Breen, Robert S.

In the early 1930s, a small group of arts patrons from Philadelphia and New York began to act upon their conviction that Americans should have a national theater organization that would serve the American public better than Broadway, with its high ticket prices and limited touring policy. Under the leadership of Leopold Stokowski, and with the help of several influential supporters, they persuaded Congress to enact a federal charter for a national theater - a rare and significant authorization but for very few organizations such as the Smithsonian Institution, the Red Cross, and the Federal Reserve Bank. Signed by Franklin Roosevelt on July 3, 1935, the charter of The American National Theatre and Academy (ANTA) called for: A people's project, organized and conducted in their interest, free from commercialism, but with the firm intent of being as far as possible self-supporting. A national theatre should bring to the people throughout the country their heritage of the great drama of the past and the best of the present, which has been too frequently unavailable to them under existing conditions. Action on the new charter stalled for nearly a decade, however, with the creation of the WPA Federal Theatre Project, which provided Depression relief to theater artists from 1935 until 1939, and then the onset of World War II. When the war ended, Robert Breen, a dynamic theater director, actor, and producer fresh out of the Army Air Corps, saw in ANTA the opportunity for his vision of a national theater. He persuaded a fellow veteran, Robert Porterfield, founder of the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia, to join him in his effort to devise and propose to the ANTA board a plan for a national theater supported by a foundation.

In the early 1930s, a small group of arts patrons from Philadelphia and New York began to act upon their conviction that Americans should have a national theater organization that would serve the American public better than Broadway, with its high ticket prices and limited touring policy. Under the leadership of Leopold Stokowski, and with the help of several influential supporters, they persuaded Congress to enact a federal charter for a national theater - a rare and significant authorization but for very few organizations such as the Smithsonian Institution, the Red Cross, and the Federal Reserve Bank. Signed by Franklin Roosevelt on July 3, 1935, the charter of The American National Theatre and Academy (ANTA) called for: A people's project, organized and conducted in their interest, free from commercialism, but with the firm intent of being as far as possible self-supporting. A national theatre should bring to the people throughout the country their heritage of the great drama of the past and the best of the present, which has been too frequently unavailable to them under existing conditions. Action on the new charter stalled for nearly a decade, however, with the creation of the WPA Federal Theatre Project, which provided Depression relief to theater artists from 1935 until 1939, and then the onset of World War II. Perhaps more to the point, the ANTA board, comprised of prominent citizens and business leaders from outside the theater community, could not agree on the goals of ANTA.

When the war ended, Robert Breen, a dynamic theater director, actor, and producer fresh out of the Army Air Corps, saw in ANTA the opportunity for his vision of a national theater. He persuaded a fellow veteran, Robert Porterfield, founder of the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia, to join him in his effort to devise and propose to the ANTA board a plan for a national theater supported by a foundation.

In 1946 the ANTA board voted to accept the Breen-Porterfield Foundation Plan and persuaded Robert Breen to serve as executive secretary of ANTA. To provide the organization with necessary expertise, the board was reconstituted to include prestigious theater professionals such as Brooks Atkinson, Cheryl Crawford, Paul Green, Moss Hart, Helen Hayes, Sam Jaffe, and Raymond Massey.

Robert Breen and a small, dedicated team comprised mostly of volunteers set furiously to work in his own living quarters above the Hudson Theater on 44th Street. At his side was his co-worker and wife Wilva Davis Breen, who had been instrumental in promoting and guiding the ANTA plan to completion. Together, the two of them had established the Chicago unit of the Federal Theatre Project, an experience which convinced Breen that theater in America was in need of more than a temporary relief program.

Thus began a remarkable period in American theater that, with the infusion of ANTA support and energy, saw the revival of the Experimental Theatre in New York, the growth of regional and university theater programs, the encouragement of playwrights and performers, the broadcasting of quality dramatic presentations to millions of Americans on television in its fledgling years, and ground breaking cultural exchanges that warmed a Cold War world. Internationally, ANTA promoted artistic exchanges between the U.S. and Europe and entertainment for American troops serving abroad. It began in 1949 with a U.S. tour of Hamlet throughout Europe, culminating in a performance at Elsinore Castle in Denmark, the actual setting of the play. During the 1950s ANTA sponsored such projects as the American National Ballet Theatre's tour of Europe, and American participation in the Berlin Arts Festival in 1951. Productions showing different sides of life in America were played to European audiences. Among the many were the musicals Oklahoma and Porgy and Bess.

Professor Robert S. Breen was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 30, 1909. He received a bachelor of Science in Speech, majoring in study of the theatre, in 1933, and a Master of Arts in Theatre in 1937, both from Northwestern University. He received a Ph.D. in Interpretation from Northwestern University's School of Speech in 1950. He served as an instructor at Knox College (1935-36), and Lafayette College (1940-41), and in the U.S. Army (1941-45) before joining the faculty of the Northwestern University School of Speech's Department of Interpretation in 1947 as an instructor. He was promoted to Assistant Professor of Interpretation in 1951, to Associate Professor in 1956, and to full professor in 1965. He retired with emeritus status in 1978.

Professor Breen's distinguished academic career included his originating and refining the concept of Chamber Theatre, first introduced by him to his interpretation classes at Northwestern in 1947. Chamber Theatre, now widely known and used, permitted the dramatic presentation of fiction and non-fiction without the artificial elimination of the narrator which more traditional dramatizations required. In Chamber Theatre, the narrator is presented as one of the players, whose role in the prose work is examined through the performance. Readers' Theatre, the ensemble presentation of dramatic literature, were also a research and performance interest of Professor Breen.

Professor Breen published widely. Among his published works are Literature as Experience, with Wallace Bacon (McGraw-Hill, 1959), Literature for Interpretation, for which he served as co-editor with Wallace Bacon (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1961), and his seminal text Chamber Theatre (Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1978).

Professor Breen appeared on Broadway and performed on television and directed television productions. He appeared as a panelist on Bergen Evans' WGN-TV program “Down You Go” (1951-54, 1961-62). He was himself responsible for producing an NBC-TV summer series, “Short Story Playhouse”, which made use of Chamber theatre techniques in 1951.

Professor Breen was long active in the Speech Communication Association, serving as president of the Interpretation Division of this professional organization in 1963. His students have included many distinguished performers and academicians, among whom are Robert Benedetti, John C. Edwards, Gerald Freedman, and Frank Galati. He married the former Gertrude Bader in 1935. They had two children, Katherine (b. 1948) and Kevin (b. 1951).