Sheldon Cheney&#039;s Theatre Arts Magazine

DeAnna M. Toten Beard

doi:10.5771/9780810872677

Summary

In the early decades of the 20th century, Sheldon Cheney was the American theatre's zealous missionary for modernism. In 1916, Cheney founded Theatre Arts Magazine in Detroit with the intent to foster and support a 'renaissance' in America. Through this publication, Cheney gave voice to scores of 'little theatres'_groups around the country with artistic aspirations and local commitment that would become the models for the American regional theatre movement later in the century. In the first five years of Theatre Arts Magazine are the keys to understanding the progressive movement for a modern American theatre: the tension between commercial and non-commercial theatre, the yearning for more than realistic scenery, and the call for an 'authentic' American voice in playwriting. Publishing articles, photographs, and drawings by modernist stage designers, Cheney helped popularize the New Stagecraft and elevated the identity of the American scenic designer from a craftsperson to an artist. As progressives around the country read Theatre Arts Magazine, Cheney's assessment of the sins of American commercial theatre and the plan for its salvation eventually became the convictions of a generation. Sheldon Cheney's Theatre Arts Magazine: Promoting a Modern American Theatre, 1916-1921 enriches understanding of a critical period in American history and illuminates major issues of 20th century theatre and drama. Author DeAnna Toten Beard gives a brief history of the magazine, biographical information about Cheney, and an explanation of his philosophy of modernist theatre. Each chapter of the book considers a different topic relevant to Cheney's magazine, and selected articles are enhanced by full notations. This collection will help readers understand the dynamic nature of the discourse on modernism in America in the World War I era and, by extension, may even encourage fresh considerations about our contemporary stage.

Search publication

Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2009
ISBN-Print: 978-0-8108-7266-0
ISBN-Online: 978-0-8108-7267-7
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 281
Product type: Book Titles

1. Table of Contents No access
2. Acknowledgments No access
Introduction No access Pages 1 - 10
1. "Foreword to Volume I No access
2. "Editorial" No access
3. "Editorial" No access
4. "What We Stand For" No access
5. "On Stylization" No access
6. "Those Germans!" No access
7. "Provincialism" No access
8. "Why We Are Moving" No access
9. "Foreword to Volume II" No access
10. "Our Ideals and Our Critics" No access
1. "New York's Best Season" No access
2. "About the Portmanteau Theatre" No access
3. "Fooling with Repertory" No access
4. "The Art Theatre and Repertory" No access
5. "At Last—A National Theatre" No access
6. "The Road-Town Problem" No access
7. "Closing of the Chicago Little Theatre" No access
8. "Comment on Current Plays" No access
9. "Repertory Again" No access
10. "The Washington Square Players" No access
11. "A Futile War" No access
12. "The New York Season" No access
13. "The Theatre and War Memorials" No access
14. "Curtain!" No access
15. "Letter" No access
16. "Lonely Places" No access
1. "New Books: The Mirror of Gesture" No access
2. "Jacques Copeau" No access
3. "The Moscow Art Theatre: A Model" No access
4. "Wartime Theatres of England and France: Paris and the Mask of Picasso" No access
5. "New Books: Noh: or Accomplishment" No access
6. "Newest Tendencies in the Paris Theatre" No access
7. "The Théâtre du Vieux Colombier in America" No access
8. "Sketches of Oriental Theatres, I" No access
9. "Gordon Craig" No access
10. "Sketches of Oriental Theatres, II" No access
11. "Eurhythmies for the Theatre" No access
12. "Theory and Practice in Russian Theatres" No access
13. "Copeau—1921," No access
1. "Acting and the New Stagecraft" No access
2. "Exhibitions of Stage Art No access
3. "Sam Hume's Adaptable Settings" No access
4. "The Painter and the Stage" No access
5. "A Note About Lee Simonson" No access
6. "The Newest Art" No access
7. 1. "The New Path of the Theatre" No access
  2. "The Necessary Illusion" No access
  3. "The Mission of the Stage Setting" No access
  4. "Artificiality and Reality in the Future Theatre" No access
  5. "If I Must" No access
  6. "Fashions in the Theatre" No access
  7. "The Future of Stage Art" No access
  8. "Scene and Action" No access
  9. "The New Stage Designing" No access
  10. "The Theatre of the Future" No access
  11. "The Stage" No access
  12. "Fantasy?" No access
  13. "Color and Light" No access
  14. "Hermann Rosse's Stage Designs" No access
  15. "The Centre of the Stage: Macbeth" No access
1. From "The New Published Plays" and "Theatre Arts Bookshelf' Columns, 1916-1921 No access
2. "Realistic Drama and the Experimental Theatre" No access
3. "American Drama Mid-Channel" No access
4. "Eugene O' Neill" No access
5. "The New Season" No access
Appendix No access Pages 257 - 268
Bibliography No access Pages 269 - 274
Index No access Pages 275 - 280
About the Author No access Pages 281 - 281