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An Englishman Abroad Louis Calvert at the New Theatre, New York

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2009

Richard Foulkes
Richard Foulkes
Affiliation:
Lecturer in Drama and Theatre History at the University of Leicester.
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Extract

In November 1909 William Archer wrote an article for McClure's Magazine in which he surveyed developments in the American theatre over the past twenty years. The most innovative work had been undertaken by non-commercial companies, such as Victor Mapes' Chicago repertory and Winthrope Ames' Castle Square Theatre in Boston, and in the universities: ‘Brander Matthews at Columbia, W. L. Phelps at Yale, and George P. Baker at Harvard’. These ventures took as their models Antoine's Théâtre Libre in Paris; the Freie Bühne in Berlin; J. T. Grein's Independent Theatre, the Stage Society, Vedrenne-Barker at the Court, the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, the Gaiety Theatre in Manchester and Charles Frohman's proposed repertory company at the Duke of York's Theatre. However whereas in the 1890s the progressive theatre in America had been heavily dependent on the European repertoire of plays, when he returned in 1907 Archer found ‘the scene entirely changed’:

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1993 , pp. 177 - 185
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 1993

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References

Notes

1. Archer, William, ‘The New Drama and the New Theater’, McClure's Magazine, Vol. xxxiv, No. l, 11 1909, pp. 3–16.Google Scholar

2. George Foster Platt's papers, Vol. 2, in the Schubert Archive, New York. The material on the New Theatre was described in The Passing Show (Newsletter of the Schubert Archive), Vol. 9, No. 1/2, 1985.Google Scholar

3. Prospectus in the Harvard Theatre Collection.

4. Shattuck, Charles H., Shakespeare on the American Stage From Booth and Barrett to Sothem and Marlowe (Washington, 1987), Vol. 2, p. 276.Google Scholar

5. Dimensions from New Theatre papers in the Schubert Archive, Lyceum Theatre, New York.

6. Town and Country, 25 01 1908.Google Scholar

7. Theatre notes of C. H. Blackball ‘From notes by Winthrop Ames’ in the Harvard Theatre Collection. This trip pre-dated Ames's appointment as director of the New Theatre, but indicates that he was already involved in the scheme.

8. Papers of George Foster Platt, Vol. 2, in the Schubert Archive, New York.

9. op. cit. p. 16.

10. Papers of George Foster Platt, Vol. 2, in the Schubert Archive, New York.

11. See Foulkes, Richard, The Colverts—Actors of Some Importance (London, 1992).Google Scholar

12. Undated copy of the New York Times in the Louis Calvert file at the Harvard Theatre Collection. The articles recorded that Calvert had ‘just taken out papers to become an American citizen’.

13. New York Dramatic Mirror, 24 07 1909.Google Scholar

14. Programme for Richard II, 19 02 1895Google Scholar, in Manchester Central Library.

15. See Foulkes, Richard, ‘Louis Calvert: A Shakespearian in the nineties’, in Foulkes, Richard, ed., British Theatre in the 1890s Essays on Drama and the Stage (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 165–83.Google Scholar

16. These and other salaries and production costs cited from papers in the Schubert Archive, New York. Although not specified as such I assume the salaries were weekly.

17. Russell, Charles E., Julia Marlowe Her Life and Art, (New York, 1926), p. 468.Google Scholar

18. ibid. p. 469.

19. Undated copy of the Boston Evening Transcript, in the Harvard Theatre Collection.

20. Manchester Guardian, 17 02 1897.Google Scholar

21. Shaw, G. B.Our Theatres in the Nineties (London, 1932), Vol. 3, p. 80.Google Scholar

22. New York Times, 27 01 1910.Google Scholar

23. ibid.

24. Shattuck, Charles H., The Shakespeare Promptbooks (Urbana and London, 1965)Google Scholar, lists (TN, No. 78) the New Theatre promptbook for Twelfth Night in the New York Public Library. To this needs to be added a further promptbook for the production in the Schubert Archive, New York.

25. Eaton, Walter Pritchard, At the New Theatre and others. The American Stage: Its Problems and Performances 1908–1910 (Boston, 1910), p. 26.Google Scholar

26. Calvert, Louis, Problems of the Actor, (London, 1919), p. 159.Google Scholar This edition carries an Introduction by H. B. Irving. The American edition, New York 1918, has an introduction by Clayton Hamilton. Subsequent page references (to English edition) given in text.

27. New York Times, 29 03 1910.Google Scholar

28. New York Dramatic Times, 9 04 1910.Google Scholar

29. op. cit. pp. 85–6. See also Bartholomeusz, Denis, The Winter's Tale in performance in England and America 1611–1976 (Cambridge, 1982), p. 138.Google Scholar Chapter 8 is devoted to the New Theatre and Savoy Theatre productions.

30. New York Dramatic Mirror, 9 04 1910.Google Scholar

31. New York Times, 3 04 1910.Google Scholar

32. New York Dramatic Mirror, 9 04 1910.Google Scholar

33. New York Times, 3 04 1910.Google Scholar

34. New York Times, 8 11 1910.Google Scholar

35. ibid.

36. Shattuck, , op. cit.Google Scholar, lists promptbooks for the New Theatre production in the Harvard Theatre Collection (MWW, No. 65) and the New York Public Library (MWW, No. 66) to which needs to be added a further promptbook in the Schubert Collection, New York.

37. Wallbrook, H. M., Nights at the Play (London, 1911): ‘Nothing was overdone’, p. 95.Google Scholar

38. Sunday Times, 22 07 1923. An obituary of Calvert.Google Scholar

39. Winter, William, Shakespeare on the Stage, Third Series (New York, 1916), p. 413.Google Scholar

40. Unidentified news cutting in the Louis Calvert file in the Harvard Theatre Collection.

41. New York Times, 18 11 1909.Google Scholar

42. New York Times, 17 12 1909.Google Scholar

43. ibid.

44. op. cit. p. 24.

45. Programme for The Development of English Drama in the Harvard Theatre Collection.

46. New York Times, 24 04 1916.Google Scholar

47. Programme in the Harvard Theatre Collection.

48. Correspondence between Louis Calvert and Professors George Baker, William Lyon Phelps and Barrett Wendell in the Houghton Library, Harvard.

49. Calvert, Louis, An Actor's Hamlet (London, 1912).Google Scholar

50. Sunday Times, 22 07 1923.Google Scholar

51. Phelps, William Lyon, The Twentieth-Century Theatre, 1918, reprint New York 1967, pp. 21–2.Google Scholar

I acknowledge a travel award from the British Academy which enabled me to undertake research for this article.