Sisters Irene and Alice Lewisohn were unmarried, wealthy and
refined in 1905. The young Jewish women became
involved with Lillian D. Wald’s Henry Street Settlement as volunteers in club
activities. Wald, along with another nurse, Mary M. Brewster, had established
the organization on the Lower East Side to provide social services and nursing to
the impoverished residents. Their work,
heavily funded by the generosity of banker Jacob Schiff who also donated a
building, had branched out to include club activities like crafts, music, drama and
painting.
The Lewisohn women were highly interested in the stage. Alice had been trained in acting and Irene
had studied “expressive gesture.” They brought this focus to Henry Street and
initially formed a dramatic dance group which performed in festivals. The New York Times noted in 1915 “During the last
eight years, the festival groups of the Henry Street Settlement have presented
seasonal festivals and pantomimes in the gymnasium.” They hoped to bring pride and
self worth to the impoverished youngsters through creative expression.
In 1912 the women organized the Dramatic Club, presenting
cutting edge plays such as The Shepard by Olive Tilford Dargan, and The
Silver Box by John Galsworthy at Clinton Hall. The New York Times noted, “These productions reached a point where the development of the
players, the interest of the audiences, and the response of the neighborhood
seemed to demand the direction of [a] playhouse.”
On October 4, 1913, the Real Estate Record and Builders’
Guide reported that the Board of Examiners had approved plans for “Neighborhood
Hall,” a 300-seat auditorium designed by Harry Creighton Ingalls and E. F.
Burrall Hoffman, Jr. The Lewisohn sisters funded the $60,000 project, located
at 466 through 470 Grand Street.
Although construction did not begin until April 1914, it was nearly
completed on January 25, 1915 when The New York Times described the structure.
The architecture of the playhouse was determined largely by the character of the original buildings in its neighborhood. The exterior is distinctly Georgian and the interior, while based on Georgian principles, is not intended to represent any particular style or period. The façade is of light red brick with marble trimmings. The third story, which sets back from the street, is of stucco. The entrance doors are green and the shutters of the windows green.
While it was nice to think that Ingalls & Hoffman were
inspired in their neo-Georgian style by the “original buildings in the
neighborhood,” it was more likely simply architectural fashion that directed
them. Neo-Georgian structures had been
appearing throughout the city for several years and, as a matter of fact, the
architects had designed the similar Little Theatre on West 44th Street in 1912. And The New York Times admitted later, “It is not unlike Winthrop Ames’s Little Theatre both as to the Colonial architecture
of its facade and the size and shape of its auditorium.”
The Lewisohn sisters intended their theater to follow the “Little
Theater” movement, which focused on experimental plays and intimate spaces—making
the audience nearly a part of the drama.
They were also highly involved in the design, introducing innovations
that outshone even the Broadway theaters.
Among these was the rear of the stage, constructed as a
quarter-dome. It enabled realistic sky
effects with no angles.
The New York Times was impressed with the multi-purpose third floor,
which it deemed “distinctive.”
Across the front runs a large rehearsal room, which will be used for occasional dances as well as for regular class work. This room can be divided by sliding doors into two huge dressing rooms, one of which in turn can be further subdivide by movable screens into as many dressing rooms as area required. Besides these, there are two individual dressing rooms.
The Neighborhood Playhouse would present “plays new to New
York audiences.” Weekends were
devoted to children’s programs, including the seasonal festivals, pantomime ballets
and “fairy plays.” The New York Times advised, “On Tuesdays,
Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays the offerings will consist of moving
pictures, playlets, camera talks, folk songs and dances, illustrated fairy
tales, marionettes and music, running continuously from 1:30 P.M. to 11 P.M. o’clock.” The price of admission was set at 5 and 10 cents during the
week, and 25 and 50 cents on weekends.
The theater opened on February 12, 1915 with Jephtha’s Daughter, written especially
for the occasion. Temperance: A Monthly Journal of the Church Temperance Society,
said the play was “woven out of the traditions of the neighborhood.” The journal pointed out that the
neighborhood residents and children were greatly involved.
For, while the tiny new theatre is complete in every detail of mechanical equipment, costumes, properties, music, orchestration, and acting are all attributable to the Henry street festival groups and dramatic clubs which from now on will be known as the Neighborhood Players.Tiny comrades pulled threads to make the fringe, costume designers and makers, fashioners of jewelry, painters and composers, musicians and seamstresses, producers and directors all contributed in varying degrees.
The Sun mentioned after opening night, “One of the interesting features of the production lay in the fact that the costumes and properties, designed by Esther Peck, were made by classes of the Neighborhood Playhouse
.
Neighborhood girls act in Jephtha's Daughter on opening night in costumes by Esther Peck -- The Survey, June 3 1916 (copyright expired) |
Critics were most impressed with the domed stage that
evening. The New York Times reported the next
morning “The use of the back wall of the stage, its white surface bathed in
blue light, made a wrinkle-less sky far superior to scores of skies professional
stages of Broadway have shown.”
Two weeks later George P. Baker, a drama professor at
Harvard University, arrived in New York specifically to inspect the stage. The New York Times reported on February 28,
1915, “Mr. Baker was greatly interested in the modern stage with which the
theatre is equipped, and particularly with its modification of the sky dome…As
it stands, it is a more effective sky than any other that shimmers in a
Broadway playhouse.”
Neighborhood women with wicker baby carriages gather to chat outside the playhouse in 1917 --from the collection of the Library of Congress |
The meager admission price and the cost of productions were
highly out of balance. On June 3, 1916 The Survey noted “The Neighborhood
Playhouse is, of course, not self-supporting…As a matter of information the
Neighborhood Playhouse incurs a deficit of something like $10,000 a year.” But the magazine was optimistic, saying the
shortfall “will be less with successive years.” The screening of motion pictures helped
greatly in closing deficit.
The American Hebrew
& Jewish Messenger explained the financial dynamics in two
sentences. “Financial worries, the
festering sore of every dramatic or art center in the country, never developed
in the case of the Playhouse. The
Lewisohn girls endowed it.”
The building offered more to the neighborhood than the
theater. Recreation reminded readers in 1916:
But the auditorium—even with such a roster of presentations—presents only a part of the Playhouse activities. On the roof is a playground, sunny and pure above the varied smells of Grand Street, where many happy days are spent by the children of the crowded neighborhood. A spacious room, which may be divided into two by the use of rolling partitions, is regularly used for the dancing classes and dramatic groups, working not only for production, but for the joy of the thing. Classes in designing, poster-drawing, stage sets and properties under skilled direction provide costumes, settings and properties for performances as a result of delightful hours spent in learning the craft.
Additional funds came from leasing the auditorium. In February 1916 it was the scene of meetings
of The Woman’s Peace Party, during which the members wrote a telegram to the congressmen of the district that read, “We urge you to vote against war
preparations at this session of Congress.
Such preparations are unnecessary, extravagant and dangerous to
democracy. They will forever destroy America’s
hope of starting a plan of world union which will end war.”
Later that year members of the Industrial New York Woman
Suffrage Party held a nighttime garden party on the roof. The New York Times reported, “there were songs
about labor and woman suffrage, led by Mrs. Laura Elliot. The entertainment closed with dancing and
refreshments.”
from the collection of the New York Public Library |
While these women’s groups attempted to change history, the
Lewisohn sisters continued to search for new works. On November 14 that year the season opened
with a new play by George Bernard Shaw, Great
Catherine. Two other so-far unstaged
plays, The Inca of Perusalem and Lord
Dunsany’s The Queen’s Enemies were
scheduled for later that season.
The success of the venue was such that in 1917 the Lewisohn
sisters purchased the abutting 8 Pitt Street. The Record and Guide reported on March 10
that Ingalls & Hoffman had been brought back to design the “alteration and
addition” to the Playhouse. The resulting
expansion housed additional dressing rooms, classrooms, studios and rehearsal
space.
By now the list of famous guest stars that had appeared with
the local players was impressive. Among
them were Ellen Terry, Gertrude Kingston, Ethel Barrymore, Emanuel and Hedwig
Reicher, David Bispham and Eric Blind. Despite
the fame of the headliners, the audiences in the packed house continued to be charged the
same admission.
Cutting-edge playwrights also made their mark on the
Neighborhood Playhouse. Several of Lord Dunsany’s
plays premiered here. In 1917 playwright Constance D’Arcy Mackay noted in her The Little Theatre in the United States that the Neighborhood Players had staged the first production of his A Night at the Inn, “termed
by many critics the greatest one-act play written by any author in the last ten
years.”
Earlier that year, in January, trouble came when police
raided a Sunday performance and arrested Bessie Kaplan, the treasurer, for
violating the Sabbath law. The law
prohibited Sunday entertainments “which are serious interruptions of the repose and
religious liberty of the community.”
(The law did not take into account the fact that the Jewish Sabbath was
on Saturday, not Sunday; and that the majority of the neighborhood residents were
Jewish.) On January 30 Lillian Wald and
one of the Lewisohn sisters appeared before Magistrate Breen in the Essex
Market Court.
Lillian testified that the shows were solely charitable and
philanthropic and told the judge that the theater was not for profit, “but
shows a deficit of some $12000 to $16,000 a year.” The New York Times reported, “Miss Lewisohn
testified to the character of the play and the playhouse. Miss Lewisohn stated that she and her sister
had in the past paid the deficit.”
It was not until March 2 that the magistrate made his
decision. Breen announced that the
Playhouse could continue to give performances on Sunday, saying “that neither
the repose nor the religious liberty of the community in question was in any
way interrupted.”
The year 1919 started out badly and ended well for the Neighborhood
Playhouse. One of the students in Irene
Lewisohn’s dance class was 13-year-old Rose Batkin. That spring, jewelry and purses began
disappearing from the coat room. In an
effort to trap the thief, Irene and another instructor, Mabel Moore, planted a
purse in Mabel’s coat. Through amateur
covert surveillance, they watched Rose handle the coat, after which the purse disappeared.
Irene Lewisohn questioned Rose, and then visited her mother,
“in the true interests of the child,” as Irene worded it. Irene soon found that apples do not fall far
from trees.
Jennie Batkin sued Irene for $10,000 in damages for slanderous
statements, saying, “Miss Lewisohn called her daughter a thief and accused her
of stealing the purse.” The case went
to court on May 31. Jennie Batkin’s
scheme to make quick money backfired. That afternoon The Evening World reported “Miss Irene Lewisohn, society
woman and banker’s daughter…was to-day awarded a judgement [sic] of $108.45
against Mrs. Jennie Batkin.” The court
found that Irene had not made public accusations and there was no slander. Mrs. Batkin was, therefore, forced to pay Irene’s
legal bills.
Later that year Lord Dunsany sailed from England to see his work
performed in the little theater.
On October 17, 1919 The New York Times reported “Lord Dunsany last night
visited the Neighborhood Playhouse in Grand Street the scene of the first presentation
of a Dunsany play in America, and was the centre of an interested and excited
audience which saw ‘The Queen’s Enemies' and 'A Night at an Inn,’ played again
in the playwright’s honor.”
Alice Lewisohn (right) played the title role in Lord Dunsany's The Queen's Enemies --from the collection of the New York Public Library |
The newspaper reminded readers that the first Dunsany play
ever produced in America, The Glittering
Gate had been performed here nearly five years earlier. “Dunsany, who has seen his plays acted only
upon rare occasions, was apparently vastly delighted by the experience, and
paid tribute to the Neighborhood Players in speech in which he said that ‘A
Night at an Inn,’ as acted by them was a far more powerful play than he had
imagined it.”
On October 11, 1920 the auditorium was the scene of a far
less joyful event. A memorial service
for the Henry Settlement’s greatest benefactor, Jacob H. Schiff, was held
here. More than 400 people crowded into
the little theater. Among the speakers,
of course, was Lillian Wald. She told “of
the effort and expense to which he had gone in establishing the settlement and
of the great amount of energy he expended in trying to broaden its scope so
that the boys and girls of New York might be aided in learning and in having a
proper place to study.”
In 1925 the Playhouse made a social and political statement
about a hot topic—censorship—with its production of Grand Street Follies. The New York Times critic Stark Young on June 21
described, “A clean-up committee drawn from society, ex-choruses, plumbers and professional
vice-hunters, looks into the dark evil that may lurk in Movies, Roadhouses, Restoration
Drama, War Plays, Opera and all golden pleasure. The personnel of censoring committees comes
in of satire, the whole scheme is laid open, blown into the air, danced from
bright toes, laughed at, spanked and presented with its diploma of asininity.”
At the very height of its popularity, the Neighborhood Playhouse
stopped presenting plays. The New York
Times deemed, “It was, in a way, killed by its own success.” On
September 21, 1938 the newspaper added, “Its successor, the Neighborhood
Playhouse School of the Theatre, still goes on, influencing our drama less directly
but probably just as powerfully.”
Throughout the next decades the Neighborhood Playhouse
building would continue to house the performing arts. In 1948 it became home to the dance company
and school founded by Alwin Nikolais. It
remained here until 1970. Later it
became the New Federal Theatre. The Playhouse has come full circle and is today
the Abrons Arts Center, the performing and visual arts program of the Henry
Street Settlement.
photographs by the author
photographs by the author
Thanks for filling in my gaps about this historic building on my own street!
ReplyDeleteOne clarification: the post makes it sound as if the memorial service held there for Jacob Schiff was "the" primary memorial service held for him. That would have been unlikely, given his stature and given the number of people who would have been expected to attend. In fact, many organizations held memorial services, and the main one seems to have been at Temple Emanu-El on Fifth Avenue; see, e.g., the four references at
https://books.google.com/books?id=rIflAAAAMAAJ&lpg=PA246&ots=H4f1BaiqeC&dq=jacob%20schiff%20memorial%20service&pg=PA246#v=onepage&q=jacob%20schiff%20memorial%20service&f=false