A report on Provincetown Players

Lewis Wharf, first home of the Provincetown Players in 1915
Setting up the stage for Bound East for Cardiff, Fall 1916. Photo shows O'Neill on the ladder, Cook to the far right.
Scene in All God's Chillun Got Wings in which Paul Robeson kissed Mary Blair's hand, attracting national interest.
Susan Glaspell, playwright and one of the founders of the Provincetown Players.

Collective of artists, writers, intellectuals, and amateur theater enthusiasts.

- Provincetown Players
Lewis Wharf, first home of the Provincetown Players in 1915

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Susan Glaspell graduation portrait, 1894.

Susan Glaspell

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American playwright, novelist, journalist and actress.

American playwright, novelist, journalist and actress.

Susan Glaspell graduation portrait, 1894.
Glaspell, circa 1883.
Glaspell and husband George Cram Cook in 1917
Lewis Wharf
Poster for the 1938 WPA production of Alison's House, for which Glaspell won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

With her husband George Cram Cook, she founded the Provincetown Players, the first modern American theatre company.

Portrait of O'Neill by Alice Boughton

Eugene O'Neill

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American playwright and Nobel laureate in literature.

American playwright and Nobel laureate in literature.

Portrait of O'Neill by Alice Boughton
Portrait of O'Neill as a child, c. 1893
Birthplace plaque (1500 Broadway, northeast corner of 43rd and Broadway, New York City), presented by Circle in the Square.
O'Neill's first play, Bound East for Cardiff, premiered at this theatre on a wharf in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Time Cover, March 17, 1924
O'Neill in the mid-1930s. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1936
The Chaplins and six of their eight children in 1961. From left to right: Geraldine, Eugene, Victoria, Chaplin, Oona O'Neill, Annette, Josephine and Michael.
Grave of Eugene O'Neill
O'Neill stamp issued in 1967
Statue of O'Neil as a boy, sitting and writing, overlooking the harbor of New London, Connecticut

His involvement with the Provincetown Players began in mid-1916.

George Cram Cook

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American theatre producer, director, playwright, novelist, poet, and university professor.

American theatre producer, director, playwright, novelist, poet, and university professor.

Wife Susan Glaspell with Cook wearing his fustanella. Pictured also is Cook's dog from which he contracted a fatal disease.

Believing it was his personal mission to inspire others, Cook led the founding of the Provincetown Players on Cape Cod in 1915; their "creative collective" was considered the first modern American theatre company.

Greenwich Village

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Neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west.

Neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west.

MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village
453–461 Sixth Avenue in the Historic District
The intersection of West 4th and West 12th Streets
Street signs at intersection of West 10th and West 4th Streets
Map of old Greenwich Village. A section of Bernard Ratzer's map of New York and its suburbs, made ca. 1766 for Henry Moore, royal governor of New York, when Greenwich was more than 2 miles (3 km) from the city.
Gay Street at the corner of Waverly Place; the street's name refers to a colonial family, not the LGBT character of Greenwich Village
Whitney Museum of American Art's original location, at 8–12 West 8th Street, between Fifth Avenue and MacDougal Street; currently home to the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture.
The Cherry Lane Theatre is located in Greenwich Village.
The annual Greenwich Village Halloween Parade is the world's largest Halloween parade.
The Stonewall Inn, a designated U.S. National Historic Landmark and National Monument, as the site of the June 1969 Stonewall riots and the cradle of the modern gay rights movement.
Blue Note Jazz Club
The Washington Square Arch, an unofficial icon of Greenwich Village and nearby New York University
396-397 West Street at West 10th Street is a former hotel which dates from 1904, and is part of the Weehawken Street Historic District
Washington Mews in Greenwich Village; an NYU building can be seen in the background
Christopher Park, part of the Stonewall National Monument
NYPD 6th Precinct
West Village Post Office
Jefferson Market Library, once a courthouse, now serves as a branch of the New York Public Library.
Robert De Niro
Robert Downey Jr.
Hank Greenberg
Emma Stone
90 Bedford Street, used for establishing shot in Friends

A landmark in Greenwich Village's cultural landscape, it was built as a farm silo in 1817, and also served as a tobacco warehouse and box factory before Edna St. Vincent Millay and other members of the Provincetown Players converted the structure into a theatre they christened the Cherry Lane Playhouse, which opened on March 24, 1924, with the play The Man Who Ate the Popomack.

Edna St. Vincent Millay, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1933

Edna St. Vincent Millay

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American lyrical poet and playwright.

American lyrical poet and playwright.

Edna St. Vincent Millay, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1933
Edna St. Vincent Millay in Mamaroneck, New York, 1914, by Arnold Genthe.
Edna St. Vincent Millay's home in 1923–24 at 75 1⁄2 Bedford Street, Greenwich Village (2013 photo)
Main house at Steepletop, where Millay spent the last 25 years of her life
Edna St. Vincent Millay's (and her husband's) gravestone at Steepletop
Edna St. Vincent Millay by pond, 1914, by Arnold Genthe.
Edna St. Vincent Millay, c. 1920.
Undated Edna St. Vincent Millay Portrait

While establishing her career as a poet, Millay initially worked with the Provincetown Players on Macdougal Street and the Theatre Guild.

Provincetown, Massachusetts

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New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, in the United States.

New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, in the United States.

North-eastern view of Provincetown, Mass.
Commercial Street in an 1890s postcard
The Pilgrim Monument, designed by Willard T. Sears after the Torre del Mangia in Siena, Italy; built 1907–1910
Beachfront art class, 1940
Until the late 19th century, the East Harbor opened into Provincetown Harbor, and there were no roads into Provincetown. East Harbor was diked in 1868, making way first for the railroad and then the automobile.
Town Hall and Cafe Poyant, 1961
Provincetown Town Hall
Provincetown High School
Residential street in Provincetown
Commercial Street in Provincetown

The Provincetown Players was an important experimental theatre company formed during this period.

The entrance to the Provincetown Playhouse in 2015

Provincetown Playhouse

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Historic theatre at 133 MacDougal Street between West 3rd and West 4th Streets in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City.

Historic theatre at 133 MacDougal Street between West 3rd and West 4th Streets in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City.

The entrance to the Provincetown Playhouse in 2015

It is named for the Provincetown Players, who converted the former stable and wine-bottling plant into a theater in 1918.

Neith Boyce

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American novelist, journalist, and theatre artist.

American novelist, journalist, and theatre artist.

Neith Boyce c.1900

Neith Boyce later co-founded the Provincetown Players alongside Susan Glaspell, George Cram Cook, her husband Hutchins Hapgood, and others.

Portrait of Bryant in 1913 by John Henry Trullinger

Louise Bryant

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American feminist, political activist, and journalist best known for her sympathetic coverage of Russia and the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution of November 1917.

American feminist, political activist, and journalist best known for her sympathetic coverage of Russia and the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution of November 1917.

Portrait of Bryant in 1913 by John Henry Trullinger
Bryant in a sorority photo at the University of Oregon in 1909
John Reed, c. 1910–1915
Bryant sunbathing in Provincetown, 1916
Europe 1916, an anti-war cartoon by Boardman Robinson, appeared in the October 1916 issue of The Masses, a magazine for which Bryant had begun writing articles and poems that same year.
Katherine Breshkovsky, "grandmother of the revolution", was among the women Bryant interviewed in 1917.
Anna Louise Strong in 1918, the year before she arranged Bryant's national speaking tour, "The Truth About Russia".
William C. Bullitt, Bryant's third husband, who in 1933 became the first U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union.
Sterling Memorial Library at Yale University, which houses the Bryant papers

Leaving her first husband in 1915 to follow fellow journalist John Reed (whom she married in 1916) to Greenwich Village, she formed friendships with leading feminists of the day, some of whom she met through Reed's associates at publications such as The Masses; at meetings of a women's group, Heterodoxy; and through work with the Provincetown Players.

Floyd Dell

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American newspaper and magazine editor, literary critic, novelist, playwright, and poet.

American newspaper and magazine editor, literary critic, novelist, playwright, and poet.

Playbook for The Angel Intrudes (1917).

Dell joined fellow Davenporters Susan Glaspell and George Cram Cook as a member of the Provincetown Players and his play King Arthur's Socks was the first performed by that historic theater group.