles'
Electro as presented of fne
Goodman Memorial Thecrfre
in Chicogo.

Courtesy of Goodman Memorial Theatre

Let us skip to the year 1938 and Thornton Wilder's play
Our Town, hailed by the critics of that season as a master-
piece of the theatre. The setting, far from being an attempt
at naturalism, did not exist at all. Wilder had borrowed a
convention from the Chinese theatre and used a bare stage
which the imagination of the audience transformed into any
setting that was wanted. Most of the props were as imaginary
as the scenery. From the Hindu theatre Wilder had borrowed
the idea of a stage manager who explained to the audience
what was going on. In addition, his stage manager assumed
various roles in the play, usually male but in one case, briefly,
female. Both these conventions would have bewildered the
average American audience of, say, 1905.

They might have been bewildered too by the absence of
villains and of plot. There is no involved struggle to pay off a

236

THE NATURE OF OUR THEATRE

mortgage, or to foil the villain's plan to ruin the heroine.
There is simply an attempt to picture the life of a small New
Hampshire town in the years from 1901 to 1913. No one tries
to harm anyone else. True, there is a happy ending but in
an unconventional sense. At the end of the play, the heroine
is dead, as are some of the other characters. But she and her
friends assure us that it is much better to be dead than alive,
and that only in death lies true happiness.

There is an almost total absence of passion and violent
feeling. The New Englanders of Our Town live in a different
world from the New Englanders of O'Neill's Desire Under
the Elms, who loved, murdered, and robbed with such fierce-
ness. At times, it is true, the inhabitants of Our Town feel
strongly. But the feelings are not of a kind to lead to conflict
and conflict, many critics have held, is basic to good drama.

You can see how strange Our Town would have seemed if
it had been played before an audience of fifty years ago. But
perhaps the strangest thing about it is that in many ways it
would have seemed to this audience so familiar. If there were
no real settings, at least the details of the imagined settings,
those the stage manager describes, were not strange. Church
steeples and hitching-posts, railroad tracks and horse-blocks,
imaginary though these might be, would have been more
welcome and understandable than the stylized and exagger-
ated backgrounds that are occasionally encountered by mod-
ern audiences.

And in spirit, Our Town would have seemed very much
like the plays the American theatre had long been used to.
All the characters have hearts of gold, in various stages of
refinement. There is just as unreal a picture of the inhabi-
tants of a small town as the early audiences were accustomed
to see; there is the same glow of sentimentality, the same
calculated tug at the heartstrings of those who want to be
assured that the original of the picture is really as pretty as it
has been painted. In the over-all sweetness, the morsel of phi-
losophy at the end that only the dead are truly happy serves
merely to add piquancy and spice, just as lemon peel or cin-
namon or ginger enhance the flavor of a dessert, without sub-
tracting from its content of sugar.

Consider, by contrast, Tennessee Williams* The Glass Me-
nagerie. Here too the author is looking back to a period the

237

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

Photo by Vetndamm

59. A scene from Our Town, by Thornton Wilder. Frank Craven,
in front of the cvrtain f is the narrator.

depths of the Depression-before the actual time in which the
play is produced. And here too there are innovations of staging
which might have confused the old audiences. Instead of a
stage manager, there is a narrator, who ties the scenes to-
gether for the audience in the manner of a Greek chorus or
the narrator in a radio serial, and then steps into the play
proper to act his own role. The lighting takes on a new im-
portance. A semitransparent screen hides part of the stage
until the lights go on behind it. Then the screen becomes
fully transparent and the scene changes. The very name of
the play is symbolic, for The Glass Menagerie refers not only
to the glass animals that the heroine treasures but to the
characters of the play itself.

The surface picture is much less true to, life than that
produced by the imaginary word-painted sets of Our Town.

238

THE NATURE OF OUR THEATRE

But the characters are much more real, drawn with much
more than surface likeness. And it is this, rather than the
setting, which would have baffled the old audiences. There
may be no plot in the old melodramatic sense, but simple
things happen on which the characters pin their hopes and
fears. There may be no villain; but there are no cardboard
cutouts of "good" people, either. The characters are complex,
and conflict arises from the clash of their desires and passions.
The effect they produce is painfully realistic.

Or take Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. Recognition
of the reality of the characters is so widespread that the play
has been a success on the European" continent as well as in
the United States. But the sense of reality is not produced by
purely naturalistic methods. It was originally intended, as Mr.
Miller has pointed out, to be produced without a set. In its
final form, the play has a single set (see picture page 90),
which on different levels provides the locale for the most
varied scenes. We see Willy Loman's house against a back-
ground of apartment houses, and we see into the house at the
same time. The entire setting is wholly or partially transparent,
so that the lighting is of tremendous importance in shifting
the scene from kitchen to bedroom, or to the various places
Willy Loman visits. The kitchen is "real" to the extent of three
chairs and a refrigerator, but there are no other fixtures. The
bedroom is also real in this skimpy sense, with the addition
of a silver athletic trophy, which symbolizes the false values
of Willy and his sons.

There is an apron stage borrowed from the days of Shake-
speare. This serves as the scene of Willy's imaginings and of
his city scenes, as well as of his grave. The author adopts a
very strict convention to distinguish scenes of the past from
those of the present. Whenever the action is in the present,
the actors enter the house only through its door. But in scenes
of the past, they enter or leave a room by stepping "through"
a wall onto the forestage.

The emotional impact of the play is heightened by the use
of music. This not only creates atmosphere, but in almost
operatic fashion characterizes some of the actors and height-
ens and foreshadows the action. The dialogue too is not
strictly realistic. In many places it is exalted and poetic. When
Willy's wife says of him, "Attention, attention must be finally

239

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

paid to such a person/' she is generalizing, talking not only of
Willy, but of other men like him, and of their tragedies too.
It will be noted that the techniques involved in producing
these plays have been borrowed from the most various sources
from China and Elizabethan England, as well as from the
expressionist stages of Europe. But in each case, the resulting
play is no mere jumble of stage devices. The technique
used has become part of the essential nature of the play.

Note too that these are serious plays, and that whatever
nonrealistic method the author uses, and whatever his suc-
cess, his purpose is to heighten the feeling of real life. It is
not to present a picture that is a complete departure from
reality (as are some of the poetic plays of Yeats and Maeter-
linck).

This attempt to show things as they are, sometimes pro-
foundly and sometimes with less serious intent, is part of our
theatrical tradition. It is to be found not only in the plays we
have mentioned but in a melodrama like Broadway and a
comedy like Life With Father. Both plays are American in
theme and treatment. Playgoers abroad saw in them not the
familiar picture of a life they knew, but a strange portrait of
people and manners that were fascinating because they were
so characteristically American.

In contrast to all these plays, even such high-caliber musi-
cal comedies as Oklahoma!, Finians Rainbow, and Pal Joey
had their origin in a quite different traditionthe tradition of
theatre that was intended to amuse and to kill time pleasantly,
without pretense of being real. For many decades, no one
expected the characters in a musical comedy to behave like
actual people. They were stock types, and the talents of the
actors were largely thrown away. All that was asked of them
was to look pretty, and, if they had leading parts, to sii*g and
dance and mug. But during the past dozen years, musical
comedy has also developed a trend toward realism. And in
doing so, it has made use of a wide variety of methods.
Finians Rainbow was a fantasy, but a fantasy which genuinely
reflected certain aspects of American Me. Oklahoma! was a
story of the frontier which gained much of its effectiveness
from the integration into the story of ballet and ballet is a
form of dance developed originally for the entertainment of

240

THE NATUHE OF OUR THEATRE

European aristocrats. It was until the past two decades an alien
form of amusement.

From the examples of these plays and from the numerous
others in similar genres which are produced each year we
see that by far the greater part of the time American dramatists
prefer to write about Americans in American settings. Very
few now put their characters in English drawing rooms or in
never-never lands where fantastic events are normal occur-
rences. And in the staging, our designers, directors, and actors
use both naturalistic and nonnaturalistic methods, most of
them borrowed from other theatres, to create an effect of
realism (although each individual has his own idea of exactly
what realism is). In the better plays, the borrowings are in-
tegrated into a unified whole. In others they seem as out of
place as an extra thumb on the human hand.

To sum up, then: Our theatre style is a kind of realism,
presented with the help of a wide variety of techniques. It is
usually characterized by speed, often by energy and vigor. Fre-
quently, because of cynicism or sentimentality, it is shallow
and distorted. Its subjects are drawn from American life. Our
playwrights have so many different things to saysome of
them true and important and some of them downright non-
sense, some "safe*' and some dangerous to mention that no
single theme can be said to be of supreme interest. It would
be different if any one playwright or group of playwrights
of similar views dominated the scene. As it is, our theatre
reflects many of the emotional and intellectual cross-currents
of our time.

241

Glossary

ad lib

acting area
action

apron
batten
border

borderlights
box set

business

To improvise dialogue or business. The actor may
ad lib when some one forgets lines or business and
there is an awkward pause to be bridged. Or he
may be directed to ad lib expressions in a crowd
scene, etc., for the sake of getting a realistic effect

That part of the stage used by the actors.

The progress of the play, depending on changes in
the relationships of the characters. It is not mere
physical activity such as running about the stage.
There is no action in a race in which the different
runners do not change relative positions. There is
action when the last man forges ahead, the pace-
setter drops back, and so on.

The part of the stage in front of the curtain. Or a
special stage stretching out from the regular stage
into the audience.

A length of pipe or timber used to suspend scenery,
to support lights, or to stiffen a surface of canvas
or board,

A curtain which hangs down from above behind
the teaser. It is intended to mask the upper part of
the stage.

Individual lights hung on battens around the stage.

A set whose sides are closed by wings arranged
edge to edge, with no space between them. Over-
head there may be either borders or a ceiling. En-
trances are made through doors or windows.

Activity which helps interpret a character of the
play. It goes beyond gesture, which refers merely
to position of the arms, legs, etc. Raising a hand to
the nose is a gesture; taking snuff, inhaling, sneez-
ing, is business.

243

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

character make-up

cue
cyclorama

dimmer

drop

drop and wing set

flat
flies
fly
footlights

flood lights

gelatine

gesture

Make-up whose purpose is to change the essential
nature of the actor's appearance. Make-up that
turns a young actor into an old man, a person of
different nationality, etc., is character make-up.

The last words or business of one actor, signaling
that it is another actor's turn to speak, come on-
stage, etc.

A screen with a uniform surface, placed in back of
outdoor scenery. Colored light is projected on it
to produce a sky, etc.

Part of an electric circuit which increases or de-
creases the brightness of lights.

Part of a set hung from overhead.

An old type of set in which painted wings and
borders, one behind the other, mask more and more
of the stage. There is a full drop upstage. Actors
make their entrances not through doors or win-
dows, which are only painted, but between the
wings.

A screenlike piece of scenery which rests upon the
floor and is fastened to it.

The space near the top of the stage, where scenery
is hung out of sight of the audience.

To raise or lower a piece of scenery, toward or
away from the flies.

Lights, usually arranged in a row, which throw
light up from the front of the stage. They are tra-
ditionally associated with the modern stage, but
they are not the most useful lights.

Strong lights, each of which floods a good part of
the stage.

A sheet of transparent colored material placed in
front of a stage light in order to color the light

Change of position of the hands, arms, legs, or the
body as a whole for the purpose of expressing feel-
ing or thought.

244

GLOSSARY

greenroom

grid or gridiron

ground row

Jog
movement

obligatory scene
prompt script

props

proscenium
run-through

scene

A place where the actors wait between their ap-
pearances on stage. It isn't usually green, and it
doesn't have to be a room. Not all theatres have
one, and in that case the actors may wait in their
dressing rooms, or wherever else is convenient.

A metal or wood framework above the stage.
Equipped with pulleys and blocks, it serves to sup-
port drops and borders.

A low flat which represents in outline part of a
landscape standing in front of a sky.

A narrow flat.

Change of an actor's position on the stage.

A scene which the audience more or less con-
sciously foresees and finds necessary.

A complete record of the production. It includes
all cuts, changes, directions for movement, busi-
ness, use of props, etc., as made by the stage man-
ager.

All objects essential to the action of the play ex-
cept for costumes and scenery. Furniture is some-
times considered part of the props.

The frame of the stage. Everything that surrounds
the stage opening.

A rehearsal played from beginning to end without
a break, to give the actors the feel of an act or
play as a whole.

This word is used in many ways. The place where
the action of the play occurs. Also, a subdivision
of a play. Modern authors use the word to mean a
distinct part of an act, usually separated from the
next part by the fall and rise of a curtain, with only
a brief intermission. There may be two or three
such scenes per act. The classical or French scene
was part of an act between the entrances and exits
of characters. Of such scenes, there might be
twenty or thirty per act. Scene is also used to de-
scribe a bit of dialogue or pantomime that makes
a definite point. According to this method of scene
division, there may be dozens per act.

245

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

script
set piece

sides
spotlight
stage directions

straight make-up

striplights
stylize

teaser
tormentors

tormentor lights
trap

transparency

The entire play, in written or typed form.

A three-dimensional piece of scenery which sup-
ports itself on the floor.

The business, cues, and lines of a single actor,
written or typed separately.

A lamp whose light is concentrated and thrown on
a small part of the stage, usually around an actor.

Directions to the actors, the director, etc., all writ-
ten from the point of view of the player and not
the audience. Right is the actor's right, and so on.

Make-up whose purpose is to make the performer
as attractive as possible under the stage lighting.

Rows of lights in short, portable sections.

To exaggerate consciously some elements of the
acting, design, and the rest of the production. This
is accompanied by lack of emphasis or the com-
plete absence of other elements. The purpose is to
intensify the effect of a mood, idea, etc.

A curtain which hangs down behind the pro-
scenium opening.

High flats standing upright on each side of the
opening in back of the proscenium. Each has two
folds and is colored the same as the teaser, thus
helping carry out the effect of a frame for the stage.

Lights placed between the proscenium and the tor-
mentors.

An opening in the stage floor that can be used for
entrances or exits, the removal of pieces of furni-
ture, and so on.

A piece of scenery which looks opaque when light-
ed from in front and becomes transparent when
lighted from the back.

246

Bibliography

A large library will contain thousands of books and periodicals about
the theatre. Below are listed a few of those that are most generally avail-
able and most useful to the beginner.

A word of warning with regard to classification: Some of the books
do not fit perfectly into pigeonholes, either in these lists or in others. A
book on production may have excellent advice on acting, and a book on
the nature of the drama may contain much useful history. It is well to
take all classifications, here and elsewhere, with several grains of salt.

PERIODICALS

Billboard Theatre Arts Monthly

Dramatics Variety

Educational Theatre Journal

GENERAL

Bricker, Herschel, ed., Our Theatre Today, New York, Samuel French,
1936. Contains a historical section by Alfred Harding.

Hartnoll, Phyllis, ed., The Oxford Companion to the Theatre, London,
Oxford University Press, 1951.

St. John, Christopher, ed., Ellen Terry and Bernard Shaw, A Corre-
spondence, New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1931.

Sobel, Bernard, ed., The Theatre Handbook and Digest of Plays, New
York, Crown Publishers, 1940. (A revised edition is in preparation.)

Theatre Arts Anthology, New York, Theatre Arts Book: Robert M.
MacGregor, 1950.

THE PLAY AND THE PLAYWRIGHT

Bentley, Eric, The Playwright as Thinker, New York, Reynal &

Hitchcock, 1946.
Brooks, Cleanth, and Robert B. Heilman, Understanding Drama, New

York, Henry Holt, 1948. An anthology, with analyses of different types

of plays.
Clark, Barrett H,, European Theories of the Drama, rev. ed., New York,

Crown Publishers, 1947.

Gassner, John, Masters of the Drama, New York, Dover, 1945.
Krows, A. E., Playwriting for Profit, New York, Longmans, 1928.

247

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

Lawson, John Howard, The Theory and Technique of Plat/writing and
Screenwriting, New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1949.

Shaw, George Bernard, Dramatic Opinions and Essays, New York, Dodd,
Mead, 1907.

Shaw, George Bernard, Prefaces to his plays.

Shaw, George Bernard, The Quintessence of Ibsenism (1891), New York,
Brentano's, 1914.

Venezky (Griffin), Alice, Living Theatre, A Study Guide to Great Plays,
and an Anthology, prepared under the auspices of the American Na-
tional Theatre and Academy, New York, Twayne, 1951.

Webster, Margaret, Shakespeare Without Tears, New York, Whittiesey
House, 1942,

PRODUCTION

Barton, Lucy, Historic Costume for the Stage, Boston, Baker, 1935.
Davis, Eugene C., Amateur Theatre Handbook, New York, Greenberg,

1945.
Dolman, John, Jr., The Art of Play Production, rev. ed., New York,

Harper, 1946.
Gassner, John, Producing the Play, New York, Dryden, 1941. A revised

edition is now in preparation.
Gorelik, Mordecai, New Theatres For Old, New York, Samuel French,

1940.
Hewitt, Barnard, The Art and Craft of Play Production, Philadelphia,

Lippincott, 1940.
Houghton, Norris, Advance from Broadway, New York, Harcourt, Brace,

1941.

Hughes, Glenn, The Penthouse Theatre, New York, French, 1942.
Jones, Margo, Theatre~in-the-Round, New York, Rinehart, 1951.
Kohler, Carl, and Emma von Sichart, History of Costume, London, Watt,

1928 and Philadelphia, McKay, 1937.
McCandless, Stanley R., A Method of Lighting the Stage, rev. ed., New

York, Theatre Arts, 1939.

Mitchell, Roy, The School Theatre, New York, Brentano's, 1925.
Selden, Samuel, ed., Organizing a Community Theatre, Cleveland, Na-
tional Theatre Conference, 1945.

Simonson, Lee, The Art of Scenic Design, New York, Harper, 1950.
Simonson, Lee, The Stage is Set, New York, Harcourt, Brace, 1932.
Smith, Milton, Play Production, New York, Appleton-Century-Crofts,
1948.

248

BIBLIOGBAPHY

ACTING AND DIRECTING

Albert!, Eva, A Handbook of Acting, New York, Samuel French, 1932.
Anderson, Virgil A., Training the Speaking Voice, New York, Oxford

University Press, 1942.
Boleslavsky, Richard, Acting: The First Six Lessons, New York, Theatre

Arts, 1933.
Cole, Toby, and Helen Krich Chinoy, Actors on Acting, New York,

Crown Publishers, 1949.

Corson, Richard, Stage Make-up, New York, Crofts, 1947.
Liszt, Rudolph G., The Last Word in Make-up, New York, Dramatists

Play Service, 1942.
Manser, Ruth B., and Finlan, Leonard, The Speaking Voice, New York,

Longmans, Green, 1950.

Shaw, Bernard, The Art of Rehearsal, New York, Samuel French, 1922.
Stan&lavski, Constantin, An Actor Prepares, New York, Theatre Arts,

1936.

HISTORY

Bieber, Margarete, The History of the Greek and Roman Theatre,
Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1938.

Bowers, Faubion, Japanese Theatre, New York, Hermitage House, 1952.

Chambers, E. K., The Elizabethan Stage, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1923.

Chambers, E. K., The Medieval Stage, Oxford University Press, 1903.

Cheney, Sheldon, The Theatre: Three Thousand Years of Drama, Acting,
and Stagecraft, New York, Tudor, 1935.

Clark, Barrett H., and Freedley, George, ed., A History of Modem
Drama, New York, Appleton-Century, 1947.

Clurman, Harold, The Fervent Years, New York, Knopf, 1945.

Dana, H. W. L., Handbook on Soviet Drama, New York, American
Russian Institute, 1938.

Dickinson, Thomas H., ed., The Theatre in a Changing Europe, New
York, Holt, 1937.

Flanagan, Hallie, Arena, New York, Duell, Sloan, & Pearce, 1948.

Freedley, George, and Reeves, John A,, A History of the Theatre, New
York, Crown Publishers, 1941.

Gassner, John, ed., Twenty Best Plays of the Modern American Theatre,
New York, Crown Publishers, 1939; Best Plays of the Modern Ameri-
can Theatre, Second Series; Twenty-five Best flays of the Modern
American Theatre, Early Series; A Treasury of the Theatre, three
volumes, New York, Simon & Schuster. These anthologies contain a
vast amount of historical material.

Hodges, C. Walter, Shakespeare and the Player, New York, Coward-
McCann, 1948.

249

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

Holzknecht, Karl J., The Backgrounds of Shakespeare's flays, New York,

American Book Company, 1950.
Hughes, Glenn, A History of the American Theatre (1700-1950), New

York, Samuel French, 1951.

Hughes, Glenn, Story of the Theatre, New York, Samuel French, 1928.
Mantzius, Karl, A History of Theatrical Art in Ancient and Modern

Times, 6 volumes, London, Duckworth, 1903-1921, New Yoirk, Peter

Smith, 1937.
Nagler, A. M., Sources of Theatrical History, New York, Theatre Annual,

1952.

Nicoll, Allardyce, World Drama, New York, Harcourt, 1950.
Nicoll, Allardyce, The Development of the Theatre, 3rd ed., New York,

Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1948.
Gates, Whitney J., and O'Neill, Eugene, Jh, The Complete Greek Drama,

2 volumes, New York, Random House, 1938. With historical intro-
ductions.
Sprague, Arthur Colby, Shakespeare and the Actors, Cambridge, Mass.,

Harvard University Press, 1945.
Watkins, Ronald, On Producing Shakespeare, New York, W. W. Norton,

1950.

250

Index

Abbott, George, 55; interview with, 69-72

Actors Equity Association, 121, 132, 134,
142-144, 163, 166, 206

Actors Lab Theatre, 220

Adelman, Louis, 198

Aeschylus, 6, 7, 12, 109, 203

Age of Anxiety, The, 178

Aida, 80

Aldridge Players, 163

All My Sons, 15, 101, 103

American Academy of Dramatic Arts,
53, 123

American Educational Theatre /Associa-
tion, 227

American Federation of Labor, 142

American Guild of Variety Artists, 166

American National Theatre Academy;
see ANTA

American Negro Theatre, 163, 164

American Theatre Wing, 167

American University, 101

Anderson, Maxwell, 147, 148, 152

Androcles and the Lion, 107

Anna and the King of Siam, 147

Anna Lucasta, 163

Anne of the Thousand Days, 147, 148

Anouilh, Jean, 77

ANTA, 132, 136, 153, 156, 157, 226-
229

Antoine, 105

Antoinette Perry Award, 137

Antony and Cleopatra, 130, 131, 230

Aria da Capo, 219

Aristophanes, 6

Aristotle, 32

Arsenic and Old Lace, 189

Arts Council of Great Britain, 19, 229,
230

Associated Actors and Artists of Amer-
ica, 144

A* You Like It, 163

Atkinson, Brooks, 14, 16; interview with
31-34

Atmospheric perspective, 93; see Light-
ing

Atwater, Edith, 38, 114, 190; interview
with, 123-127

Awake and Sing, 73, 78, 220

Bacon, Frank, 44

Baker, George P., 202

Ballet Theatre, 53

Barretts of Wimpole Street, The, 129

Barrie, Sir James, 152

Barry, Philip, 202

Bay, Howard, 96, 174; interview with,

97-100

Baylor University, 196, 223
Behrman, S. N., 147
Belasco, David, 74, 89, 105, 235

Bellamy, Ralph, 124

Bell, Book and Candle, 21, 147

Berg, Gertrude, 55

Berlin, Germany, 105

Berlin Stones, 21

Bernhardt, Sarah, 113, 114, 131, 134

Bernstein, Leonard: interview with, 178-

182

Billy Budd, 32
Blithe Spirit, 147
Bloomer Girl, 173, 183
Board of Education, N.Y.C., 190
Boleslavsky, Richard, 123
Booth, Edwin, 44, 134
Booth, Shirley, 70
Border lights; see Lighting
Bosse High School Thespians, 189
Boston Transcript, 31
Brand, Phoebe, 220
Brando, Marlon, 190
Brecht, Berthold, 17
Broadway, 69, 76, 240
Bromberg, J. Edward, 220
Brooks, Martin, 22
Brown, Lyman, 206
Brynner, Yul, 169
Buck, Josephine, 163
Buloff, Joseph, 60
Burlesque, 162

Caesar and Cleopatra, 230

Call Me Madam, 26

Campbell, Dick, 163

Candida, 128, 215

Carnegie Institute of Technology, 198

Carnovsky, Morris, 220

Carousel, 14, 183, 186

Carpenter, Constance, 169

Cassidy, Claudia, 33

Catholic University, 87, 117, 197, 200

Central Catholic High School, 192

Central Europe, 105

Chase, Mary, 60

Chekhov, Anton, 17, 113, 128, 137, 152,

235

Cherry Orchard, The, 152
Children of the Ladybug, 195
Children's Theatre, 222
Chinese theatre, 88
Chorus Equity, 143, 144, 166
Cleveland Playhouse, 57, 228
Clurman, Harold, 233, 235; interview

with, 73-79
Cobb, Lee J., 19
Cocteau, Jean, 76

Columbia University, 196, 197, 198, 202
Comden, Betty, 54, 180
Come Back, Little Sheba, 99
Commedia delF Arte, 58
Congreve, William, 76

251

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

Cornell, Katharine: interview with, 128-

131

Costume design, 95
Council of the Dramatists Guild, 7
Council of the Living Theatre, 51, 226,

229

Country Girl, The, 137

Coward, Noel, 147

Craven, Frank, 239

Crothers, Rachel, 202

Grouse, Russel, 14, 124; interview with,

26-30

Crucible, The, 15, 96
Crump, Owen, 231

Dallas Theatre, 13, 221, 228, 231
Dance, 172, 173, 175, 176, 178, 183-

187

Dance to the Piper, 183
Davis, Owen, 191
Death of a Salesman, 15, 18, 19, 76, 90,

147, 175, 227, 239
Delsarte Method, 109
de Mille, Agnes: interview with, 183-

187
Derwent, Clarence, 146; interview with,

132-136

Desire Under the Elms, 75, 102, 237
de Vega, Lope, 8
Devffs Disciple, The, 81
de Wilde, Brandon, 60, 78
Di Luca, Dino, 74
Dionysus, 85

Doctors Dilemma, The, 128
Donaldson Award, 137
Don Carlos, 80
Don Juan, 8

Dramatists' Guild, The, 6, 166
Drawing Room Theatre, 222
Dunnock, Mildred, 19
Duse, Eleanora, 113, 114

Eastern Europe, 105

East Lynne, 132

Ecole des Femmes, U, see School for

Wives

Edwards, Christine, 190-194
Egypt, Ancient, 121
Electra, 236

Elizabethan Engknd, 97, 121
Elizabethan stage, 95
Emmett, Robert, 211
Emperor Jones, 163
Encyclopedia Americana, 101
Enemy of the People, 17
England, 121
Equity Council, 163
Equity Magazine, 142
Equity reading, 48
Erie Playhouse, 62, 221, 222
Euripides, 6, 205, 214
European theatre, 103-105
Evans, Maurice, 81

Falconetti, 138

Fall River Legend, 183

Fancy Free, 178

252

Faust, 8

Federal Theatre, 145

Feigay, Paul, 54

Ferdinand, the Bull, 163

Ferrer, Jose, 63, 64, 137

Fervent Years. The, 73

Finians Rainbow, 240

Fitch, Clyde, 12

Flahooley, 123

Focus, 15

Focusing spotlight, see Lighting

Footlights, see Lighting

Forbes, Kathryn, 21

Fourposter, The, 147

France, Anatole, 33

Freedley, George, 195

French, Samuel, ,14, 47

Front Page, The, 76, 235

Fry, Christopher, 76, 147

Garfield, John, 220

Garrick, David, 58, 235

Gilbert and Sullivan, 174

Gillette, William, 43, 44

Giraudoux, Jean, 77

Give Us This Day, 101

Glass Menagerie, The, 237, 238

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 8

Golden Boy, 73, 101

Golden, John: interview with, 42-47

Goldoni, Carlo, 196

Good Fairy, The, 152

Goodman Memorial Theatre, 115, 225,

230
Gorelik, Mordecai, 96; interview with,

101-106

Gorky, Maxim, 235
Granville-Barker, Harley, XIII, 133
Greece, Ancient, 85, 121, 177
Green, Adolph, 54, 180
Gregory, Lady, 219
Group Theatre, 73, 79
Guggenheim Foundation, 10

Hagen, Uta, 110, 115; interview with,

137-141

Hallelujah, 163
Hamlet, 80, 107, 132, 133, 137, 155,

162, 172

Hammerstein, Oscar II, 21, 55, 99, 185
Hampden, Walter, 96
Harding, Alfred: interview with, 142-

146

Harriet, 154
Harris, Julie, 22, 78
Harrisburg Theatre, 221
Harrison, Rex: interview with, 147-151
Hart, Teddy, 70

Harvard University, 48, 133, 202
Harvey, 162
Hayes, Helen, 60, 115; interview with,

152-157

Head of the Family, 163
Hedda Gabler, 204
Helburn, Theresa, 232; interview with,

48-52
Hellman, Lillian, 76

INDEX

Henderson, Archibald, 33

Henry VI, 13

Herbert, Victor, 174

Heywood, John, XIV

High School o Performing Arts, 47, 190

Hillbarn Summer Theatre, 214

Holm, Cecil, 70

Hornman, Miss Annie, 133

Housman, Laurence, 152, 156

Howard, Sidney, 211

Hudson Theatre, 26

Hughes, EHnore, 33

Hugo, Victor, 113

Hunt, Marsha, 81

Hunter College, 190

Hunter, Kim, 211

lago, 64

I Am a Camera, 21, 22

Ibsen, Henrik, 7, 9, 12, 17, 124, 200,

203, 232, 235
Icebound, 191
Inge, William, 49, 76, 99
International Theatre Institute, 132, 136
Ireland, 105
/ Remember Mama, 21
Irving, Sir Henry, 121
Isherwood, Christopher, 21
Italy, 105

Japan, 147
Jefferson, Joseph, 44
Jeremiah Symphony, 178
Joan of Arc, 13, 138
Jolson, Al, 42
Jones, Margo, 13, 228, 231
Jouvet, Louis, 104
Julius Caesar, 87

Kaiser, Georg, 17

Karamu Theatre, 57, 223

Katherine and Petruchio, 192

Kennedy, Arthur, 19

Kern, Jerome, 99, 180

Kerr, Walter, 197

King and I, The, 168, 169, 170

King Lear, 38. 123, 125, 204

Kramm, Joseph, 63

Lady Passing Fair, A, 163

Lahr, Bert: interview with, 158-162

Langner, Laurence, 49

Laurents, Arthur, 74. 76

League of New York Theatres, 166

Lee, Auriol, 23

Leigh, Vivien, 230

Levene, Sam, 69, 70

Life With Father, 26, 27, 28, 240

Lighting for stage, 91, 92, 93, 98, 174;

see also Glossary
Lighinin', 42
Lindsay, Howard, 14, 124; interview

with, 26-30
Lira, Miguel N., 225
Living Corpse, The, 232
Loder, John, 190
Logan, Joshua, 152

London Little Theatre, 223
Lorca, Federico Garcia, 17
Lower Depths, The, 235
Lynn, William, 70

Macandrew, James F., 190

Macbeth, 133

MacMillan, Louis, 207

Major Barbara, 147

Make-up, 114, 125

Male Animal The, 42, 145

Mamas Bank Account, 21

Man Who Came to Dinner, The, 123

Marlowe, Christopher, 8

Mary of Scotland, 152, 155

Mary, Queen of Scots, 132

McCormick, Myron, 124

McCullers, Carson, 78

McMahon, Aline, 135

McMahon, Horace, 70

Me and Molly, 55

Member of the Wedding, The, 73, 76,

77, 78

Men in White, 101, 103
Merchant of Venice, The, 13
Merry Wives of Windsor, The, 133
Metropolitan Opera Company, 80, 176
Midsummer Night's Dream, A, 204
Mielziner, Jo, 87, 90
Millay, Edna St. Vincent,, 219
Miller, Arthur, 7, 14, 76, 90, 129, 233,

239; interview with, 15-20
Miller, Leon C., 188, 190
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 230
Mister Roberts, 169
Mistress of the Inn, The, 196
Mitchell, Cameron, 19
Mitchell, Ruth: interview with, 168-171
Moliere (Jean-Baptiste Poquefin), 6, 7,

104, 109, 114, 173, 203, 205, 215
Molnar, Ferenc, 152
Moon Besieged, The, 115
Moscow, 107

Mrs. McThing, 60, 153, 154
Munich, Germany, 105
Munshin, Jules, 60
Music Circuses, 212
Musicals, production of, 172-187

Nathan, George Jean, 16

National Theatre Conference, 101, 106,
226, 227

National Thespian Society, 188, 190,
227

Negro Actors' Guild, 166

New Dramatists Committee Workshop,
7, 29

New Haven, 68

New Orleans Recreation Department,
see NORD

New York City Center, 7, 97

New York Philharmonic Symphony Or-
chestra. 163

New York Times, 31

No Exit, 55

None But the Lonely Heart, 101

NORD f 230

253

LET'S MEET THE THEATRE

No Time for Comedy, 147
Nugent, Elliott, 45

O'Casey, Sean, 16, 17

Odets, Clifford, 76, 137, 220, 233

Oedipus the King, 200

Oklahoma, 173, 183, 185, 186, 240

Olivier, Sir Laurence, 155, 230

O'Neal, Frederick: interview with, 163-

166

One Bright Day, 29
O'Neill, Eugene, 12, 73, 102, 202, 232,

237

On the Town, 53, 54, 178, 179, 180
Oregon, University of, 204
Othello, 64, 80, 134
Our Town, 189, 236, 237, 238, 239

Pal Joey, 240

Palmer, Lili, 147, 149, 150

Palo Alto, Calif., 230

Parent Associations. 188

Parkersburg High School crew, 191

Pasadena Playhouse, 14, 234

Penthouse Theatre, 196

Perez, Jose, 74

Persians, The, 12

Petit Theatre du Vieux Carre, 219, 221,

222

Philadelphia, Pa., 68
Phoenix, The', 42
Picnic, 49
Pinky, 163
Pirandello, Luigi, 76
Poland, 105
Polonius, 107
Preston, Robert, 45
Pride and Prejudice, 189
Prince, William, 22
Processional, 101
Proctor, James D., 40-41
Prospect Heights High School, 190
Provincetown, 207

Rahn, Muriel, 163

Ratcliffe, Thomas G. Jr., 207, 208

Rathbone, Basil, 206

Ratigan, Terence, 189

Redman, Joyce, 148

Remains to be Seen, 29

Return to Earth, 225

Rice, Elmer, 164, 219

Richard II, 37, 80

Richard III, 203

Richmond, Va., 230

Rising of the Moon, The, 219

Rivals, The, 135

Robeson, Paul, 64, 137

Rockefeller Foundation, 101

Rodeo, 183

Rodgers, Richard, 21, 55, 185

Rome, Ancient, 121

Romeo and Juliet, 86, 128, 163

Roosevelt, Franklin D., 29

Rose McClendon Players, 163

Rosenthal, Jean, 98

Russell, Rosalind, 179

254

Ruu Bias, 113
Ryder, Alfred, 22

Saint Joan, 80, 128, 137, 138

Salvini, 43

Sappho, 132

Sardou, Victorien, 11, 12, 131

Saroyan, William, 11

Sartre, Jean-Paul, 55, 77

Scene design, 85-106

Scenic Designers* Union, 98

Schiller, Friedrich, 132

Schneider, Alan, 87, 200

Schochen, Seyril, 115

School for Scandal, The, 132

School for Wives, The, 104

Scott, Martha, 45

Scott, Winnie, 163

Scribe, Eugene, 11, 12

Seacliff Summer Theatre, 207, 211

Sea Gull, The, 137

Shakespeare, William, 1, 6, 7, 12, 13,
14, 38, 42, 48, 58, 64, 75, 80, 85,
86, 95, 97, 104, 107, 109, 113, 114,
124, 125, 128, 129, 130, 137, 147,
152, 155, 172, 192, 196, 203, 205,
215, 227, 230, 239

Shaw, George Bernard, 6, 8, 9, 12, 17,
33, 34, 42, 44, 63, 65, 71, 76, 80,
81, 113, 128, 129, 131, 137, 138, 147,
215, 230, 232, 233, 235

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 135

Show Boat, 99

Show Boat Theatre, 196

Shreveport Little Theatre, 222

Shrike, The, 63

Simonson, Lee, 91

Sing Out, Sweet Land, 197

Skin of Our Teeth, The, 76

Smith, Art, 211, 220

Smith, Milton, 196-197

Smith, Oliver: interview with, 53-57

Soft-focus spotlights, see Lighting

Solov, Zachary, 176

Sophocles, 42, 114, 236

South Pacific, 14

Southern Exposure, 231

Southwestern Theatre Conference, 222

Soviet theatre, 86, 104-105

Speech, see Voice

Spook Sonata, 76

Stage space, 91

Stairs to the Roof, 234

Stanford University, 135, 146, 203

Stanislavsky, Konstantin, 85, 107, 109,
110, 137

State of the Union, 26, 29, 124

Stevens, Emily, 154

Stickney, Dorothy, 28

Stock Managers' Association, 213

Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 154

Street Scene, 219

Streetcar Named Desire, A, 137

Strindberg, August, 17, 76

Student Theatre, 222

Syracuse University, 201

INDEX

Take a Giant Step, 163

Taming of the Shrew, The, 13

Tarrant, Newell, 62

Taylor, Laurette, 140

Television Authority, 166

Tempest, The, 58, 80

Terry, Ellen, 131, 134

Theatre Guild, 48, 49, 50, 64, 78, 82,

226
Theatre in the Round, 91, 196, 204, 212,

223, 224, 231
Thespian Society, 173
They Knew What They Wanted, 211
Thomas, Augustus, 12
Thorn, Robert, 195
Three Men on a Horse, 69, 70
Three Sisters, The, 128
Thurber, James, 45
Time of the Cuckoo, The, 73, 74
Titus Andronicus, 13
Tobacco Road, 11, 32
Tolstoy, Leo, 232
Tomorrow the World, 123
Tree Grows in Brooklyn, A, 38, 69
Trojan Women, The, 214
Tulane University, 221
Twelfth Night, 48, 152, 155
Two on the Aisle, 97, 158, 159

Ulric, Lenore, 130

Van Druten, John, 14, 147, 149; inter-
view with, 21-25
Vardac, Nicholas, 203
Venus Observed, 147
Verdi, Giuseppe, 80

Victoria Regina, 152, 155, 156
Voice of the Turtle, The, 21
Voice, training of, 115-120, 134, 139

Waldorf, Willela, 33

Warfield, David, 44

Washington Square Players, 48

Washington, University of, 196

Waters, Ethel, 78

Watson, Douglas, 64

Watson, Minor, 124

Webster, Margaret, 138; interview with,

80-84

Wells, H. G., 25

Westport Country Playhouse, 51
Wharf Theatre, 207
What Every Woman Knows, 152
Whitehead, Robert, 60
Widowers' Houses, 6
Wilde, Oscar, 196
Wilder, Thornton, 231, 239
Williams, Tennessee, 76, 129, 137, 149,

233, 234, 237
Winner, The, 164
Winslow Boy, The, 189
Winters, Marian, 22
Wizard of Oz, The, 158
WNYE, 190

Wonderful Town, 178, 179
Wycherley, Margaret, 190

Yale University, 195, 202
Young Men's Christian Association, 188
Young Men's Hebrew Association, 188
You Cant Take It With You, 189
Young Woodley, 21

255

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