The Theatres

Abstract

Granville Barker’s plan to mount a six to twelve months’ season of ‘the uncommercial drama’, as he called it, at the Court Theatre was first mentioned in a letter to William Archer in April 1903. The season was to be operated on a short-run system, with a fresh play mounted every fortnight, concentrating on high quality plays and acting, and with no attempt at ‘productions’. The aims were to encourage a vital national drama, in preparation for the long hoped for National Theatre, to create a class of intellectual play-goers and to offer more challenging opportunities to actors. A year later Barker was given the chance to put his ambitious plans to the test.