A Repertory Theatre

Abstract

Now and again there is a sigh or a rumor of sadness among the people in this city—among those, that is, who have any real interest in the theatre, be it that of a professional, an amateur or a connoissour. The sigh is for a more earnest theatre, a more flavorsome theatre; for plays that were written because the writers had to write them or burst with the repression, and acted by players who have gone on the stage because they had something in them that drew them to the footlights with an irresistible current. Those who care to have a theatre which can offer them these things have a plan—that is, a dream—of how to accomplish it. But every one tells them it is impossible. History says it is practical and that it has been done many times. It is merely the founding and maintaining of a repertory theatre. But this is one of the things that ‘cannot be done in New York.’ The phrase is a popular one, and has preceded many things in other departments of life that now exist here and seem to be reasonably well rooted—the traffic squad, for one instance, and the subway, for another. Both of these things ‘could not be done in New York,’ according to the deciders of the public rate ten or fifteen years ago. Now the thing that cannot exist in New York is a repertory theatre, and the cry is so persistent and is getting so much louder day by day that it must be almost time for one to be started.

New York Daily Tribune (26 Nov 1911) Part V.