[Esmé Stuart] Lennox Robinson (1886-1958) was an Irish dramatist, poet, producer, and director for the Abbey Theater. He wrote twenty-two plays for the theater, including The Clancy Name, a one-act play first staged at the Abbey on 8 October 1908. Written in a harsher style than the work of John Millington Synge, the play portrays Mrs. Clancy's suppression of her son's dying confession to a murder. Other works by Robinson include: The Whiteheaded Boy (1916) and The Lost Leader (1918), the latter a political play in which Robinson imagines what Parnell might think of 1918 Ireland. Robinson published his only novel in 1917 ( A Young Man from the South ), a work that was both autobiographical and nationalistic. Robinson served as manager, producer-director, and beginning in 1923, member of the board of directors of the Abbey Theater. (See Christopher Murray, ODNB for additional information on Lennox Robinson).
Francis Wolle (1889-1979) received his master’s degree in English at the University of Colorado and continued his graduate work at the Sorbonne and at Columbia University. He began teaching at the University of Colorado in 1913, spending forty-four years on the University of Colorado Department of English faculty. Wolle served six years as chairman of the English department. He was associated with more than eighty plays during his time at CU and was the director of University Dramatics from 1914–1940. Between 1917 and 1933, Wolle wrote, produced, and directed fifteen University of Colorado musical comedies. Wolle served overseas in the army during World War I. He advanced to the rank of captain. Upon his return to Colorado he was named commander of a company that later became the Colorado National Guard. During World War II this unit was called to service. Wolle chaired a committee that helped with navy training on campus during the war. He married Muriel V. Sibell on October 26, 1945. After Wolle retired from the University in 1959, he became active in youth ministry at the Episcopal Church in Boulder. He was ordained as a priest of the Episcopal Church in April 1973; he was granted special permission to be ordained despite age restrictions, and became the oldest man to receive ordination.
From the guide to the Lennox Robinson Letter (MS 226), [1927?], (University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries. Special Collections Dept.)
