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1. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944

2. 1918 to 1937
   Storyline · 20 events · Chapel Hill The Carolina Playmakers and the founding of UNC Press

   Frederick Koch's Carolina Playmakers, organized in 1918, and the University of North Carolina Press, founded in 1922, made Chapel Hill a place where plays and books were made as well as read.

3. 1918
   Founding or opening · Chapel Hill The Carolina Playmakers are organized

   Frederick H. Koch organized the Carolina Playmakers at UNC.

4. May 1918
   Appointment, election or service · UNC, Chapel Hill Frederick H. Koch is hired as professor of dramatic literature

   Recruited by Edwin Greenlaw from the University of North Dakota, where he had founded the Dakota Playmakers, Frederick Henry Koch signed in late May 1918 at $2,500 a year to teach dramatic literature, a title he chose. He arrived that summer meaning to build a folk drama program in North Carolina.

5. March 14–15, 1919
   Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill Carolina Playmakers present their first bill

   The first bill included Thomas Wolfe’s The Return of Buck Gavin, with Wolfe in the title role.

6. October 1923
   Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill Bayard Wootten photographs the Playmakers' outdoor Taming of the Shrew

   Bayard Wootten of New Bern came to Chapel Hill to photograph the Carolina Playmakers' outdoor production of The Taming of the Shrew, the start of years of Playmakers work. That month she also urged the University to have aerial photographs made of the growing campus.

7. November 23, 1925
   Founding or opening · Chapel Hill Playmakers Theatre opens

   The Carolina Playmakers dedicated their theatre in the remodeled Smith Hall, the 1850s building later used as a library and law school, on Monday, November 23, 1925, with talks by Frederick Koch and President Harry W. Chase and three new folk plays.

8. 1927
   Appointment, election or service · University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Samuel Selden joins the Carolina Playmakers as technical director

   After five years in New York theater, including the Provincetown Playhouse, Selden came to the University of North Carolina in 1927 as technical director of the Carolina Playmakers.

9. 1933
   Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill The Carolina Playmakers stage a Shaw-Henderson Festival

   The Carolina Playmakers held a Shaw-Henderson Festival in Chapel Hill honoring Archibald Henderson, George Bernard Shaw's authorized biographer. It featured Shaw's You Never Can Tell, the play whose 1903 amateur performance had first drawn Henderson to Shaw.

10. 1936
    Life event · Chapel Hill Betty Smith comes to Chapel Hill with the Federal Theatre Project

    The Federal Theater sent Smith to Chapel Hill in 1936 to work with Frederick H. Koch of the Carolina Playmakers. She stayed when the federal project expired, helped Koch compile American Folk Plays and took his classes for him in his absence.

11. July 4, 1937
    Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill The Lost Colony premieres

    Paul Green's pageant-drama The Lost Colony opened on Roanoke Island on Sunday evening, July 4, 1937, and the Chapel Hill Weekly reported that it scored a hit. The production had Chapel Hill roots: Frederick Koch's Carolina Playmakers were involved, and at least one actor came to Chapel Hill in June to rehearse.

12. August 16, 1944
    Life event · Old Chapel Hill Cemetery Frederick Koch dies and is buried in the old Chapel Hill Cemetery

    Koch, who taught dramatic literature and playwriting at UNC for twenty-six years and organized the Carolina Playmakers, died on August 16, 1944 and was buried in the old Chapel Hill Cemetery. Samuel Selden succeeded him as chair of the Department of Dramatic Art and director of the Playmakers.

13. Civil rights era · 1945–1975

14. Fall 1945
    Memorial Hall, Chapel Hill Andy Griffith plays his first role, in The Gondoliers at Memorial Hall

    Andy Griffith, who had arrived at Carolina in July 1944, auditioned on a whim and made his stage debut in a Carolina Playmakers production of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Gondoliers at Memorial Hall.

15. 1959
    Appointment, election or service · University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Samuel Selden leaves the Playmakers and Harry E. Davis takes over the Department of Dramatic Art

    Selden left Chapel Hill in 1959 to chair the Department of Theatre Arts at UCLA, and Harry E. Davis became chairman of the Department of Dramatic Art.

16. 1962
    Chapel Hill Lillian Hughes Prince leaves funds to the Carolina Playmakers

    Lillian Hughes Prince, who had acted in thirty or more Playmakers productions, left considerable funds to the Carolina Playmakers in her will. She died in New York and was buried in Chapel Hill Cemetery.

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Compiled and maintained by the Friends of the Orange County Public Library from county records, the sources named on each card, and the index’s event pages. Last updated October 1, 2026.