Rachel Crothers

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Rachel Crothers,
ca.1910

Rachel Crothers (born December 12, 1878 in Bloomington , Illinois , † July 5, 1958 in Danbury , Connecticut ) was a US playwright and theater director on Broadway from 1906 to 1937.

Life

Rachel was the daughter of the doctor couple Eli Kirk Crothers and Marie Louise Crothers.

She wrote her first piece at the age of twelve. She graduated from high school at the age of thirteen (Illinois State University High School) and then attended the New England School of Dramatic Instruction (New England School of Dramatic Instruction). Since her parents would not let her become an actress in New York, she founded the Bloomington Dramatic Club. Her father died in 1893. In 1898 Rachel moved to Manhattan with financial support from her mother .

In the following years she won the recognition of her audience through small one-act plays, her plays were based on Henrik Ibsen's socially critical theater. In 1906 she wrote her first full play, which was performed 277 times at the Madison Square Theater.

With varying degrees of success, Crothers wrote pieces in quick succession and developed further in writing. She created a women's network in which writers and actors supported each other. Accordingly, there were many and strong female roles in her stage works. Actresses who performed their plays included Ethel Barrymore , Estelle Winwood , Katharine Cornell , Tallulah Bankhead and Gertrude Lawrence .

She was considered the most successful playwright until the appearance of Lillian Hellman in the 1930s. She also performed her own pieces and cast the roles herself, which was new for her time. She has also directed other writers' plays.

In 1933 she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters .

Crothers died unmarried in their Connecticut home.

plant

Crothers attached great importance to the contrast between their characters in the dialogues and to taking up the social problems of their time. One of her core topics was the "problem of overemancipated women" and the criticism of the still inadequate gender equality. Others were prostitution, divorce, trial marriage, free love. In addition to simple provocations, her pieces also included comedies, parodies and psychoanalytic pieces, as well as criticism of radical feminism.

Pieces (selection)
  • Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining or The Ruined Merchant (1890)
  • The Three of Us (1906)
  • Myself Bettina (1908)
  • A Man's World (1910)
  • Ourselves (1913)
  • Young Wisdom (1914)
  • The Heart of Paddy Whack (1914)
  • Once Upon a Time (1917)
  • Mother Carey's Chickens (1917)
  • He and She (1920, re-performed in 1980 and 1995)
  • Nice People (1921)
  • A Lady's Virtue
  • Mary the Third (1923)
  • Expressing Willie (1924)
  • Let Us Be Gay (1929)
  • As Husbands Go (1931)
  • When Ladies Meet (1933)
  • Susan and God (1937)

Film adaptations

Awards and foundations

  • Rachel Crothers founded several organizations to support her stage colleagues: the United Theater Relief Committee, the Stage Relief Fund, the Stage Women's War Relief Fund, and the American Theater Wing; the latter of these organizations support the war effort in World War II .
  • She was accepted into the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1933.
  • In 1939 she was awarded a gold medal of Chi Omega by Eleanor Roosevelt in recognition of her services to public affairs, education and work.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Lois Gottlieb: Rachel Crothers . New York, Twayne, 1979.
  2. ↑ a b c d Antonius Lux (ed.): Great women of world history. A thousand biographies in words and pictures . Sebastian Lux Verlag , Munich 1963, p. 122.
  3. ↑ Djuna Barnes: "The Tireless Rachel Crothers" in: Theater Guild Magazine (May 1931), pp. 17-18.
  4. ↑ Carol Hurd Green and Barbara Sicherman (Eds.): Notable American Women: The Modern Period . Cambridge: Radcliffe College, 1980, pp. 174-177.
  5. ^ Members: Rachel Crothers. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed February 25, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Crothers, Rachel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American playwright and theater director
DATE OF BIRTH December 12, 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH Bloomington (Illinois)
DATE OF DEATH 5th July 1958
Place of death Danbury (Connecticut)