  The giving of plays in schools is no new thing. One of the earliest English comedies, Ralph Roister Doister, was written in the middle of the sixteenth century by Nicholas Udall, a schoolmaster, probably to be performed at Westminister School at Christmas time. Many generations of boys in the English public schools have presented the plays of the Greek and Latin Modern plays are coming, however, to be more generally introduced into the course of study. The following significant list, prepared by Miss Anna H. Spaulding, is in use in the senior classes in English in the Brookline High School, at Brookline, Massachusetts:
Thirty-five of these plays are distinctly modern. Another list, in use as part of a course in contemporary literature given in the last half of the third year at the Washington Irving High School and including only modern plays, is reprinted below:
In another high school in New York, the Evander Childs, there is a four years' course of two periods a week in classroom study of the drama, old and new. All composition work is connected with this special interest. Another kind of work based on contemporary drama was carried on by a group of first-year students in a certain high school who were much interested in a program of one-act plays to be presented in the school theatre. The teacher of English who had charge of this young class discussed the subject of the theatre audience with them both before and after the performance. The outcome of this analysis of the interests of the audience was an outline. These fourteen-year old girls said that the next time that they went to the theatre they would keep in mind the following considerations:
One cannot help feeling that these young people were being effectively trained to enjoy the best drama in the best way. Not only is modern drama being read and studied in the English classes, but the schools are becoming centres of Little Theatre movements and leading their communities in pageants and dramatic festivals. An editorial in The New York Evening Post in 1918 put it in this way: "As Froude states that in Tudor England there was acting everywhere from palace to inn-yard and village green, so, the prediction is made, future historians will record that in our America there was acting everywhere—in neighborhood theatres, portable theatres, church clubs, high schools and universities, settlements, open amphitheatres, and hotel ballrooms." One reason that amateur dramatics have taken on a new lease of life in the schools is because other teachers besides teachers of English have become interested in the project of giving a play. Students in physics classes have planned and executed lighting systems for the school theatre, students in carpentering and manual arts have built the scenery from designs made in drawing classes, curtains have been stenciled, costumes made and cloths dyed in domestic art classes, programs printed by the school printing squad, music furnished by the school orchestra and dances taught by the physical training department. In most cases the line coaching and the general direction of the play have been part of the work in English. A concrete example will illustrate this kind of co-operation. Several years ago the department of English at the Washington Irving High School gave two plays, Three Pills in a Bottle, a product of the 47 Workshop, by Rachel Lyman Field, and The Goddess of the Woven Wind, by Alice Rostetter. The The work of obtaining the setting and the properties was divided between two committees, each working under the direction of a chairman. Since fifty dollars had been fixed as the limit of expenditure for the two plays, the problem was rather a difficult one. Fortunately, Three Pills in a Bottle calls for a small cast. The cast of The Goddess of the Woven Wind, however, included thirty-four girls, most of whom had to be orientally clad and equipped. The teacher who contemplates putting on a rather elaborate costume play in his or her high school will be interested to learn that the amount was so exactly fixed and the department so resourceful that fifty-one dollars and nine cents was the total sum spent on the two plays. Then, lest anyone think that there had been a miscalculation, let it be added that this sum included the money spent for hot chocolate to serve to the casts of the plays, between the afternoon and evening performances. The problem of staging Three Pills in a Bottle was greatly simplified by the fact that the frontispiece of the play gives a simple, effective setting not difficult to copy. With the aid of some amateur carpentering, the regular interior set was easily transformed to suit the purpose. The problem of color was solved when the chairman of the committee found a patchwork quilt in the attic, during a visit to her mother's home; a conference with the janitress of her city apartment developed the fact that she possessed a freshly scrubbed wash-tub, which she was willing not only to donate to the cause, but to have painted green. The task of staging The Goddess of the Woven Wind was difficult and interesting, because it was decidedly a costume play, and because it was a first production. Some of the difficulties that confronted the chairman of the committee for that play were amusing. For instance, after some perplexed thought on the subject, she tacked the following list of costumes and properties on the Bulletin Board of the English office:
She also advertised the need of these things and many others in all her classes. Within two weeks nearly everything had either appeared or been promised, except a Chinese gong with a proper "whang" to it, an unbreakable sky-blue bowl and the mulberry tree! A teacher in a neighboring school lent the company a splendid gong, sometimes used in their orchestra; a student transformed a wooden chopping bowl by means of clay and tempera into an exquisite piece of pottery, copied from a priceless bowl on exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The mulberry tree was still an unsolved problem, when Dugald Stuart Walker, the artist who has produced a number of plays at the Christadora House in New York, was consulted. He suggested that the tree be a conventionalized one of flat "drapes" of green and brown poplin, with cocoons sewn on in a simple border design. The staging of the play then became a project for members of a third-year art class. During their English period they read the play, recited on the subject of the China of remote dynasties, constructed a miniature stage, and then, forming committees among themselves, worked out the practical details. One group purchased the necessary paint, another painted the vermilion sun. Her neighbor affixed it to a bamboo rod. To emphasize the Chinese setting, two girls made a frame with a dragon as head-piece and huge, colorful Chinese medallions to be sewn on the side drapery. The design for the medallions was obtained from a Chinese brass plate. Almost every girl in the class took part in the project. Interest was easily aroused, as a number of girls in this class took part in the play. As for the costumes, for the thirty-four members of the Meanwhile, the selection and coaching of the two casts was going on. Competition for the parts was open to the girls of the entire school. A great many girls were tried out before the two committees made a choice. In fact, every girl who was recommended by her English teacher was given an opportunity to read a part. In a number of cases two girls were assigned for one part and it was not known until almost the last moment who was to have the rÔle or who was to understudy. Rehearsals were held at least three times a week, for three weeks, and a full-dress rehearsal was held two days before the final performance. It was thought advisable to allow a day to elapse between the last rehearsal and the real performance, in order to give the girls an opportunity to rest. In coaching the plays, an effort was made to have a girl read the line properly without having it read to her. The members of the coaching committee would explain the mood or frame of mind to the speaker; the girl would then interpret the mood in her reading. In addition to the coaching committee, several teachers sat at the back of the auditorium during rehearsals, to warn the speakers when they could not be heard. The advertising campaign began soon after a choice of plays had been made. In compliance with the request of the Publicity Committee, one of the teachers of an art class and a teacher in the English Department assigned to their pupils the problem of making posters to advertise the plays. To the painter of the best one a prize was awarded. Announcements of the play were posted by pupils in various parts of the building. Tiny brochures decorated with Chinese motives were prepared by students during an English period, and later were circulated among the faculty, and placed upon office bulletin boards, and in diaries. In writing these brochures the girls applied the knowledge they had gained in In order to increase the sale of tickets and to prepare an appreciative audience, various subjects were suggested to English teachers for projects in class work connected with the plays. In many classes every girl wrote and illustrated a paper on some topic pertaining to Chinese life, such as customs, costumes, religion, occupations, silk, China, umbrellas, fireworks, fans, position of women, objects of art. Oral compositions were devoted to phases of some of these subjects. In the oral work and in the written composition, accurate knowledge of authorities consulted was insisted upon. Chinese proverbs were studied. "A man knows, but a woman knows better," used by the author in her play, was one of the most popular ones. Translations, found in the Literary Digest, of Chinese poems of the sixteenth and of the eighteenth century were produced and read by the girls, many of whom brought to class all the Chinese articles they could find at home. Incense burners, fans, pitchers, embroideries, chop sticks, beads, shoes, vases, and even a Chinese newspaper, found their way to the class-room and were exhibited with pride. Interest in things Chinese was so great that clippings and prints continued coming in for almost two weeks after the play had been presented. Class visits were made to the Chinese exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and to importing houses in the neighborhood. The kind of co-operation described has led in some schools to the establishment of workshops similar to those conducted in connection with certain university courses in playwriting and dramatics and with many of the Little Theatres. A paragraph that appeared recently in a calendar of the New York Drama League explains in a convincing way the necessity for a workshop in connection with all amateur producing. "One of the most vital problems that the amateur group has to solve," says the writer, "is that of securing a proper place for the preparing of a production. Not all organizations can hold rehearsals, paint scenery, experiment with lighting on costumes and scenery on "The remedy lies in the acquisition of a workshop. A large room with a very high ceiling will serve admirably. But you must be able to work recklessly in it, sawing wood, hammering nails, mussing things up generally with paint and riddling the walls and ceiling with hooks and screws to hang lighting apparatus and other properties. An old-fashioned barn can be converted into an ideal workshop, if provision is made for proper heating. All the activity should be concentrated in the workshop and there is no reason why all the experimentalists cannot be at work at once—the carpenters, the scene painters, the electricians, the property men, and even the actors with their director." The use of miniature model stages is becoming more and more common in the schools, the preliminary model serving the workshop, until the background, lighting, properties, and costumes are completed. It is an excellent thing for schools to start a collection of models of famous theatres and notably successful stage-sets. The material for these exists in illustrated books and magazines and in the mass of descriptive material in regard to the stage that is now being published. Interior of the Beechwood Theatre. Exterior of the Beechwood Theatre. Two school theatres designed especially for the purpose of On the slope nearest the building are semi-circular rows of concrete seats accommodating about fifteen hundred people. A brook spanned by two arched bridges separates the audience from the stage. Back of the turf stage is a graveled stage slightly raised and reached by two flights of steps. The pergola and trees make a beautiful background. The house in the rear is a part of the plant and is used for dressing and make-up. The Beechwood Theatre within the school has a proscenium opening of twenty-seven feet and a stage depth, back to the plaster horizon, of the same dimensions. There are two complete sets of drapery, one of coarse Écru linen and one of blue velvet; there is also a stock drawing-room set of thirty pieces. Back of the stage are ten dressing-rooms. The lighting arrangements are extraordinarily complete: the theatre has a standard electrical equipment of footlights and borders and a switchboard of the best type to which has recently been added the latest lighting devices, consisting of an X-ray border, the end section of which is on a separate dimmer, a thousand-watt centre floodlight, six five-hundred watt-spotlights, each on separate dimmers, in the false proscenium or tormentor, Though this plant was built primarily for the school, it is used also by the Beechwood Players, a Little Theatre organization, and by other community clubs which comprise an orchestra, a chorus, a group interested in the fine arts, and a poetry circle. Mr. Vanderlip looks forward to the development of a school of the arts of the theatre from the nucleus of the Beechwood community clubs. With this idea in mind he has just built a workshop for the Beechwood Players in a separate building. It contains power woodworking machines, and rooms for painting scenery and for the costume department, the latter containing power sewing machines. There is no doubt but that these two schools have unique facilities for developing an interest in the acted drama. But artistic results have often been secured in the school theatre with equipment falling far short of the ideal standards achieved at Montclair and at Scarborough. Other less fortunate schools are, moreover, at no particular disadvantage when it comes to the class-room study of the drama for which this book is primarily planned, this work being the first step in the direction of a more intelligent attitude toward modern plays and modern theatres. A class-room reading of modern plays without any accessories, as Shakespeare is often read from the seats and the aisles, is one of the most practical methods of speech and voice improvement. Louis Calvert, the eminent actor, speaking of this kind of training says: "After all it is one of the simplest things in the world to learn to speak correctly, to take thought and begin and end each word properly.... A little attention to one's everyday conversation will often work wonders. If one schools himself for a while to speak a little more slowly, and to give each syllable its due, it is surprising how naturally and rapidly his speech will clarify. If we take care of the consonants, the vowels will take care of themselves." Ravine where the Garden Theatre was built. The Garden Theatre. At the present time, then, the theatre in the schools means a variety of things. It means first and foremost, as suggested by the latest college entrance requirements, the study of modern plays, side by side with the classics. It means also the improvement of English speech, through the interpretation and the reading aloud of the text. It means a study of the new art of the theatre such as the present book suggests. It means often
By BOOTH TARKINGTON |
| RONDEL |
| "The same old Tark—just watch him shy Like hunted thing, and hide, if let, Away behind his cigarette, When 'Danny Deever' is the cry. |
| Keep up the call and by and by We'll make him sing, and find he's yet The same old Tark. |
In him, no cultured ladies' pet: He just drops in, and so we get The good old song, and gently guy The same old Tark—just watch him shy!" |
No biography of Booth Tarkington, no matter how brief, should omit to mention that he was elected to the Indiana State Legislature and sat for a time in that body, where he accumulated, no doubt, some data on the subject of Indiana politics that he may afterwards have put to literary use.
He has found the subject for most of his novels and plays
Beauty and the Jacobin was published in 1912 and has had at least one performance on the professional stage. On November 12, 1912, it was played by members of the company then acting in Fanny's First Play, at a matinÉe at the Comedy Theatre, in New York. It has always been a favorite with amateurs and quite recently was performed in St. Louis by one of the dramatic clubs of that city.
