Theatre Guild
The Theatre Guild is a theatrical society founded in New York City in 1918 by Lawrence Langner, Philip Moeller, Helen Westley[1] and Theresa Helburn. Langner's wife, Armina Marshall, then served as a co-director. It evolved out of the work of the Washington Square Players.[2]
History
Its original purpose was to produce non-commercial works by American and foreign playwrights. It differed from other theaters at the time in that its board of directors shared the responsibility of choosing plays, management, and production.[3] The Theatre Guild contributed greatly to the success of Broadway from the 1920s throughout the 1970s.
The Guild has produced a total of 228 plays on Broadway, including 18 by George Bernard Shaw and seven by Eugene O'Neill. Other major playwrights introduced to theatre-going Americans include Robert E. Sherwood, Maxwell Anderson, Sidney Howard, William Saroyan, and Philip Barry. In the field of musical theatre, the Guild has promoted works by Richard Rodgers, teamed with both Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II, George and Ira Gershwin, Jule Styne, and Meredith Willson, all of which have become classics. Warren Caro served as the organization's executive director from 1946 through 1967.[4] Under President John F. Kennedy, the Guild was engaged to assemble a U.S. theatre company, headed by Helen Hayes, to tour the capitals of Europe and South America with works by Tennessee Williams, Thornton Wilder, and William Gibson.[5]
In 1968, the Guild became involved in the travel field by taking 25 of its subscribers to European capitals to see plays. In 1975, it instituted its Theatre At Sea program with a 17-day cruise aboard the Rotterdam with Hayes and Cyril Ritchard. Since then they have hosted more than thirty cruises, each with seven or eight performers. Among them have been Alan Arkin, Zoe Caldwell, Anne Jackson, Cherry Jones, Richard Kiley, Eartha Kitt, Patricia Neal, Lynn Redgrave, Gena Rowlands, Jean Stapleton, Eli Wallach, and Lee Roy Reams, who served as the program's resident director.
The last Broadway play produced by The Theatre Guild was State Fair in 1996.[6]
Notable productions
- 1920: Heartbreak House
- 1921: Liliom
- 1922: R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)
- 1922: He Who Gets Slapped
- 1923: Saint Joan
- 1925: Processional
- 1927: Porgy
- 1928: Strange Interlude
- 1931: Mourning Becomes Electra
- 1933: Ah, Wilderness!
- 1935: Porgy and Bess
- 1936: The Masque of Kings; Idiot's Delight
- 1939: The Philadelphia Story; The Time of Your Life
- 1943: Oklahoma!
- 1943: Othello
- 1944: Jacobowsky and the Colonel
- 1945: Carousel
- 1946: The Iceman Cometh
- 1947: The Winslow Boy
- 1950: Come Back, Little Sheba
- 1953: Picnic; The Trip to Bountiful
- 1955: The Matchmaker
- 1956: Bells Are Ringing
- 1958: Sunrise at Campobello
- 1960: The Unsinkable Molly Brown
- 1965: The Royal Hunt of the Sun
- 1974: Absurd Person Singular
References
- ^ Cody, Gabrielle and Sprinchorn, Evert. The Columbia encyclopedia of modern drama, Volume 2, Columbia University Press, p. 1341
- ^ A Pictorial History of the Theatre Guild by Lawrence Langner and Armina Marshall. Introd. by Brooks Atkinson. Crown Publishers. 1969
- ^ Vintage Years Of The Theatre Guild, 1928-1939 by Roy S. Waldau. Case Western Reserve University Press. 1972
- ^ "Warren Caro, 87, Theater Executive". The New York Times. January 2, 1995. p. 43.
- ^ The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. Oxford University Press. 2004
- ^ "Theatre Guild records". Retrieved 2021-06-02.
External links
- Theatre Guild at the Internet Broadway Database
- Encyclopædia Britannica entry
- Finding Aid to the Theresa Helburn Theatre Guild Collection, Bryn Mawr College
- Theatre Guild records, 1949-1952, held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
- Theatre Guild technical drawings and other production materials, circa 1925-1953, held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
- Sara Greenspan Theatre Guild files, 1925-1969, held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
- Theatre Guild Archive., Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
- v
- t
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- Dora Chamberlain / Ira and Rita Katzenberg / Jules Leventhal / Burns Mantle / P. A. MacDonald / Vincent Sardi Sr. (1947)
- Vera Allen / Paul Beisman / Joe E. Brown / Cast of The Importance of Being Earnest / Robert W. Dowling / Experimental Theatre Inc. / Rosalind Gilder / June Lockhart / Mary Martin / George Pierce / James Whitmore (1948)
- No award (1949)
- Maurice Evans / Philip Faversham / Brock Pemberton (1950)
- Ruth Green (1951)
- Charles Boyer / Judy Garland / Edward Kook (1952)
- Danny Kaye / Beatrice Lillie (1953)
- No award (1954)
- Proscenium Productions (1955)
- Fourth Street Chekov Theatre / City Center / The New York Public Library Theatre Collection / The Shakespearewrights / The Threepenny Opera (1956)
- American Shakespeare Festival / Jean-Louis Barrault / Robert Russell Bennett / William Hammerstein / Joseph Harbuck / Paul Shyre (1957)
- Mrs. Martin Beck / New York Shakespeare Festival (1958)
- Russel Crouse and Howard Lindsay / John Gielgud / Cast of La Plume de Ma Tante (1959)
- Burgess Meredith and James Thurber / John D. Rockefeller III (1960)
- David Merrick / The Theatre Guild (1961)
- Brooks Atkinson / Richard Rodgers / Franco Zeffirelli (1962)
- Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller and Dudley Moore / Irving Berlin / W. McNeil Lowry (1963)
- Eva Le Gallienne (1964)
- Gilbert Miller / Oliver Smith (1965)
- Helen Menken (1966)
- No award (1967)
- APA-Phoenix Theatre / Pearl Bailey / Carol Channing / Maurice Chevalier / Marlene Dietrich / Audrey Hepburn / David Merrick (1968)
- Leonard Bernstein / Carol Burnett / Rex Harrison / The National Theatre Company of Great Britain / The Negro Ensemble Company (1969)
- Noël Coward / Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt / New York Shakespeare Festival / Barbra Streisand (1970)
- Ingram Ash / Elliot Norton / Playbill / Roger L. Stevens (1971)
- Fiddler on the Roof / Ethel Merman / Richard Rodgers / The Theatre Guild-American Theatre Society (1972)
- The Actors Fund of America / John Lindsay / Shubert Organization (1973)
- Actors' Equity Association / A Moon for the Misbegotten / Candide / Peter Cook and Dudley Moore / Harold Friedlander / Bette Midler / Liza Minnelli / Theatre Development Fund / John F. Wharton (1974)
- Al Hirschfeld (1975)
- George Abbott / Richard Burton / Circle in the Square Theatre / Thomas H. Fitzgerald / Mathilde Pincus (1976)
- Cheryl Crawford / Equity Liberty Theatre / Barry Manilow / National Theatre of the Deaf / Diana Ross / Lily Tomlin (1977)
- Irving Berlin / Stan Dragoti and Charles Moss (1978)
- Walter F. Diehl / Eugene O'Neill Memorial Theater Center / Henry Fonda / Richard Rodgers (1979)
- Richard Fitzgerald / Helen Hayes / Mary Tyler Moore / Hobe Morrison (1980)
- Lena Horne (1981)
- Radio City Music Hall / The Actors Fund of America / Warner Communications (1982)
- No award (1983)
- A Chorus Line / Peter Feller / La Tragedie de Carmen (1984)
- Yul Brynner / New York State Council on the Arts (1985)
- No award (1986)
- George Abbott / Jackie Mason (1987)
- Brooklyn Academy of Music (1988)
- No award (1989)
- No award (1990–1992)
- Oklahoma! (1993)
- Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy (1994)
- Carol Channing / National Endowment for the Arts / Harvey Sabinson (1995)
- No award (1996)
- Bernard B. Jacobs (1997)
- Edward E. Colton / Ben Edwards (1998)
- Uta Hagen / Arthur Miller / Isabelle Stevenson (1999)
- Dame Edna: The Royal Tour / T. Edward Hambleton (2000)
- Paul Gemignani (2001)
- Julie Harris / Robert Whitehead (2002)
- Cy Feuer / Russell Simmons' Def Poetry Jam on Broadway (2003)
- James M. Nederlander (2004)
- Edward Albee (2005)
- Sarah Jones / Harold Prince (2006)
- No award (2007)
- Robert Russell Bennett / Stephen Sondheim (2008)
- Jerry Herman (2009)
- Alan Ayckbourn / Marian Seldes (2010)
- Athol Fugard / Philip J. Smith (2011)
- Actors' Equity Association / Hugh Jackman (2012)
- Bernard Gersten / Ming Cho Lee / Paul Libin (2013)
- Jane Greenwood (2014)
- John Cameron Mitchell / Tommy Tune (2015)
- Sheldon Harnick / Marshall W. Mason / National Endowment for the Arts / Miles Wilkin (2016)
- James Earl Jones (2017)
- John Leguizamo / Andrew Lloyd Webber / Chita Rivera / Bruce Springsteen (2018)
- Rosemary Harris / Marin Mazzie / Terrence McNally / Sonny Tilders and Creature Technology Company / Jason Michael Webb / Harold Wheeler (2019)
- The Broadway Advocacy Coalition / David Byrne's American Utopia / Freestyle Love Supreme / Graciela Daniele (2020/21)
- Angela Lansbury / James C. Nicola (2022)
- Joel Grey / John Kander (2023)