The Washington herald., 1922-01-12
Colleges and Playwriting.

WIHEN the activities of playwriting courses
w in colleges of the United States began
to attract wide attention, about ten years ago,
many people connected with the professional
theater thought, probably with some justification,
that this was just one more flash in the pan OBJ
serves the Christian Science Monitor, adding that
also considered as one more attempt of the
amateur to teach the professional his own business.
Now that the decade has passed. it is of in
terest to note the present standing of "dramatics'
in the colleges, continues the editorial. Instead
of fading out, the interest in the arts and crafts
of the theater has spread through the educational
system OF the United States to such degree
that, according to recent bulletin issued by the
Bureau of Education, not less than 382 courses
in play production offered in lao institutions
of learning. tNell-equpped theaters are main
tanned by II colleges, and 27 colleges have out
door theaters. Many colleges have what approx
mate to schools of drama, with courses leading
to the degrees of A. B. and NJ. A.. and sixty-nine
educational institutions give credit for dramatic
work in connection with the regular curriculum.
While playwriting activities do not dominate
these college courses they hold their due place in
relation to the study and practice of acting, scenic
and costume design, scene painting, and the like.
OF 1888 plays presented in I46 colleges during
the past five years, 2SI written by students.
The other So7 plays presented were mostly serious,
many of them being drawn from the classics. All
these productions gave their need of experience
in the arts and crafts of the theater, but special
interest attaches to the spread of college play
writing. For, putting aside the annual musical
comedy efforts, such as the Hasty Pudding show
OF Harvard, the writing OF plays in the colleges,
part OF the curriculum, goes back less than
fifteen years, apart from an early experiment made
at the University OF Michigan. 1t was in 1884,
at Ann Arbor, that Alfred Hennequin, Ph.D,
brother of the noted French dramatist Maurice
Hennequin, and himself author adapter of
thirty plays, started college course in play
writing which continued until he retired to
private teaching 1t was during the first term that
DR.. Hennequin had for special student Bronson
Howard and during this term Howard revised
Shenandoah" in the light of Hennequins advice.
College playwrtng during the past decade
has had for its leading figure Prof. George
Pierce Baker, of Harvard, who is in charge Of
the playwriting called English A. and
who is director of the players and stagecraft
students of Cambridge, Mass, who denominate
their activities the Al Workshop. While this
workshop for a number of years produced im-
portant foreign plays we'll as the compositions
Of its members, it has for some time devoted itself
to the production of original works. Out of this
workshop have come several plays that have been
transferred to the professional stage, there holding
their own with the better fare of the regular
theater.
More important, however, than the direct
transfer OF play evolved in the college laboratory
playhouse to the regular stage is the access of
new artists to the world of the theater from the
college stages and drama elassrooms
Possibly some of the managers who now
look to the colleges for new manuscripts were
among those who doubted the possibility OF
anything important coming out of university
dramatcs' Certainly the professional theater no
longer withholds a full recognition of the value of
college drama courses.