100 Years of the Cornish Theater Department

 

 

CORNISH THEATER TIMELINE (work in progress)

 

1912-Maurice Browne and Ellen Van Volkenburg found the Chicago Little Theatre, quickly becoming the vanguard of the art theater movement in America.

1915-Nellie sees The Trojan Women in Seattle (she writes 1914), a touring production of the Chicago Little Theatre, directed by Maurice Browne starring Ellen Van Volkenburg. Makes a deep impression.

1917- Nellie hires Borgny Hammer, formerly of the Norwegian State Theatre, to teach acting for dancers. She produces a disastrous Peer Gynt. Costumes were borrowed from “a local Norwegian organization” -103- (Sons of Norway?). Hammer departs to Chicago to form Ibsen company.

1917-2- Nellie, in Chicago, asks Grace Hickox, teacher of speech and drama in the Fine Arts Building, to help find an artist “who could teach my dancers to tell a story in pantomime.” -105- Hickox shows the letter to Browne and Van Volkenburg.

1918-May-Browne and Van Volkenburg accept positions at the Cornish school.

1918-2-summer- Theater Department formed, drama offered in its own right, not as “an adjunct to our dancing classes.” -109- one-act plays by Synge, Masefield, and Björnson performed.

1918-3- Marionette Department, adjunct to theater, founded by Van Volkenburg, who had pioneered modern puppetry at the Chicago Little Theater.

1919-Moroni Olsen hired as teacher of speech.

1920- As Cornish plans its new building, the School options a lot on 5th Avenue in downtown Seattle; as money tightens, it is decided to instead build a theater into the new school building.

1920-2-spring- Brownes leave Cornish for New York.

1921- Brownes return to Cornish on condition that the School form a professional repertory company” -124- in the new theater. May: the Cornish Repertory Company is formed in the Cornish “Little Theatre.” The company, which included the Brownes, Moroni Olsen, Byron Foulger, Janet Young, and Robert Bell, opened with Shaw’s The Philanderer and Ibsen’s A Doll’s House with Van Volkenburg as Nora, Aria da Capo, and the American premiere of Paul Claudel’s The Tidings Brought to Mary. The verse drama Mr. Faust premieres on the Cornish stage and goes on to New York.

1921-2-Browne leaves Cornish for good, replaced by Samuel J. Hume director of the Berkeley Greek Theatre and on the faculty of UCB. Ellen Van Volkenburg continues to teach regularly in the summer session.

1928-Herbert Gellendré, one time assistant to Boleslawski, becomes head of Drama Department.

1930-Jean Mercier, a Swiss connected with Copeau at the Thêatre du Vieux-Colombier, takes over as director of the Drama Department; puts on Seven Against Thebes., with entre-actes choreographed by Martha Graham.

 

— MMB