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Archibald Henderson (ed.), Pioneering a People's Theatre (1945).Open the sourceAll sources
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Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
- 1910s
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Frederick Koch's first playwriting class meets with twelve women and Thomas Wolfe
Koch's new playwriting course, English 31, opened in the fall of 1918 with thirteen students. Twelve were women students; Thomas Wolfe was the only man, since most male students were then in army uniform.
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The university's extension bureau starts a Bureau of Community Drama under Koch
The university's Bureau of Extension added Koch in 1918 to run a community drama division, which lent plays and gave free advice to schools and towns across the state. Requests grew from 40 playbooks in 1919-20 to 2,150 in 1924-25.
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The Playmakers turn the new public school auditorium into their first stage
With no stage on campus, Koch got the village officials' leave to use the auditorium of a newly finished public school a few blocks away. Volunteers built out the stage and a proscenium, and the room, called the Play-House, served the Playmakers for seven years until Smith Hall opened.
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The Playmakers give the first Forest Theatre production, The Taming of the Shrew
The first play staged in the Forest Theatre was Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, on July 31, 1919. It began a run of outdoor Shakespeare there each summer through the early 1920s.
- 1920s
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The Carolina Playmakers make their first tour
The Playmakers set out on May 7, 1921 on their first state tour, taking student folk plays to Greensboro, Charlotte, Durham, Raleigh, Kinston, New Bern and Washington; a one-town trip to Greensboro had come the year before. Koch credits the tours with winning the public support that led the trustees to give the group Smith Hall in 1925.
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Koch publishes the first volume of Carolina Folk Plays
Henry Holt published Carolina Folk Plays, First Series, five one-act plays written and staged by Koch's Chapel Hill students, with his introduction on folk playmaking. Further series followed in 1924, 1928 and 1931.
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Trustees set aside Smith Hall and $25,000 for a Playmakers theatre, and the Carnegie Corporation pays to equip it
By June 1923 the trustees' executive committee had set aside $25,000 to turn Smith Hall, then the law building, into a theatre for the Playmakers, and the building passed to them in 1925 when the law school moved to its new home; Koch remembered the trustees' unanimous vote as coming in 1925. When the remodeling money left the theatre $13,000 short of what it needed for seats, lights and stage equipment, Koch went to New York, and the Carnegie Corporation sent a check for the balance.
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Community drama groups form the statewide Carolina Dramatic Association
The Carolina Dramatic Association was set up through the university's community drama bureau to link the school and town drama groups springing up across North Carolina. It grew from 32 member groups in 1923-24 to 116 by 1927-28.
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George V. Denny becomes the Playmakers' first staff member
Denny, who had acted in the first Playmakers bill, became business manager and instructor in play production in 1924. He built the group's first subscription audience and booked its tours before leaving for the professional stage in 1926.
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The Carolina Dramatic Association begins district contests with state finals in Chapel Hill
Beginning in the spring of 1925, drama groups from around the state competed in district festivals for a place in finals staged in Chapel Hill, with exhibits and visiting speakers from the national theatre. The association's first festival, a smaller program of school plays and dances in Memorial Hall, had been held in April 1924.
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The Playmakers publish the first issue of The Carolina Play-Book
The Carolina Playmakers began The Carolina Play-Book, a small quarterly on building a native theatre, in March 1928. It was one of three American theatre journals shown at the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago.
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A regional conference on the drama meets in the Playmakers Theatre
Drama critics, producers and teachers met at the Playmakers Theatre on April 4 and 5, 1928 for what the Tar Heel called the first Eastern Regional Conference on the Drama, held as its Southern division; the state's own drama festival followed on April 6 and 7. Henderson's book counts it as one of two Chapel Hill drama meetings of more than state importance.
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The Playmakers stage Loretto Carroll Bailey's mill play Job's Kinfolks, their first original full-length play
Job's Kinfolks, a three-act play about mill workers by Loretto Carroll Bailey, ran for three nights in November 1929. It heads the book's list of original full-length plays produced by the Playmakers.
- 1930s
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Ora Mae Davis builds the Playmakers' costume department
Ora Mae Davis arrived in 1931 to find almost no costume department beyond the volunteer help of faculty wives. By her death in the spring of 1942 she had made costuming a full technical department and a course in the curriculum.
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The Playmakers stage Strike Song, a new play about Southern mill workers
Loretto Carroll Bailey's Strike Song, a full-length play about Southern mill people written with her husband J. O. Bailey, was produced for three nights in December 1931. Henderson calls it her most ambitious work.
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The Playmakers perform Alcestis in Kenan Stadium with choric dances by Phoebe Barr
Euripides' Alcestis was staged in Kenan Stadium in July 1932 with choral dances created by Phoebe Barr, a former Denishawn dancer. After it, every Playmakers outdoor production and operetta included dance.
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Harry Davis organizes the Junior Carolina Playmakers, a children's theatre
Harry E. Davis, the Playmakers' technical director, started the Junior Carolina Playmakers in 1933 to give plays for child audiences, including two he wrote himself.
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The Playmakers stage their first operetta, Gilbert and Sullivan's Princess Ida
The Playmakers produced their first operetta, Gilbert and Sullivan's Princess Ida, in Memorial Hall with the university's music department. Gilbert and Sullivan came back on their bill most years from the 1936-37 season.
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Paul Green joins the Playmakers staff as professor of dramatic art
Paul Green, one of the early Playmakers, formally joined the staff in 1936 as literary adviser and professor of dramatic art, teaching graduate seminars in playwriting and in ideas in drama. By 1945, when Henderson's book appeared, he was dividing his time between Chapel Hill and Hollywood.
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The Playmakers begin planning a new Dramatic Art Building
Finding Smith Hall far too small, the Playmaker staff began planning a new theatre building in 1936. Architect Waldron Faulkner redrew it around a central stage and a site was picked east of the Bell Tower; by 1944 a foundation was holding $150,000 if the university raised $450,000.
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The university creates a Department of Dramatic Art under Koch
In the spring of 1936 drama courses were split off from the English department into a new Department of Dramatic Art headed by Koch, with a full graduate program. A master's student could submit an original play in place of a research thesis.
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Earl Wynn starts radio production for the Playmakers
In the fall of 1939 the Playmakers began radio work under Earl Wynn, and their 'Carolina Playmakers of the Air' grew from local programs to a national network series. A campus radio studio was set up in 1940.
- 1940s
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President Frank Porter Graham dedicates the remodeled Forest Theatre
President Frank Porter Graham dedicated the rebuilt Forest Theatre at the opening of the Playmakers' A Midsummer Night's Dream in May 1943. The Daily Tar Heel set that opening for Friday, May 14; Henderson's chronology gives May 19.
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Samuel Selden becomes acting head of Dramatic Art and director of the Playmakers
After Koch's death in August 1944, Samuel Selden took over as acting head of the Department of Dramatic Art and director of the Playmakers.
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The Playmakers present the 100th program in their experimental series of new plays
On December 12, 1944 the Playmakers gave the 100th program in their Experimental Series, the evenings where student plays were staged and the audience then talked back to the author.
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