To the editors:
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Jane Addams was still alive in 1933 when I became associated with the Hull House Players. In the glory days of the “Little Theatre” movement, the Players enjoyed a national and even international reputation, sometimes taking their productions on tour to Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and a score of other cities. The first community theater in the United States, Hull House traces its thespian roots back to 1889 when it began enriching the lives of neighborhood audiences under the inspired leadership of Jane Addams and the extraordinary Laura Dainty Pelham, the group’s first director.
Early Hull House productions were ambitious and adventuresome, with work by celebrated dramatists as well as new, yet-to-be-proven plays. In 1938, I appeared with the Players in a production of Robert Turney’s Daughters of Atreus which was presented at the Goodman Theatre. To quote from program notes for that performance, “The Players have an avowed purpose of giving their patrons plays that have not heretofore been seen in Chicago . . .”
