The Theatre Guild is a theatrical society founded in New York City in 1918 by Lawrence Langner, Rollo Peters, Philip Moeller, Helen WestleyCody, Gabrielle and Sprinchorn, Evert. The Columbia encyclopedia of modern drama, Volume 2, Columbia University Press, p. 1341 and Theresa Helburn. Langner's wife, Armina Marshall, then served as a co-director. It evolved out of the work of the Washington Square Players.A Pictorial History of the Theatre Guild by Lawrence Langner and Armina Marshall. Introd. by Brooks Atkinson. Crown Publishers. 1969
History
Its original purpose was to produce non-commercial works by American and foreign playwrights. It differed from other theaters at the time in that its board of directors shared the responsibility of choosing plays, management, and production.Vintage Years Of The Theatre Guild, 1928-1939 by Roy S. Waldau. Case Western Reserve University Press. 1972 Rollo Peters served as the organization's first general director until his resignation in November 1919. The Theatre Guild contributed greatly to the success of Broadway from the 1920s throughout the 1970s.
The Guild has produced a total of 228 plays on Broadway, including 18 by George Bernard Shaw and seven by Eugene O'Neill. Other major playwrights introduced to theatre-going Americans include Robert E. Sherwood, Maxwell Anderson, Sidney Howard, William Saroyan, and Philip Barry. In the field of musical theatre, the Guild has promoted works by Richard Rodgers, teamed with both Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II, George and Ira Gershwin, Jule Styne, and Meredith Willson, all of which have become classics. The Guild's 1930 production of Roar, China! was Broadway's first play with a majority Asian cast.
In 1925, the Guild opened the Guild Theater at 245 West 52nd Street in New York City's Theater District. The venue hosted Theater Guild plays until 1943, at which point the Guild leased the space to radio station WOR. The Guild sold the building in 1950, and it has subsequently been sold and renamed several times. As of 2026, the building remained in use as a Broadway theatre, named the August Wilson Theatre.
Warren Caro served as the organization's executive director from 1946 through 1967. Under President John F. Kennedy, the Guild was engaged to assemble a U.S. theatre company, headed by Helen Hayes, to tour the capitals of Europe and South America with works by Tennessee Williams, Thornton Wilder, and William Gibson.The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. Oxford University Press. 2004
In 1968, the Guild became involved in the travel field by taking 25 of its subscribers to European capitals to see plays. In 1975, it instituted its Theatre At Sea program with a 17-day cruise aboard the Rotterdam with Hayes and Cyril Ritchard. Since then they have hosted more than thirty cruises, each with seven or eight performers. Among them have been Alan Arkin, Zoe Caldwell, Anne Jackson, Cherry Jones, Richard Kiley, Eartha Kitt, Patricia Neal, Lynn Redgrave, Gena Rowlands, Jean Stapleton, Eli Wallach, and Lee Roy Reams, who served as the program's resident director.
The last Broadway play produced by The Theatre Guild was State Fair in 1996.
Radio and television Theatre Guild began producing radio programs: Theatre Guild Drama (CBS , 1943) and the Theatre Guild on the Air (ABC , 1945). In 1947, Theatre Guild began producing television programs with NBC, later as The United States Steel Hour.
Notable productions
1920: Heartbreak House 1921: Liliom 1922: R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) 1922: He Who Gets Slapped 1923: Saint Joan 1925: Processional 1927: Porgy 1928: Strange Interlude 1930: Roar, China! 1931: Mourning Becomes Electra 1933: Ah, Wilderness! 1935: Porgy and Bess 1936: The Masque of Kings; Idiot's Delight 1939: The Philadelphia Story; The Time of Your Life 1943: Oklahoma! 1943: Othello 1944: Jacobowsky and the Colonel 1945: Carousel 1946: The Iceman Cometh 1947 Allegro 1947: The Winslow Boy 1950: Come Back, Little Sheba 1953: Picnic; The Trip to Bountiful 1955: The Matchmaker 1956: Bells Are Ringing 1958: Sunrise at Campobello 1960: The Unsinkable Molly Brown 1965: The Royal Hunt of the Sun 1974: Absurd Person Singular
References
External links
Encyclopædia Britannica entry Finding Aid to the Theresa Helburn Theatre Guild Collection, Bryn Mawr College Theatre Guild records, 1949-1952, held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Theatre Guild technical drawings and other production materials, circa 1925-1953, held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Sara Greenspan Theatre Guild files, 1925-1969, held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Theatre Guild Archive., Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.