Telephone EDgecombe 4-3190

THE NEGRO PLAYWRIGHTS COMPANY

THE LINCOLN THEATRE
1000 K STREET AND LINCOLN AVENUE
New York City

200 West 135th, Street
Room 201-A

OFFICERS

THEODORE WARD
Gen. Manager

POWELL LINDSAY
Director

GEO. B. MURPHY, Jr.
Treasurer

ACTIVE MEMBERS

Langston Hughes
Theodore Ward
Powell Lindsay
Theodore Browne
Owen Dodson
George Norford

ASSOCIATE MEMBERS

Paul Robeson
Richard Wright
Edna Thomas
Max Yergan
Gwendolyn Bennett
Rev. John W. Robinson
Alain Locke
Geo. B. Murphy, Jr.

January 20, 1941

Dear Langston:

I have just left your agent, Lieber's office, and from what he tells me things are really huming out on the coast. He showed me America's Young Black Joe, and I think it's grand. Let's have more like that.

You have probably heard that Big White Fog closed on the 15th, of December after an unsuccessful run of eight weeks leaving the Playwrights Company with a RED balance of ten thousand dollars. However, we are not licked yet. Ted is not active anymore so I'm trying hard to carry on.

We are busy now collecting and editing material for our REVUE as yet unnamed. We plan to open the first week in March, probably down town. Paul has promised to open and work for us for two weeks, so we are frantically looking for suitable material for him. Lieber told me that you had some material which you could send on to us. Please do. We would like all the material that you can send us. Paul told me that he was going to make a sketch out there. If it is all right, we would like to have that also.

I saw Meet The People and think it is good theatre. However, I think you people should do a better show.

I am enclosing a brief outline of some of the things I think should be included in our revue, providing they can be written, and are good enough.

Please let me have the material as soon as possible, as time is an important element with us right now.

When do you expect to be in New York? I hope you might find time to write a couple of things from this tenative outline I'm sending.

With best wishes for the success of your show.

"A Professional Theatre With An Idea"

October 7, 1960

Dear Mr. Lindsay:

From the more than 50 poets whose work I submitted to the prospective publishers of my proposed anthology of NEW NEGRO POETS, it has been decided to limit the selections to about 15 poets of, shall we say, the more or less "avant garde" or modern school which they feel best represents contemporary trends--mostly those already published in the little magazines, NAKED EYE, YOUNGEN, PARIS REVIEW, POETRY, VOICES, etc. So I must send back to many of the poets the work so kindly submitted to me. Please forgive the long delay.

It is with regret that I return your poems to you, but I am most grateful to you for having let me see them.

With all good wishes for future publication, I am

Mr. Powell Lindsay,
1445 West Chicago,
Detroit, Michigan.