Group Theater

What is the passion of the individual?

The Group Theatre was a New York City theater collective formed by Harold Clurman, Cheryl Crawford and Lee Strasberg in 1931. The Group was a pioneering attempt to create a theatre collective, a company of players trained in a unified style and dedicated to presenting contemporary plays. (Sidnell: 124-127)

When did the passion begin?

Its founders, who had worked earlier with the Provincetown Players, wished to establish a permanent company that would present contemporary plays of social significance and would work to develop the art of the theater and, in particular, acting. Under Strasberg's tutelage, the actors explored the interior techniques based on Stanislavsky's teachings that evolved into the American Method style of acting. Although never financially secure, the group was recognized as a vital theatrical force. It was at its height between 1935 and 1937, during which time it produced Awake and Sing, Waiting for Lefty, and Golden Boy, all by Clifford Odets. In 1937, Clurman became sole director. Although the group disbanded in 1941, its influence is still greatly felt; many of its members have become prominent actors, teachers, and directors. (Clurman: 45-51)

Who were the major influences in the person's life?

Institutionally, the Group influenced the Chelsea Theater Center, a later theater in New York (1960's and 1970's), born of idealism and destroyed by lack of funding and friction between its co-directors. Hal Prince invokes the Group in his foreword to the book, Chelsea on the Edge: The Adventures of an American Theater.

How did the theater companies get started?

In the summer of 1931, three young idealists, Harold Clurman, Cheryl Crawford and Lee Strasberg, were inspired by a passionate dream of transforming the American theater. They recruited 28 actors to form a permanent ensemble dedicated to dramatizing the life of their times. They conceived The Group Theatre as a response to what they saw as the old-fashioned light entertainment that dominated the theater of the late 1920's. Their vision was of a new theater that would mount original American plays to mirror -- even change -- the life of their troubled times. Over its ten years and twenty productions, they not only met these goals, but altered the course of American theater forever.

What productions made them famous?

The company's first production was Paul Green's The House of Connelly on September 23, 1931, at the Martin Beck Theatre. It was an immediate critical success and was recognized for the special ensemble performances which the Group would further develop. Playwright Green, however, was not happy with the more hopeful, upbeat ending that the Group had imposed on his brooding work. The Group's production of John Howard Lawson's Success Story, which chronicled the rise of a youthful idealist who sacrifices his principles as he rises to the top of the advertising business, won generally favorable reviews for its script, and enthusiastic praise for Luther Adler's starring performance. Later, during the first full season (1933-34), Men in White, written by Sidney Kingsley and directed by Lee Strasberg, became the Group's first ...