Provincetown
is a small seaport in Massachusetts. A group of left-wing writers
including Floyd Dell, Eugene
O'Neill, John Reed, George
Gig Cook, Mary Heaton Vorse, Susan
Glaspell and Louise Bryant, who lived
in Greenwich Village, often spent their
summers in Provincetown. In 1915 several members of the group established
the Provincetown Theatre Group. A shack at the end of the fisherman's
wharf was turned into a theatre. Later, other writers such as Eugene
O'Neill and Edna St. Vincent Millay
joined the group.
Plays performed at Provincetown included Trifles,
The Inheritors and The
People (Susan
Glaspell), Suppressed Desires
and The Athenian Women (George
Gig Cook) King Arthur's Socks
and The Angel Intrudes,
(Floyd Dell),
Bound East for Cardiff, Thirst,
and The Sniper (Eugene
O'Neill), The Game
(Louise Bryant),
Two Slatterns and the King and
Aria da Capo (Edna
St. Vincent Millay) at Provincetown.
Many of the productions that appeared at Provincetown
were later transferred to New York. This
were initially performed at an experimental theatre on MacDougal Street
but some of the plays, especially by Susan
Glaspell and Eugene O'Neill were critical
successes on Broadway.
The Provincetown Theatre Group came to an end in 1926 when its star
writer, Eugene O'Neill, decided to deal
directly with Broadway. The two main figures in the group, George
Gig Cook and Susan Glaspell, suspended
operations and moved to Greece.
Provincetown Theatre
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