Washington Square Players

Players in 1916

Players in 1918

The Washington Square Players was a Manhattan, New York City theatrical production company that existed from 1914 to 1918.

Biography

It was founded in 1914. Its debut production in 1915 was a collection of one-act plays, some of which had been written for the event. In 1916 the troupe started presenting full-length plays, among which were Shaw's Mrs Warren's Profession and translations of Chekhov's The Seagull and Ibsen's Ghosts. That same year it moved into the Comedy Theatre, where it subsequently performed Eugene O'Neill's one-act play In the Zone in 1917. In 1918 the company produced Elmer Rice's The Home of the Free. In the same year, the Washington Square Players disbanded, but its work served as the roots for the foundation of the Theatre Guild in 1919.

Katharine Cornell is one of its most famous members.

References

The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre, Ed. Phyllis Hartnoll and Peter Found, Oxford University Press, (1996).

External links

Washington Square Players designs, posters and scripts, 1915-1918, held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

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