What Every Woman Knows is a four-act play written by J. M. Barrie. It was first presented by impresario Charles Frohman at the Duke of York's Theatre in London on 3 September 1908. It ran for 384 performances, transferring to the Hicks Theatre between 21 December 1908 and 15 February 1909. [1]
The play was first produced in America, also by Frohman, in 1908 at Atlantic City on 18 October 1908, [2] transferring to Broadway, at the Empire Theatre in New York City in December 1908. The production starred Maude Adams and Richard Bennett.
Written before women's suffrage, the play posits that "every woman knows" she is the invisible power responsible for the successes of the men in her life. [3]
London [3]
Atlantic City and New York [4]
The Wylies, a well-to-do but uneducated Scottish family, are concerned about their daughter, Maggie, a plain young woman who they fear will remain a spinster. One night the Wylies discover that a serious young university student, John Shand, has been breaking into their home so that he can read books from their large library. Shand is penniless and cannot afford to buy books for his law school education. Maggie Wylie and John Shand come to an understanding: that her family will fund his education if, at the end of five years, he agrees to marry her. [3]
John honours his commitment to Maggie, marrying her although he does not love her. Recognising her husband's ambition to become a Member of Parliament, Maggie quietly uses her intelligence and her connections behind the scenes to get John elected. She continues to foster his career, never allowing him to see that she is the power behind his rise to fame. [3]
Eventually John begins to believe that his wife is too plain for a man of his stature and position, and he takes up with Lady Sybil Lazenby, a beautiful, refined and high-born young Englishwoman. Maggie is prepared to let her husband go, if Sybil can help him more than she herself can. However, when Shand is preparing a speech that will make or break his career, he finds that Sybil is no help to him, and he realises that Maggie is his inspiration. [3]
What Every Woman Knows was popular on Broadway, enjoying 198 performances during its first run. [6] Helen Hayes starred in the 1926 Broadway revival, which ran 268 performances. [7]
A British silent film version was made in 1917 and an American silent film was produced in 1921. The play was later adapted into a 1934 film starring Helen Hayes and Brian Aherne.
The play has been revived numerous times since throughout the English-speaking world, including productions at the Gateway Theatre in Edinburgh in 1953, [8] at the Old Vic in 1960, with Maggie Smith as Maggie and Donald Houston as John, [9] and the Albery Theatre in 1974, with Dorothy Tutin and Peter Egan. [10]
What Every Woman Knows starring Helen Hayes was the opening production of the Huntington Hartford Theater in 1954. The Hartford was Los Angeles's prime venue for Broadway-scale productions the next ten years. [11]
The play's most recent London revival was at the Finborough Theatre in 2010. [12] In 1976 in New York, Fran Brill was awarded the Drama Desk Award for her portrayal of Maggie Wylie. In 1977 there was a musical version entitled Maggie at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London. [13]
Noel and Company presented a staged reading of the play at the Mint Theater in New York City in 2013, directed by David Glenn Armstrong and produced by Anne Kaufman. The cast included Carole Shelley, Aedin Maloney, Robert Sella, Heidi Armbruster, Kevin Collins, Alex Rice and John Windsor-Cunningham. [14]
BBC Radio 4 broadcast an audio adaptation in October 1983, starring Phyllis Logan and David Hayman. The recording was thought lost but was later returned to the BBC and broadcast again on BBC Radio 4 Extra in March 2024 as part of strand called "Hidden Treasures". [15]
An Inspector Calls is a modern morality play written by English dramatist J. B. Priestley, first performed in the Soviet Union in 1945 and at the New Theatre in London the following year. It is one of Priestley's best-known works for the stage and is considered to be one of the classics of mid-20th century English theatre. The play's success and reputation were boosted by a successful revival by English director Stephen Daldry for the National Theatre in 1992 and a tour of the UK in 2011–2012.
Dame Dorothy Tutin, was an English actress of stage, film and television. For her work in the theatre, she won two Olivier Awards and two Evening Standard Awards for Best Actress. She was made a CBE in 1967 and a Dame (DBE) in 2000.
Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, was a Scottish novelist and playwright, best remembered as the creator of Peter Pan. He was born and educated in Scotland and then moved to London, where he wrote several successful novels and plays. There he met the Llewelyn Davies boys, who inspired him to write about a baby boy who has magical adventures in Kensington Gardens, then to write Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, a 1904 West End "fairy play" about an ageless boy and an ordinary girl named Wendy who have adventures in the fantasy setting of Neverland.
Maude Ewing Adams Kiskadden, known professionally as Maude Adams, was an American actress and stage designer who achieved her greatest success as the character Peter Pan, first playing the role in the 1905 Broadway production of Peter Pan; or, The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up. Adams' personality appealed to a large audience and helped her become the most successful and highest-paid performer of her day, with a yearly income of more than $1 million during her peak.
The Admirable Crichton is a comic stage play written in 1902 by J. M. Barrie.
Charles Frohman was an American theater manager and producer, who discovered and promoted many stars of the American stage. Frohman produced over 700 shows, and among his biggest hits was Peter Pan, both in London and the US.
Edmund Gwenn was an English actor. On film, he is best remembered for his role as Kris Kringle in the Christmas film Miracle on 34th Street (1947), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the corresponding Golden Globe Award. He received a second Golden Globe and another Academy Award nomination for the comedy film Mister 880 (1950). He is also remembered for his appearances in four films directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Dame Agnes Sybil Thorndike, Lady Casson, was an English actress whose stage career lasted from 1904 to 1969.
Richard Waring was an American actor. He is perhaps best remembered for his role in the film Mr. Skeffington (1944).
Clarence Charles William Henry Richard Bennett was an American actor who became a stage and silent screen actor over the early decades of the 20th century. He was the father of actresses Constance Bennett, Barbara Bennett and Joan Bennett with actress Adrienne Morrison, his second wife.
Harold Chapin was an American-born English actor and playwright. He served in the British Army during World War I.
What Every Woman Knows is a 1934 American romantic comedy film directed by Gregory La Cava and starring Helen Hayes, Brian Aherne and Madge Evans. The film was produced and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and is based on the play What Every Woman Knows (1908) by J. M. Barrie. It was filmed by Paramount back in the silent era in 1921 and stars Lois Wilson. An even earlier British silent version was filmed in 1917. Hayes was familiar with the material as she had starred in a 1926 Broadway revival opposite Kenneth MacKenna.
What Every Woman Knows is a 1917 British comedy drama film directed by Fred W. Durrant and starring Hilda Trevelyan, Madge Tree and Maud Yates. It is an adaptation of the 1908 play What Every Woman Knows by J.M. Barrie. American versions were filmed in 1921 and 1934.
What Every Woman Knows is a 1921 American silent comedy-drama film adapted form the play What Every Woman Knows by James Barrie. The play had premiered on Broadway in 1908 and was a hit starring Maude Adams. A British silent film version had been made in 1917 and a later American talkie would be produced in 1934 with Helen Hayes. This silent film version was directed by William C. deMille continuing his forte at adapting literary and/or stage plays to the silent screen. The film stars Lois Wilson and Conrad Nagel. This version is now lost.
Hilda Trevelyan was an English actress. Early in her career she became known for her performance in plays by J. M. Barrie, and is probably best remembered for creating the role of Wendy in Peter Pan.
The Empire Theatre in New York City was a prominent Broadway theatre in the first half of the twentieth century.
Maggie Pepper is a lost 1919 American silent comedy-drama film directed by Chester Withey and starring Ethel Clayton. This film is based on a hit 1911 play by Charles Klein which was a winning success for stage actress Rose Stahl at the Harris Theatre.
Finding Neverland is a musical with music and lyrics by Gary Barlow and Eliot Kennedy and a book by James Graham adapted from the 1998 play The Man Who Was Peter Pan by Allan Knee and its 2004 film version Finding Neverland. An early version of the musical made its world premiere at the Curve Theatre in Leicester in 2012 with a book by Allan Knee, music by Scott Frankel and lyrics by Michael Korie. A reworked version with the current writing team made its world premiere in 2014 at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Following completion of its Cambridge run, the production transferred to Broadway in March 2015.
Aedín Moloney is an American and Irish TV, Theatre and Film actress and producer. She was born in Dublin, Ireland. She is the founder and producing artistic director of New York's Fallen Angel Theatre Company. She is the daughter of musician Paddy Moloney.
Sydney Valentine Nossiter, known professionally as Sydney Valentine, was an English actor of the Victorian and Edwardian eras. He was President of the Actors' Association and was remembered for negotiating what became the standard contracts for actors in the West End and on tour.