AMERICAN THEATRE OF 1910-1919
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The formation of the Actors Equity Association reflects one aspect of what was occurring in America during this decade: workers in many fields were proponents of the belief that there was strength in numbers, so they joined unions. The association was founded in 1913, and from 1913-1919, Equity representatives attempted to negotiate with producing managers over concerns such as wages, rehearsals, transportation, and maximum weekly performances. A strike in 1919 closed almost every commercial theatre in New York. George M. Cohan, a producer and an actor, was disputed Equity. He was eventually the only actor allowed to work without holding a union card; he donated $100,000 to the Actors' Fund during the strike.
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The New Theatre was founded in New York in 1909. Thirty men provided $35,000 each, and a theatre was built on Central Park West for $3,000,000. Maurice Maeterlinck's "The Blue Bird" cost $41,000 to produce; the theatre closed after two seasons, with debts of $400,000.

Maurice Browne's Little Theatre opened in Chicago in 1912. The capital was $500, and rental for space in the storage section of the Fine Arts Building was $3,000. Browne sold memberships from $10 to $100. He declared personal bankruptcy in an effort to save the theatre, but after five seasons, when America was at war, the theatre closed.
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The "new stagecraft" was introduced to the U.S. in 1912 with "Sumurun" in New York. "Simplicity, suggestiveness, and poetic symbolism" (Wilson, p. 195) were the keys to scenery and lighting, as a middle-ground between 2-D scenery and absolute realism.
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In 1915, a group of Greenwich Villagers spent a summer in Massachusetts and wrote and produced plays for their own entertainment. The first summer they used a porch for a stage, the next summer a remodeled fishing shack. This group was led by George Cram Cook and his wife Susan Glaspell; the settings by Robert Edmond Jones. Eugene O'Neill approached them with plays in 1916, and the three leaders founded an art theater for experimental drama called the Playwrights' Theater.

Also in 1915, a group of Greenwich Villagers led by Lawrence Langner, Philip Moeller and Edward Goodman, the Washington Square Players, had an aim to produce plays of artistic merit, and to emphasize American plays. In 1918 they formed a new group "to carry out the idea of an expert theater," and this resulted in the Theater Guild.
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In the book "Theater in America, The Impact of Economic Forces 1970-1967," the author cites three factors responsible for the economic decline of commericial theatre: growing cost, risk, and competition from movies. Movies were becoming more mainstream entertainment, and they provided it at a lower price than a theatre ticket, which averaged $2.00 in 1913. Because of cost differences, theatregoers became more selective about plays they did attend. Some producers blamed the unions for increasing production costs. I think that increased mobility due to cars may have been an additional factor which contributed to a decline in theatre attendance; cars gave the public more choices as to how and where they spent their leisure time.
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The 1916-1917 season was the first that the Pulitzer Prizes were awarded, but Columbia University did not award one for theatre, apparently because the committee decided that there was no one outstanding play. Since the public was not widely aware what the Pulitzer was, or that it was an award, there was no protest about the lack of one for theatre, even though prizes were given out for the other fields.

Prize for 1917-1918: "Why Marry?" a comedy in three acts by Jesse Lynch Williams; production opened at the Astor Theatre, December 25, 1917, 120 performances.

Prize for 1918-1919: No award was given. A leading contender, "Lightnin'," written by Winchell Smith and Frank Bacon, ran for 1,291 performances, which was an unprecedented run at the time.

Prize for 1919-1920: "Beyond the Horizon," an American tragedy in three acts by Eugene O'Neill; production opened at the Morosco Theatre, February 3, 1920, 111 performances.
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Vaudeville featured approximately a dozen individual, unrelated acts, acrobats, comedians, magicians, trained animals, singers, jugglers, and dancers.

Martin Beck's Orpheum Circuit controlled houses from Chicago to California. Beck built the Palace Theatre in New York, which from 1913-1932 was the premier vaudeville house in the U.S.

Bert Williams, an African-American entertainer, was a featured performer in Ziegfeld's Follies from 1910-1919. He used black-face makeup and played a shuffling, slow-witted black character that unfortunately became a stereotype in vaudeville. Nobble Sissle and Eubie Blake in 1918 became the first African-American entertainers not to use black-face makeup.
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INDIVIDUAL CONTRIBUTIONS:
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Maude Adams: Actress; J.M. Barrie's "Peter Pan," in which she starred in more than 1500 performances in 1905-1907, 1913, and 1918; "Chanticler," 1910-191,1 A Kiss for Cinderella, 1916-1918. She retired in 1918 and worked with Charles P. Steinmetz on improving stage lighting.

Sir James Matthew (J.M.) Barrie: Best-known as the creator of "Peter Pan" earlier in the century (1904). Also wrote "Dear Brutus" (1917).

Barrymores: Known as the Royal Family of Broadway. Maurice, Lionel, Ethel, and John (today, Drew).

David Belasco: Known as The Governor" or "The Master." Actor, manager, and playwright, New York producer, his career covered nearly 70 years. One success was "The Governor's Lady" (1912), which included a representation of Child's restaurant. In 1906 he had built a New York theatre which was initially first called the Stuyvesant, and renamed the Belasco in 1910.

Irving Berlin: Popular songwriter, works include "Sadie Salome, Go Home." In 1911, he wrote "Alexander's Ragtime Band," and this launched him into upper-caliber celebrity. He became one of the most popular composers of ragtime. He wrote his first complete Broadway score, "Watch Your Step," which debuted in December 1914. In 1917, he was drafted into the U.S. Army and was stationed at Camp Upton, Long Island. During his army service, he was commissioned to write a musical, and he penned "Yip, Yip, Yaphank," 1918. It was performed by an all-military cast and was produced as a benefit in order to build a service center at Camp Upton. It showcased the popular song "Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning," which was sung by Berlin himself. He was discharged with sergeant status in 1919, and he founded a music publishing firm, the Irving Berlin Music Company.

George M. Cohan: Actor, playwright, and director. He wrote many songs of a patriotic nature, including "You're a Grand Old Flag," "Give My Regards to Broadway," and "Over There" (later won a Congressional gold medal). He had started his career in vaudeville in childhood with his family, The Four Cohans. Two of the shows he produced during the 1910's were "Broadway Jones" (1912) and "Hello, Broadway" (1914).

Mrs. Leslie Carter: Actress; associated with Mr. Belasco. In 1911, she starred in tour "Two Women," which was widely panned by critics, and it closed in Indiana in 1912. She retired to England in 1916, but later returned to American vaudeville stage.

Charles Frohman: Theatrical agent and manager. Before he died in the 1915 sinking of the Lusitania, he controlled 6 New York theatres, 200+ in the rest of the country, and 5 abroad (London). It is reported that he personally managed 28 stars and paid more than $35,000,000 a year in salary to 10,000 people on his payroll.

Eugene O'Neill: Writer who had an output of nine plays during 1913-1914, six during 1916-17, and four during 1918. In 1917, the Provincetown Players from Greenwich Village, performed his one-act play, "Thirst." The group went on to form an alliance with him. In 1920, "Beyond the Horizon," his first full-length play, was produced on Broadway, winning a Pulitzer Prize (please see information above regarding Pulitzer Prizes).

Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr.: Theater manager and producer; had created the Ziegfeld Follies in 1907; in which Fanny Brice, a popular performer. He married stage actress Billie Burke in 1913.
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SOURCES:
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BOOKS:
Moderwell, Hiram Kelly, The Theatre of To-Day, copyright 1914.
Morris, Lloyd, Curtain Time, copyright 1953.
Morrison, William, Broadway Theatres: History and Architecture, copyright 1999.
Poggi, Emil John, Theater in Amerca: The Impact of Economic Forces, copyright 1966.
Toohey, John L., A History of the Pulitzer Prize Plays, copyright 1967.
Wilson, Garff, Three Hundred Years of American Drama and Theatre, copyright 1982.

WEBSITES:
www.britannica.com
<http://www.liberty.edu/resources/library/public/as/history/american/1910.htm>
<http://www.nhmccd.edu/contracts/lrc/kc/decade10.html>
<http://www.perspicacity.com/elactheatre/library/tast/tast.htm>
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Broadway:
<http://www.talkinbroadway.com/bway101/3.html>

Film's Impact on Theatre:
<http://www.mcall.com/html/decades/37559.htm>

Maude Adams:
<http://w3.one.net/~voyager/adams.html>

Mrs. Leslie Carter:
<http://web.reed.edu/academic/departments/theatre/clinton/00msccarter/>

Vaudeville:
<http://www.lazervaudeville.com/SGhistory.htm>
<http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/vshtml/vshome.html>
<http://memory.loc.gov/learn/collections/vs/history.html>
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