George Pierce Baker

George Pierce Baker 1866-1935, American educator, b. Providence, R.I., grad. Harvard, 1887. He taught (1888-1924) in the English department at Harvard and there conceived and instituted (1906) the 47 Workshop, a class on playwriting techniques and a laboratory of experimental productions. The first of its kind, the workshop was an inspiration to many young dramatists and gave impetus to the movement toward campus theater. In 1925 he went to Yale, where as professor of the history and technique of drama and director of the university theater he continued his work. Baker wrote The Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist (1907, repr. 1965) and Dramatic Technique (1919) and edited the works of his students.

Bibliography: See memorial by J. M. Brown et al. (1939); W. P. Kinne, George Pierce Baker and the American Theatre (1954, repr. 1968).

Baker, George Pierce (1866–1935), one of the most vital influences in the formation of modern American dramatic literature and theatre, and the first Professor of Dramatic Literature at Harvard, where he was educated and where, in 1905, he instituted a course in practical playwriting. This in turn led to the foundation of his famous ‘47 Workshop’ for the staging of plays written under his tuition. Among the playwrights who attended his special courses were Edward Sheldon, Eugene O'Neill, Sidney Howard, and George Abbott. In 1925, by which time he had seen his pioneer work bearing fruit in many centres of learning, often under his own pupils, Baker left Harvard for Yale, remaining there as director of the postgraduate Department of Drama until his retirement in 1933. Combining in a rare degree the attributes of the scholar and the practical man of the theatre, he had an immense influence not only in his own country but throughout Europe.

Baker, George Pierce (1866–1935), was instrumental in encouraging and inspiring many little theaters, stage designers, directors, and dramatists. His 47 Workshop at Harvard (1905–25) served as a laboratory for the staging of plays by such students as Edward Sheldon, Eugene O'Neill, Philip Barry, John Dos Passos, S.N. Behrman, Sidney Howard, and Thomas Wolfe. After 1925 he continued his work at Yale. Baker is the prototype of Professor Hatcher in Wolfe's Of Time and the River.