In
1912 George Pierce Baker offered
Harvard’s first
playwriting course (numbered
47 in the course cataloged) His students went on to found
Theatre ‘47 in
Dallas Texas. Theatre ‘47 concentrated on the works of
playwrights like
Ibsen,
Strindberg,
Chekhov,
Shaw and others. Till this time these
playwrights had been neglected or ill received by
theatre going
audiences especially in
America. But Theatre ‘47’s
innovative productions sparked a
movement known as ‘ The
Little Theatre’ movement. ‘Little’ not only refers to the smaller (and eventually
black box) sized houses they played for but also the focus of the
plays. Unlike the great
melodramas that had
entertained audiences in the late
1800s these plays had more
subtile conflicts, often there was no clear
villain or
hero but rather human beings with
crossed purposes, the
acting style was also more subtile a precursor to the
naturalistic style of acting that would become popular in the
60s and
70s.
The Little Theatre Movement revitalized the
American theatre and lead to the rise of giants like
Arthur Miller and
Eugene O'Neill.