To some extent, the little theater movement grew out of the 19th-century tradition of local dramatic societies and drawing room theatrical and literary entertainments. The true beginnings of this movement, which flourished in the years just prior to World War I and into the 1920s, are difficult to pinpoint, as its roots reach back to the beginnings of theater in North America. Typically, a little theater sought either to elevate the art form or to create a drama attuned to matters of social, political, and moral import, sometimes both. Critics and scholars recognized the importance of the little theater movement from its very beginning, debating and analyzing ways in which the various theaters defined their missions. Little theaters produced writers at all levels of achievement, including Eugene O’Neill, America’s first internationally significant dramatist, and Susan Glaspell, an early feminist playwright, as well as a generation of young actors. By the mid-20th century, most of the smaller, largely amateur little theaters, in their purest sense, were gone, but in their place-and very much indebted to their forebears-sprang up professional regional theaters, usually operating a repertory system.Įighteenth- and 19th-century America’s vital, but largely superficial, plays slowly gave way to a more serious drama as the little theater movement emerged, producing a generation of dramatists, actors, and designers who would lead American theater into the middle of the 20th century. What emerged was a community-based theater responsive to the needs and interests of the audience within its immediate region. In most cases, little theaters made it their mission vigorously to encourage new playwrights, designers experimenting with innovative staging and scenic techniques, and actors and directors testing new theories of their art. Little theaters were a first important step toward moving the American theater away from the exclusivity of the New York stage. Although the smallest towns had theater buildings and vaudeville houses in which well-worn plays and players kept up a lively brand of theatrical entertainment, new works came out of New York’s theaters. The rise of the “little theater” movement was a reaction to the traditional practices of the American stage prior to 1910.
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