Samuel Selden

Life and Orange County connections

Dated events connected with this person, in date order. See these 15 dated events in the chronology →

1. 1927 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. Place: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill · Also mentions: Carolina PlaymakersIn the index: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill · UNC Libraries, Southern Historical Collection: Samuel Selden Papers, 1918-1977
2. November 2 to 4, 1933 The Carolina Playmakers stage Paul Green's The House of Connelly The Playmakers gave three performances of Paul Green's The House of Connelly in their theatre, directed by Samuel Selden with sets built under Harry Davis, all to large crowds. The Weekly called it the first production of any of Green's full-length plays in the South; the company took it to the North Carolina College for Women in Greensboro the next week. People: Paul Green, Samuel Selden Place: Playmakers Theatre, Chapel Hill · Also named: Harry DavisSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, November 10, 1933, p. 1
3. May 25 and 27, 1935 The Carolina Playmakers stage Hamlet in the Forest Theatre, with Frederick Koch as Hamlet The Playmakers gave Hamlet in the Forest Theatre on the edge of Battle Park, with Koch in the title role, music by the University Symphony Orchestra and glee clubs, dances by Phoebe Barr, costumes by Ora Mae Davis and an Elsinore Castle set by Samuel Selden. The Weekly had called it the troupe's most ambitious production since its founding, and Phillips Russell's review praised it. People: Frederick H. Koch, Samuel Selden Place: Forest Theatre, Battle Park, Chapel Hill · Also named: Ora Mae Davis, Phoebe Barr, Phillips Russell · Also mentions: Battle ParkSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, May 31, 1935, p. 1
4. December 6, 1935 Carolina Playmakers stage the first production of Paul Green's 'The Enchanted Maze' The Playmakers gave the first production of Paul Green's 'The Enchanted Maze,' a play about American college education with about 70 actors, in Memorial Hall on December 6 and 7 under Samuel Selden's direction. Crowds were large enough that an extra performance was added on December 9, drawing four to five hundred people. People: Paul Green, Samuel Selden Place: Memorial Hall, UNC, Chapel HillSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, December 13, 1935, p. 1
5. 1936 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. People: Samuel Selden Place: Proposed site east of the Bell Tower, UNC campus, Chapel Hill · Also named: Waldron FaulknerArchibald Henderson (ed.), Pioneering a People's Theatre (1945), scan p. 80
6. July 4, 1937 The Lost Colony premieres Paul Green's pageant-drama The Lost Colony opened at the Waterside Theatre 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: Green was a Chapel Hill playwright, Samuel Selden of the Carolina Playmakers directed, and Frederick Koch's Playmakers were in the company. People: Paul Green, Samuel Selden Place: Waterside Theatre, Roanoke Island (Dare County) · Also named: Frederick Koch · Also mentions: Carolina PlaymakersThe Chapel Hill Weekly, July 9, 1937, p. 1 (Green Play Makes Hit)
7. October 29 to November 2, 1937 The Carolina Playmakers stage Paul Green's Johnny Johnson The Playmakers opened their twentieth season in Memorial Hall with Green's anti-war play with music by Kurt Weill, a Broadway production of the winter before; Green and Weill helped with the production, which Samuel Selden staged with more than 90 actors. About 2,500 people saw the three performances, and the opening-night audience called Green to the stage. People: Paul Green, Samuel Selden, Frederick H. Koch Place: Memorial Hall, University of North Carolina · Also named: Kurt WeillSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, November 5, 1937, p. 2
8. April 1-6, 1940 The Carolina Playmakers hold a regional theatre festival for their twenty-first anniversary The Playmakers marked their 21st year with a week-long festival on drama in the South, opening with the Carolina Dramatic Association's state tournament and closing with plays by groups from across the South, talks by Elmer Rice, Brooks Atkinson, Barrett Clark and DuBose Heyward, and a revised version of Paul Green's The Field God. The program printed for April 5 also scheduled talks on Black drama in the South by Zora Neale Hurston and Randolph Edmonds of Dillard University and Edmonds's play Breeders. People: Frederick H. Koch, Paul Green, Archibald Henderson, Samuel Selden Place: Playmakers Theatre and Memorial Hall, Chapel HillThe Chapel Hill Weekly, April 5, 1940, p. 1
9. October 1941 The Carolina Playmakers send a salaried company on tour with Paul Green's The House of Connelly The Carolina Playmakers began what the Weekly called their first professional tour, a troupe of sixteen paid actors, many of them former students, taking Paul Green's The House of Connelly to Virginia, New England and the Middle West under the Redpath Bureau's management. After trial performances in Raleigh, Henderson, Greensboro and Memorial Hall from October 6 to 9, the company set out on October 11, and Frederick Koch called it the start of a permanent acting group. People: Paul Green, Frederick H. Koch, Samuel Selden Place: Playmakers Theatre and Memorial Hall, Chapel Hill · Also named: Frederick Koch · Also mentions: Carolina Playmakers, Memorial HallSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, October 10, 1941, p. 4
10. summer 1944 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. People: Samuel Selden, Frederick H. Koch Place: University of North Carolina, Chapel HillArchibald Henderson (ed.), Pioneering a People's Theatre (1945), scan p. 92
11. August 16, 1944 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. People: Frederick H. Koch, Samuel Selden Place: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery · Also mentions: Carolina PlaymakersIn the index: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery (Chapel Hill, N.C.) · NCpedia: Koch, Frederick Henry
12. September 11, 1952 County commissioners name 55 citizens to committees for the bicentennial On September 11, 1952, the commissioners named 55 Orange County people to committees for the bicentennial: program and guests under R. B. Studebaker, finance under Clem M. Cheek, publicity under Mrs. Mack P. Efland, exhibits under Shepperd Strudwick, and a pageant committee under historian Hugh T. Lefler that took in playwright Paul Green and Samuel Selden of the Carolina Playmakers. Several pageant members already doubted a creditable pageant could be staged by the October date, and the observance was expected to slip to the spring. People: Shepperd Strudwick (1868-1961), Paul Green, Samuel Selden, Archibald Henderson, Hugh Talmage Lefler Place: Hillsborough · Also named: R. B. Studebaker, Clem M. Cheek · Also mentions: Carolina PlaymakersSearch the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), September 18, 1952, p. 1