Maurice Browne (12 February 1881 – 21 January 1955) was a man of the theatre in the United States and the United Kingdom. A poet, actor and theatre director, he has been credited, along with his then-wife Ellen Van Volkenburg, as the founder of the Little Theatre Movement in America through his work with the Chicago Little Theatre.[1]
Maurice Browne | |
|---|---|
 Maurice Brown, circa 1918 | |
| Born | February 12, 1881 |
| Died | January 21, 1955 (aged 73) |
| Spouse | Ellen Van Volkenburg |
Early life edit
He was born in Reading, England, the son of the Rev. Frederick Herbert Browne, a graduate of Wadham College, Oxford and head of Ipswich School, and his wife Frances Anne Neligan, daughter of the Rev. Maurice Neligan D.D.[2][3][4]
He was educated at Temple Grove School and Winchester College.[5] In 1894 his father committed suicide, leaving four children. Frances moved to Eastbourne to run a school, and Maurice moved to Eastbourne College. From there he won a scholarship to Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he matriculated in Michaelmas Term 1900, having first joined up to the British Army and spent time in South Africa during the Second Anglo-Boer War. He graduated B.A. in 1903.[6][7]
Career edit
At Cambridge Browne struck up a friendship with Louis Wilkinson.[8] He belonged to a poetic coterie with Harold Monro who became a close friend, Guy Noel Pocock and Herman Leonard Pass.[9][10][11] He wrote no more poetry once he graduated.[2] In 1904 Browne was teaching at St. Paul's School, Darjeeling.[7]
On his return to London, Browne became involved in printing and publishing. As a small press publisher he concentrated on verse.[7][12] He ran the Samurai Press (active 1907–1909) with Harold Monro, who had married his sister Dorothy in 1901 (they divorced 1916); the name referenced A Modern Utopia by H. G. Wells.[13]
Meeting Ellen Van Volkenburg at Florence when travelling in Italy, Browne went to Chicago to marry her in 1912. That year they adapted a space in the Fine Arts Building to create the Chicago Little Theatre.[14] In 1921, Browne and Volkenburg acted in the performance of George Bernard Shaw's The Philanderer at the Cornish School playhouse.[15] They ran the theatre for five years.[16] They went on to found the department of drama at the Cornish School in Seattle in 1918.[17]
At the opening night of the Theatre of the Golden Bough, Volkenburg had the title-role in Browne's play, The Mother of Gregory, which played June 6, 7, and 14, 1924.[18]
Browne's greatest triumph came in 1929 when he produced Journey's End, by R. C. Sherriff in London.[19] The production was also highly profitable for him. He was able to invest in stakes in the Globe Theatre and Queen's Theatre in London's West End.[20]
Death edit
References edit
- ^ Browne, Maurice (1955). Too Late to Lament: An Autobiography. London: Gollancz. p. 128. Retrieved 19 February 2024.
- ^ a b Harbin, Billy J.; Marra, Kim; Schanke, Robert A. (2005). The Gay & Lesbian Theatrical Legacy: A Biographical Dictionary of Major Figures in American Stage History in the Pre-Stonewall Era. University of Michigan Press. pp. 73–76. ISBN 978-0-472-06858-6.
- ^ Foster, Joseph (1888–1892). . Alumni Oxonienses: the Members of the University of Oxford, 1715–1886. Oxford: Parker and Co – via Wikisource.
- ^ "Marriages". Berkshire Chronicle. 4 January 1879. p. 8.
- ^ "Browne, Maurice". Who's Who. A & C Black. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- ^ Hibberd, D. (13 February 2001). Harold Monro: Poet of the New Age. Springer. p. 15. ISBN 978-0-230-59578-1.
- ^ a b c "Browne, Frederick Maurice (BRWN899FM)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- ^ Powys, John Cowper; Gregg, Frances (1994). The Letters of John Cowper Powys to Frances Gregg. Cecil Woolf. p. 235. ISBN 978-0-900821-99-8.
- ^ Grant, Joy. Harold Monro and the Poetry Bookshop. University of California Press. p. 9.
- ^ "Pocock, Guy Noël (PCK899GN)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- ^ "Pass, Herman Leonard (PS894HL)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- ^ Kabatchnik, Amnon (2010). Blood on the Stage, 1925-1950: Milestone Plays of Crime, Mystery, and Detection : an Annotated Repertoire. Scarecrow Press. p. 233. ISBN 978-0-8108-6963-9.
- ^ Hibberd, Dominic. "Monro, Harold Edward (1879–1932)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/35071. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- ^ Pinkerton, Jan; Hudson, Randolph H. (2009). Encyclopedia of the Chicago Literary Renaissance. Infobase Publishing. p. 353. ISBN 978-1-4381-0914-5.
- ^ "Maurice Browne Players Please In Philanderer". Seattle Union Record. Seattle, Washington. 18 July 1921. Retrieved 21 March 2024.
- ^ Wilmeth, Don B.; Bigsby, Christopher (28 July 1999). The Cambridge History of American Theatre. Vol. II. Cambridge University Press. p. 10. ISBN 978-0-521-65179-0.
- ^ Cornish, Nellie C. (1964). Miss Aunt Nellie: The Autobiography of Nellie C. Cornish. Seattle, Washington: University of Washington Press. p. 109. Retrieved 19 February 2024.
- ^ "The Drama". Dramatic Publishing Company. 15–16: 33. 1924. Retrieved 19 February 2024.
- ^ Browne, Maurice. Too Late to Lament: An Autobiography. London, Gollancz, 1955, pp. 306-309.
- ^ Duberman, Martin B. (1989). Paul Robeson. London: Bodley Head. p. 122. ISBN 0370305752.
- ^ "Maurice Browne, Founder of Little Theater in U.S." The Buffalo News. Buffalo, New York. 21 January 1955. p. 25.
Further reading edit
- Chansky, Dorothy. Composing Ourselves: The Little Theatre Movement and the American Audience. Carbondale, Seattle, Southern Illinois University, 2004.
- Cheney, Sheldon. The New Movement in the Theatre. New York, Mitchell Kennerley, 1914.
External links edit
