Abstract
In the midst of the vast archives of the Play House sits a grey box labeled “A313.” While the items held within this container do not provide information about the daily business of the Play House or its financial and artistic dealings, the box is incredibly informative about the theatre during the war years. Inside A313 rests a small, leather-bound notebook, no bigger than paperback novel but distinctly expanded because every page has an index card attached by a paper clip. Opening the cover reveals this book to be the “Play House Log of Participation in World War, 1940 to 1945”—a journal maintained by a staff member to meticulously keep notes on each Play House member or participant during the war.1 Each page in the journal has a corresponding envelope also within the box. Many of the documents kept within the Cleveland Play House archives are brittle and worn with age, but the contents of these envelopes have been well preserved.
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Notes
Donald J. Rauch, “Letter to ‘Max’—May 11, 1942,” CPH Archives (accessed September 7, 2012).
Donald J. Rauch, “Letter to ‘Max’—November 14, 1942,” CPH Archives (accessed September 7, 2012).
Donald J. Rauch, “Letter to ‘Dear Gang’—February 17, 1943,” CPH Archives (accessed September 7, 2012).
Donald J. Rauch, “Letter to ‘Maxie’—December 17, 1944,” CPH Archives (accessed September 7, 2012).
Frederic McConnell, “Play House Call Board Note,” CPH Archives (accessed September 7, 2012).
Chloe Warner Oldenburg, Leaps of Faith: History of the Play House, 1915–1980 (Cleveland, OH: Published by the author, 1985), 56.
Charles H. Kellstadt and Fred P. Auxer, “Letter to Mr. T. L. Sidlo, Pres.—December 20, 1941,” CPH Archives (accessed September 7, 2012); Oldenburg, 60; Marjorie Western, “Drama Will Put Punch into War Bond Sale Campaign,” Cleveland News, April 21, 1942, 2; Marie Daerr, “Cleveland’s U.S.O. Posts Keep Visiting Soldiers Happy Between Trains, Busses,” Cleveland Press, February 5, 1942, 11.
Frederic McConnell, “Program Notes (Reprinted from Play House Program),” CPH Archives (accessed September 7, 2012).
J. E. Vacha, “World War II,” in The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, edited by David D. Van Tassel and John J. Grabowski (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), 1072.
Ibid., 56; William Benjamin Clark Jr., A History of the Play House, 1936–1968 (PhD diss., Tulane University, 1968), 66.
Robert A. Weaver, “Letter to “Citizen of Cleveland’—July 27, 1942,” CPH Archives (accessed September 7, 2012).
Frederic McConnell, “Letter (unspecified)—August 23, 1942,” CPH Archives (accessed September 7, 2012).
Frederic McConnell, “A Proposal for a New Theatre—April 9, 1937,” CPH Archives (accessed September 7, 2012).
Frederic McConnell, “Program Notes,” Play House Program, January 23, 1945, CPH Archives (accessed September 7, 2012); Glenn C. Pullen, “Old Church Is Eyed by Heard of Play House,” Plain Dealer, October 21, 1947.
Leonard C. Hanna, “Letter to Walter—October 22, 1946,” CPH Archives (accessed September 7, 2012).
Frederic McConnell, “Letter to Walter—October 28, 1946,” CPH Archives (accessed September 7, 2012); “Joint Committee—Playhouse [sic] Building Project—Agenda Meeting March 19, 1946.”
Walter L. Flory, “Letter to Mr. Leonard C. Hanna, Jr.—October 2, 1946,” CPH Archives (accessed September 7, 2012).
M. L. Sloan, “Letter to Mr. Frederic McConnell—undated,” CPH Archives (accessed September 10, 2012).
Frederic McConnell, “Letter to Frank [Draz]—December 5, 1947,” CPH Archives (accessed September 10, 2012).
Walter L. Flory, “Letter to Mr. David Stevens—November 4, 1947,” CPH Archives (accessed September 7, 2012).
Frederic McConnell, “Letter to Mr. Frank Draz—June 20, 1947,” CPH Archives (accessed September 7, 2012);
Frederic McConnell, “Letter to Mr. Frank Draz—June 10, 1947,” CPH Archives (accessed September 7, 2012).
Walter L. Flory, “Memo to the Trustees of the Play House Foundation and to the Members of the Special Joint Play House and Play House Foundation Committee—April 24, 1948,” CPH Archives (accessed September 10, 2012).
Frederic McConnell, “Letter to Mr. Walter L. Flory, President of the Play House Foundation—April 13, 1948,” CPH Archives (accessed September 10, 2012);
Julia McCune Flory, The Play House: How It Began (Cleveland, OH: Press of Western Reserve University, 1965), 117–8.
Walter L. Flory, “Letter to Mr. George H. Lundy—June 10, 1949,” CPH Archives (accessed September 10, 2012).
Walter L. Flory, “Memorandum from Walter L. Flory to Members of the Building Committee of the Play House Foundation—March 22, 1950,” CPH Archives (accessed September 10, 2012).
Joseph Wesley Zeigler, Regional Theatre: The Revolutionary Stage (New York: Da Capo Press, 1973), 1.
Margo Jones, Theatre-in-the-Round (New York: Rinehart, 1951), 55–6;
Jeffrey Ullom, The Humana Festival: The History of New Play at Actors Theatre of Louisville (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2008), 7.
Helen Sheehy, Margo: The Life and Theatre of Margo Jones (Dallas, TX: Southern Methodist University Press, 1989), 60.
Oldenburg, 53; Norris Houghton, Advance from Broadway: 19,000 Miles of American Theatre (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1941), 73–4.
Amnon Kabatachnik, Blood on the Stage, 1950–1975: Milestone Plays of Crime, Mystery and Detection (New York: Scarecrow Press, 2011), 560.
Frederic McConnell, “Play House in Cleveland Wins 10-Year Freedom from Proscenium,” Documents of American Theater History, Volume 2: Famous American Playhouses, 1900–1971 (Chicago: American Library Association, 1973), 107–8.
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© 2014 Jeffrey Ullom
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Ullom, J. (2014). Catering to Cleveland. In: America’s First Regional Theatre. Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137394354_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137394354_6
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