Theatre Guild

Established in New York City in 1918, and initially administered by a board of managers, the Theatre Guild was for the greater part of its history co-directed by Lawrence Langner and Theresa Helburn, with Langner’s wife, Armina Marshall Langner, serving several administrative roles. Throughout the twentieth century the Theatre Guild was instrumental in improving the quality of American theatre, introducing audiences to new playwrights and forms of dramatic writing, stagecraft, and musical theatre, and broadcasting innovative drama through radio and television.

From the guide to the Theatre Guild archive, 1918-1996, 1930-1960, (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)

Langner and Helburn were co-directors of the Theatre Guild, based in New York City; Munsell was the business manager. The Theatre Guild produced 3 plays by Werfel on Broadway: Juarez and Maximilian (1926); Embezzled Heaven (1944-1945); and Jacobowsky and the Colonel (1944-1945).

From the description of Correspondence with Alma Mahler and Franz Werfel, 1938-1949. (University of Pennsylvania Library). WorldCat record id: 155864599

American author, playwright, and composer of Armenian descent William Saroyan (1908-1981) is known for his interest in the American worker and his romantic portrayals of American life. Many of his works deal with his Armenian heritage and his childhood city of Fresno, California.

Born in 1908 to Armenian immigrants who had settled in Fresno, Saroyan's childhood was a tumultuous one, with Saroyan and his siblings spending time in an orphanage after the death of their father in 1911. After dropping out of high school, Saroyan worked a series of menial jobs before publishing his first short story in 1928. This event marked the beginning of Saroyan’s literary career. His first, and best known, book of short stories The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze and Other Stories was published in 1934 with the titular story winning the O. Henry Award the same year. He continued to publish short stories, writing by his own estimation approximately 100 per year between 1934 and 1939.

As with short stories, he wrote plays with equal speed. During the 1939-1940 season Saroyan wrote and had produced four plays, including The Time of Our Lives, awarded the Pulitzer Prize; however, the award was rejected by Saroyan. During that same year he wrote and directed Love's Old Sweet Song . Saroyan’s plays have been variously described by critics as surreal, metatheatrical and sentimental.

Saroyan continued to write plays, short stories, and novels through the 1940s and 1950s. He wrote the screenplay for The Human Comedy in 1943 for which he won an Academy Award. The Human Comedy was also published as a novel that same year. Saroyan married and divorced American actress Carol Grace (1932-2003) twice, their first marriage lasting from 1943 to 1949, and their second from 1951 to 1952. They had two children, poet Aram Saroyan and actress Lucy Saroyan. Along with the breakup of his marriage, Saroyan struggled with drinking, gambling, and debts during the 1950s. Despite his hardships, he continued to publish and wrote three autobiographies between 1961 and his death in 1981 of cancer.

"William Saroyan." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2003. (reproduced in Biography in Context). http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/bic1 (accessed November 1, 2010). Bufithis, Philip. "William Saroyan." American Novelists, 1910-1945. Ed. James J. Martine. Detroit: Gale Research, 1981. (reproduced in Literature Resource Center). http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/LitRC (accessed November 1, 2010).

From the guide to the Theatre Guild, Inc. collection regarding William Saroyan's, Love's Old Sweet Song, 1939-1940, (University of Delaware Library - Special Collections)

Originally established in 1919, the Theatre Guild began as an independent theatrical production company dedicated to developing new American works, as well as to bringing the best of contemporary British and European drama to New York audiences.

From 1919 through 1939, a governing board principally composed of six key members (Theresa Helburn, Lawrence Langner, Philip Moeller, Lee Simonson, Maurice Wertheim, and Helen Westley) guided the operations of the Guild. Among the many highlights of these years were productions of works by American playwrights, including Maxwell Anderson, S. N. Behrman, Sidney Howard, Eugene O'Neill, and Robert E. Sherwood. During this period, the Guild also presented the world premieres of several plays by George Bernard Shaw and became his American agent. In its earliest days, however, the Guild relied mainly upon works by European writers, commissioning translations or adaptations of plays by such diverse authors as Karel Capek, Henrik Ibsen, and Ferenc Molnár. During the 1930s, internal division within the Guild led to the development of competing, splinter groups, such as the Group Theatre and The Playwrights' Company, and, ultimately, the reorganization of the Guild itself. By 1939, the Theatre Guild had become a leaner organization, with Langner and Helburn replacing the board and now functioning as co-directors. Buoyed by the financial success of the musical, Oklahoma! (1943), the Guild would begin several initiatives during the 1940s to reach a broader audience. Among these efforts were the implementation of a national subscription theater service and the regular broadcast of a radio program, The Theatre Guild on the Air (1945). In 1953, the radio program was transformed into a television show, The United States Steel Hour. This prize-winning anthology series was broadcast for twelve seasons. During the 1960s, the Guild grew increasingly involved with international touring and became a pioneer in arranging travel tours for its subscribers. By the 1970s, however, the Guild rarely produced any shows for the Broadway theater, although its corporate identity continued to exist in some form. In 1975, it launched the Theatre At Sea cruises, an annual offering, which continues to the present day.

From the description of Theatre Guild technical drawings and other production materials, circa 1925-1953. (New York Public Library). WorldCat record id: 181590928

The United States Steel Hour (1955-1963) was an anthology television series that was a successor to a similar radio program, The Theatre Guild on the Air (1945-1953) .

By the 1940s, the Theatre Guild, a prestigious theatrical production company, had evolved from its more radical beginnings in 1919 to become established as an almost de facto national theater for the United States. In 1945, as part of an effort to reach a broader audience, the Guild developed a radio program, The Theatre Guild on the Air. This anthology series initially presented live broadcasts of adaptations of plays which had been produced originally by the Guild, such as Ferenc Molnár's The Guardsman (1945) with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. It also occasionally offered dramatic works which had been staged by other producers. First broadcast on the ABC Radio Network (1945-1949), the program's sponsor was the United States Steel Corporation. Arminia Marshall (wife of one of the Guild's original founders, Lawrence Langner) was responsible for coordinating the administrative aspects of the radio program for the Guild. Theatre Guild on the Air was heard on the NBC Radio Network from the fall of 1949 to the spring of 1953, when it was revamped as a television series. The United States Steel Hour, which presented a mixture of original plays for television and adaptations of other works, ran for two seasons on the ABC Television Network. In September 1955, The United States Steel Hour moved to the CBS Television Network, where it remained through 1963. Notable productions over the years included Ira Levin's adaptation of No Time for Sergeants (1955), Rod Serling's Noon on Doomsday (1956), Bang the Drum Slowly (1956) by Arnold Shuman, Survival (1957) by Alfred Brenner, and James Yaffe's version of The Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon (1959). The final episode of the series, another adaptation of J. M. Barrie's The Old Lady Shows Her Medals, starring Lunt and Fontanne, aired on June 12, 1963.

From the description of Theatre Guild United States Steel Hour records, 1956-1963. (New York Public Library). WorldCat record id: 181654371

By the 1940s, the Theatre Guild, a prestigious theatrical production company, had evolved from its more radical beginnings in 1919 to become established as an almost de facto national theater for the United States. In 1945, as part of an effort to reach a broader audience, the Guild developed a radio program, The Theatre Guild on the Air . This anthology series initially presented live broadcasts of adaptations of plays which had been produced originally by the Guild, such as Ferenc Molnár's The Guardsman (1945) with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. It also occasionally offered dramatic works which had been staged by other producers. First broadcast on the ABC Radio Network (1945-1949), the program's sponsor was the United States Steel Corporation. Arminia Marshall (wife of one of the Guild's original founders, Lawrence Langner) was responsible for coordinating the administrative aspects of the radio program for the Guild.

Theatre Guild on the Air was heard on the NBC Radio Network from the fall of 1949 to the spring of 1953, when it was revamped as a television series, The United States Steel Hour . The show, which presented a mixture of original plays for television and adaptations of other works, ran for two seasons on the ABC Television Network. In September 1955, The United States Steel Hour moved to the CBS Television Network, where it remained through 1963. Notable productions over the years included Ira Levin's adaptation of No Time for Sergeants (1955), Rod Serling's Noon on Doomsday (1956), Bang the Drum Slowly (1956) by Arnold Shuman, Survival (1957) by Alfred Brenner, and James Yaffe's version of The Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon (1959). The final episode of the series, another adaptation of J. M. Barrie's The Old Lady Shows Her Medals, starring Lunt and Fontanne, aired on June 12, 1963.

From the guide to the Theatre Guild United States Steel Hour records, 1956-1963, (The New York Public Library. Billy Rose Theatre Division.)

Originally established in 1919, the Theatre Guild began as an independent theatrical production company dedicated to developing new American works, as well as to bringing the best of contemporary British and European drama to New York audiences. From 1919 through 1939, a governing board principally composed of six key members (Theresa Helburn, Lawrence Langner, Philip Moeller, Lee Simonson, Maurice Wertheim, and Helen Westley) guided the operations of the Guild. Among the many highlights of these years were productions of works by American playwrights, including Maxwell Anderson, S. N. Behrman, Sidney Howard, Eugene O'Neill and Robert E. Sherwood. During this period, the Guild also presented the world premieres of several plays by George Bernard Shaw, including Heartbreak House (1920), and became his American agent. In its earliest days, however, the Guild relied mainly upon works by European writers, commissioning translations or adaptations of plays by such diverse authors as Karel Capek, Henrik Ibsen, and Ferenc Molnár. In 1927, the Guild also began a fruitful association with the innovative director, Rouben Mamoulian, who staged both the original productions of Dorothy and DuBose Heyward's play, Porgy (1927), and George Gershwin's folk opera, Porgy and Bess (1935). In addition to directing several other dramatic productions for the Guild, Mamoulian would later be responsible for its two biggest successes in musical theater, Oklahoma! (1943) and Carousel (1945).

During the 1930s, internal division within the Guild led to the development of competing, splinter groups, such as the Group Theatre and The Playwrights' Company, and, ultimately, the reorganization of the Guild itself. By 1939, the Theatre Guild had become a leaner organization, with Langner and Helburn replacing the board and now functioning as co-directors. In addition to continuing to champion the work of new American dramatists, during the 1940s, the Guild would begin several initiatives to reach a broader audience. Among these efforts were the implementation of a national subscription theater service and the regular broadcast of a radio program, The Theatre Guild on the Air (1945), both of which served to enhance the Guild's prestige. These outreach efforts, along with the phenomenal success of Oklahoma!, helped to reestablish the Guild's financial stability, but most of the early, innovative fervor had been lost.

In 1953, the Theatre Guild of the Air radio program was transformed into a television show, The United States Steel Hour . This prize-winning anthology series was broadcast for twelve seasons and the Guild would become active in other areas of television production as well. During the 1960s, the Guild grew increasingly involved with international touring, assembling a national theater company headed by Helen Hayes, which, under the auspices of the State Department, presented the works of American playwrights around the world. In 1968, the Guild became a pioneer in arranging travel tours, developing programs to take its subscribers to attend plays in European countries. By the 1970s, however, the Guild rarely produced any shows for the Broadway theater, although its corporate identity continued to exist in some form. In 1975, it launched the Theatre At Sea cruises, an annual offering, which continues to the present day. The Guild's last official credit on Broadway was as a co-producer of the stage version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical film, State Fair (1996).

From the guide to the Theatre Guild technical drawings and other production materials, circa 1925-1953, (The New York Public Library. Billy Rose Theatre Division.)