Little Theater

Little Theater, name applied to an organization whose dramatic productions are outside the scope of the commercial theater, because of either financial or conventional limitations. The little‐theater movement originated in Paris with Antoine's Théâtre Libre (1887), which led to the establishment of Stanislavsky's Moscow Art Theater (1890), the Independent Theatre in England (1891), and the Irish Literary Theatre of the Abbey Players (1899). The movement did not reach the U.S., however, until the second decade of the present century, when the regular stage was diluted by melodrama and extravagant romance, and motion pictures were beginning to supplant road companies and small‐town theaters. Although predominantly amateur, some little‐theater groups employed professional talent. Their origins were various, some, like the Hull‐House Players, springing from social settlements, and others, like Mrs. Gale's Toy Theatre, being dependent upon wealthy patrons. Among the important early organizations were Winthrop Ames's Little Theatre, in New York City; Maurice Browne's Little Theatre, in Chicago; the Washington Square Players and Provincetown Players; and two which derived their stimulus from college drama, the 47 Workshop directed by G.P. Baker at Harvard and later at Yale, and the Carolina Playmakers established by F.H. Koch at Chapel Hill (1918). By 1918 there were some 50 little theaters in the U.S., and estimates of the number in 1924 have been as high as 2000. The most notable success has been the Theatre Guild, founded in 1918 by former members of the Washington Square Players. Although it was distinctly a little‐theater group when founded, the Guild's shrewdness in play selection, skill in production, and ability in financial management led in 1925 to the building of its own million‐dollar theater, and thus took it beyond the usual scope of the movement. The little theaters have had a profound effect on the stage in the U.S. Besides raising the standards for commercial productions and supplying opportunities for such important talents as O'Neill, Paul Green, Philip Barry, Thornton Wilder, and R.E. Jones, they have caused the establishment of permanent little theaters and community theaters throughout the country. The zest for experiment and cooperation in production and the awakening of a community spirit are values that were also influential in the Federal Theatre Project and in such professional ventures as the Group Theatre. Experimental theater has continued to flourish in New York City, in the American Place Theater, which in the 1960s staged, among other works, Robert Lowell's The Old Glory (1964), and in off‐Broadway and off‐off‐Broadway productions, and also in city after city in the U.S., e.g. in the Magic Theatre in San Francisco, which introduced the work of Sam Shepard. Innovative interpretations of classic dramas from Shakespeare to Ibsen are also often part of the repertoire of little theaters along with the basic productions of avant‐garde plays by foreign and young American dramatists.