Plays and Players Theatre is a theater and social club in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1911, it is one of the oldest professional theater companies in the United States. The theater building was designed and constructed in 1912 by Philadelphia architect Amos W. Barnes as a dramatic school, but soon was used as a theater for Broadway theatretryouts, known as the Playhouse.
The theater company Plays and Players bought the building in 1922 and has performed there ever since. Murals were added in 1923 by American artist Edith Emerson.[2]
History
Plays & Players began in 1911 as a social club devoted to expanding and developing new theater experiences for and by its membership. The first President, Maud Durbin Skinner, was the wife of famed American actor Otis Skinner. The Plays & Players Theatre, then called the "Little Theatre of Philadelphia," first opened its doors two years later, in 1913. The theater was founded by Beulah E. Jay and her husband Edward G. Jay, Jr. with acquaintance F.H. Shelton in an effort to produce "American plays of ideas," an underrepresented genre at the time.
Plays & Players theater company has produced notable performances, including the world premiere of the acclaimed Broadway play "Stalag 17" in 1949, and a childhood performance by actor Kevin Bacon in Member of the Wedding in 1974. The first season of Plays & Players included An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde and The Learned Ladies by Molière, both which remain popular plays.
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