1

The Neighborhood Playhouse began with the experiments of Alice and Irene

Lewisohn at the Henry Street Settlement House in the early twentieth century. The

position of the settlement house, on the Lower East Side of New York, was an ideal

location for the young women to begin their creative process. They taught classes to aid

immigrants in their transition to America and used those classes to explore the cultures of

those involved with the settlement while experimenting with new forms of theatrical

expression. Their exploration of theatre grew quickly, and the sisters built the

Neighborhood Playhouse. Their experiments and creativity continued to expand at the

new Playhouse, but discrepancies arose between the intended artistic vision and the

interests of the production staff. These disagreements eventually caused the closing of the

Neighborhood Playhouse in 1927.

Alice Lewisohn (c.1884-1972) began work at the Henry Street Settlement House

around 1905, and her sister Irene (1896-1944) soon followed. “Those hopeless eyes of

pushcart vendors” that comprised their first visit to Henry Street with their father created

a “social conscience” within and drew them to work with the settlement, as Alice

remembers in her book The Neighborhood Playhouse. 1 This record of the Neighborhood

Playhouse effectively evokes not only the productions performed at the settlement and

later the playhouse, but also the private thoughts of the sisters in their theatrical

experiments.

Alice and Irene followed their father's lead in a concern for the lives of

“disenfranchised” human beings rather than paying tribute to the infamous industrial

society of the time.2 Drawn simultaneously towards social work and the arts, the sisters
1 Alice Lewisohn Crowley. The Neighborhood Playhouse (Theatre Art Books, New York, 1959), 9.
2 Ibid.
 2

questioned how to include artistic expression in the settlement house environment.3 Soon

the Lewisohns adopted the mission to aid in “aesthetic self-development” of the Henry

Street community and formed classes to teach theatrical disciplines to its members.4

The Lewisohns used their classes to address the spiritual, social and artistic needs

of the children involved with Henry Street.5 Alice Lewisohn recalls the classes:

From the moment free games gave way to rhythmical movement and relating in a purely
imaginative way to the myths, the pandemonium that usually climaxed the game and work
period subsided into a calm and reverent mood. The myths we told in the story hour,
combined with rhythmic movement and song, had the effect of a magic potion, charming
the eager and soothing the wild.6

Their classes promoted the settlement's emphasis on developing imagination and

creativity.7

By conducting their theatrical experiments in classes at Henry Street, the

Lewisohns avoided the conventions imposed by commercial and professional theatre.

They were untouched by the sexual display expected in professional musical theatre of

the time.8 Working with Henry Street also allowed them to explore a new form of

expressive dance rather than using typical theatrical dance of the period.9 The sisters did

storytelling for the settlement and gradually added song and dance to their myths.10 They

taught rhythmic movement to their students and noted the “reverence” when adding this

movement to the storytelling.11 Using dance and pantomime to interpret the myths and

stories led to the famous Henry Street Festivals and further exploration of lyric drama that
3 Crowley xii.
4 Oliver Sayler. “The Neighborhood Playhouse” (Theatre Arts 6, 1922) 16.
5 Linda Tomko. Dancing Class: Gender, Ethnicity and Social Divides in American Dance (Indiana
University Press, Bloomington, IN, 1999) 94.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
8 Tomko 103.
9 Tomko 134.
10 Tomko 92.
11 Ibid.
 3

became a staple concept at the Neighborhood Playhouse.12

During these early years at Henry Street, the Lewisohns built the audience that

would follow them to the Neighborhood Playhouse. The classes, festivals and folk dance

pervaded the entire community “both esthetically and socially”.13 They provided a

common ground for the people of the Henry Street community despite differences in

culture and religion. These creative opportunities united them in their transition to an

American identity.

The festivals created at Henry Street ignited the “spark” that later became the

driving force of the Neighborhood Playhouse.14 Alice Lewisohn wrote: “[They] would

have no reason to be mentioned had they not held the core of the later festivals or lyric

productions at the Playhouse.”15 These festivals were seasonal and using dance, song and

pantomime combined Jewish religious rituals with American celebrations.16

The Lewisohns produced the first festival, titled Three Impressions of Spring, in

1905. The festival combined perceptions of spring through the eyes of a Japanese, a

Hindu, and a Greek child. The festival explored the annual springtime celebrations and

ceremonies of the three cultures and interrelated them with the “death-and-resurrection

motif” that existed in each.17 Children at the settlement heard myths and stories of spring

in preparation for the festival and constructed their costumes. This first audience

consisted mostly of parents. Later festivals had themes dealing with Biblical stories

including Passover and Chanukah. The Chanukah, or midwinter festival, centered upon

12 Lillian Wald. Windows on Henry Street (Little, Brown & Company, Boston, 1934) 166.
13 Sayler 19.
14 Crowley 20.
15 Ibid.
16 Tomko 93.
17 Tomko 93.
 4

the symbol of light found in the Christmas tree, Chanukah lamp, Yule log, Chinese

lantern and many other midwinter symbols.18

In 1913 the Lewisohns presented a street pageant in honor of the twentieth

anniversary of the Henry Street Settlement. The pageant focused on the social history of

the area and began with the purchase of Manhattan.19 Subsequent episodes showed

generations of the different groups that called the neighborhood home.20 The pageant had

a cast of five hundred and included settlement members of all ages.21 The presentation

united the community and enlisted services from the power company, schools and fire

department.22 Ten thousand people came to the streets, roofs, windows and stoops to

witness the pageant, which Alice Lewisohn later described as “a wholly unconscious and

stirring tribute.”23

From the festivals and pageant developed a group of dancers that soon became

known as the Festival Dancers. Irene Lewisohn made the training of this group her

specialty. She choreographed for the group and pulled students from her dance classes to

be members.24 The lyric programs developed further with the Festival Dancers. Irene

worked with inspiration driven by the “vision of the exact relationship between

movement and music”.25 The group focused on her inspiration and an ensemble of

dancers developed.26

In 1912, The Shepherd by Olive Tilford Dargan was the first play performed at
18 Crowley 19.
19 Crowley 13.
20 Ibid.
21 Ibid.
22 Crowley 14.
23 Crowley 15.
24 Crowley 20.
25 Crowley 21.
26 Ibid.
 5

Henry Street. Its action drew upon the revolutionary events in Russia and had special

meaning to many community members who were victims of the oppression and had

immigrated to America to escape the conflict in their mother country.27 The cast of The

Shepherd consisted of the adult members of the settlement along with a few unassociated

artists.28 Sarah LeMoyne, a personal friend, directed the production, and under her advice

the Lewisohns enlisted Agnes Morgan and Helen Arthur to aid in the technical side of the

production.29

The play was not an overall success for the group, but important lessons emerged

from the rehearsal process. Alice Lewisohn explained, “a play lives only through the

power of its characterization,” which The Shepherd lacked.30 The group that assembled

and survived the strenuous rehearsal process also learned that a play production is

“anything but a social function.”31 They, including LeMoyne, Morgan and Arthur,

continued their endeavors and produced five plays between 1913 and 1915.32 The group

became known as the Neighborhood Players.

The dramatic programs at Henry Street grew beyond the means of that institution,

and they moved to a theatre built on the corner of Grand and Pitt Streets. Despite this

move, the Lewisohns continued their relationship with the Henry Street Settlement

House. The settlement included the Neighborhood Playhouse under its charter, making it

a nonprofit activity.33 This status cleared the theatre from taxation and allowed it to hold

27 Crowley 30.
28 Crowley 30.
29 Crowley 31.
30 Crowley 32.
31 Crowley 33.
32 Tomko 96.
33 Crowley xx.
 6

Sunday performances.34

Building a playhouse was the first step in moving away from the homemade

environment of the settlement. The building functioned not only as a space in which to

further the production of the festivals and plays but also as “a center for the creative

expression of artist, craftsman, and student, not limited strictly to the neighborhood.”35 To

ensure the present and future needs of the theatre, those involved planned for months to

confirm sufficient rehearsal spaces, performance spaces, workshops, dressing rooms,

green room, offices and classrooms.36 Above all, the structure required flexibility to meet

the dashing growth of the organization.

The artistic vision of the Neighborhood Playhouse evolved to accompany the

changes from classes and activities of a settlement house to a professional theatre

company. The experiments conducted during the involvement at the Henry Street

Settlement led to the forming of the professional theatre and the development of the

artistic vision. In 1917, the artistic vision of the Playhouse held the dual purpose to bring

plays to the people of the settlement area and to give children of the settlement the

opportunity to perform, use imagination and a chance for emotional release.37 Alice

Lewisohn describes the artistic vision for the Playhouse after it became a professional

theatre:

34 Ibid.
35 Crowley 35.
36 Ibid.
37 Constance D'Arcy Mackay. The Little Theatre in the United States (Henry, Holt and Company, New
York, 1917) 54.
 7

We were searching for a root, or, one might say, a trail to blaze to that inner world of
reality which is the source of drama. We held the value and need of the lyric form, in
and of itself, as a stimulus to imagination, as well as in guiding us to mythological value
as, for example, through the early religious festivals and the Noh or later in Salut au
Monde and The Dybbuk. Our task seemed to lie in developing forms not of the
traditional theatre, which might be released with the simplicity of means.38

The artistic vision developed from bringing theatre to a certain public to bringing

a new form of theatre to the public.

Ensemble was an important principle in the development of Neighborhood

Playhouse productions. For the early amateur productions, names were not on the playbill

and there was no curtain call.39 A reviewer of Salut au Monde, performed at the

Neighborhood Playhouse in 1922, described the production's importance as “the

movement of the piece as a whole” rather than the individual actor.40 This statement holds

true for many productions done at the playhouse.

Lyric drama, an approach to theatre involving “privileged bodily movement and

choral vocalization in combination with speech,” became a Neighborhood Playhouse

trademark.41 These productions took the studies of myth, dance, music and ritual

conducted at the settlement and combined them to create a production for their current

audience. The best lyric drama productions include The Little Clay Cart in 1925 and

Dybbuk in 1926.

The Neighborhood Playhouse successfully found the universal idea in its

production of a foreign and ancient play, The Little Clay Cart.42 The music and lighting

created the mysterious mood for the production in the prelude and captured the essence of

38 Crowley 102.
39 Crowley 97.
40 Tomko 117.
41 Tomko 122.
42 Basanta Koomar Roy. “The Little Clay Cart” (Theatre Arts 9 1925) 87.
 8

India.43 The reviewer, an Indian, commented, “The only thing I did not like about it was

that it made me so frantically homesick.”44 The production combined the old and the new,

the myth of the play with ritual and dance. It was the first complete success for the

Playhouse in lyric drama.

The Little Clay Cart45

Dybbuk was also a lyric drama success for the Playhouse. A review in the New

York Nation in 1926 states: “The Dybbuk manages by means of the skillful use of

atmosphere and ritual to externalize the passion and tortured mysticism of the Medieval

Jew.”46 The play combined legend with ritual and song. Aline Bernstein designed the set

for the production. She used a suggestion of Jewish Gothic architecture for a “moodily

gloomy” atmosphere that paralleled the gloominess of the text.47

43 Roy 85.
44 Roy 86.
45 Roy 87.
46 Crowley xvi.
47 Carole Klein. Aline. (Harper & Row, New York, 1979.) 123.
 9

The Dybbuk48

These successful productions came near the end of the Neighborhood Playhouse's

existence. They were the result of years of experimentation that began at the Henry Street

Settlement and continued with the opening of the Playhouse. However, the Playhouse

moved very quickly from amateur to professional and then became a repertory theatre.

These rapid changes affected the work and life of the Playhouse. Each change had

problems that caused the next change. The artistic vision morphed and expanded to fit the

professional company, but the creativity involved in producing shows that fulfilled the

artistic vision was stifled by the repertory format.

The Neighborhood Playhouse opened as an amateur company and offered classes

and performance opportunities for children. The classes included dance, diction, choral

song, dramatic pantomime and festival production.49 On Saturday afternoons the children

performed and produced puppet plays that they wrote.50 The children involved with the

Playhouse were called the Junior Festival Players and each year presented a Christmas

48 The Dybbuk 59.

49 Crowley 52.
50 Crowley 51.
 10

performance that stemmed from the festivals created in earlier years at the settlement.51

The Neighborhood Playhouse maintained a busy schedule for an amateur

company. Tuesday through Thursday nights the Playhouse offered motion pictures while

company members rehearsed for new productions, and the shops built scenery and

costumes.52 The children's classes and productions occupied the Saturday morning and

afternoon slots while festivals and plays performed by the adult members played Saturday

and Sunday nights.53

Working with amateurs brought great difficulties to the Neighborhood Playhouse.

The Playhouse continued to improve production standards, but could only maintain a

certain level and still use amateurs.54 Since the amateurs worked full time jobs, a

rehearsal with full attendance could only be assured on Sunday.55 These problems

inhibited further development of the artistic vision, and the only solution was to form a

professional company.

The decision to form a professional company was inevitable, but the Playhouse

leaders remembered the Henry Street roots and continued to work with the community.

The lyric program was to be a combination of amateurs and professionals.56 The

Playhouse developed from the festivals and children's performances, and those aspects of

its formation were not forgotten. Another piece was simply added to further expand and

heighten the level of experimentation for the theatre.

In 1920 the core of the Neighborhood Players became a professional company at

51 Crowley 52.
52 Crowley 83.
53 Crowley 82.
54 Crowley 98.
55 Crowley 99.
56 Crowley 100.
 11

the Playhouse. They presented plays nightly, but the Festival Dancers continued to be an

amateur group that presented festivals throughout the year.57 There were ten members of

the professional group, and all had been previously involved with the playhouse.58 They

were paid annual salaries to take the roles offered to them. Although the players were

now a professional group, amateurs would still be used in their productions.

Initially there were many problems with becoming a professional company. The

amateur actors felt that their home was “invaded by an enemy.”59 The Lewisohns and

other staff member were accustomed to working with the enthusiasm and eager desire to

learn found in the amateurs, but the professionals presented inflexible techniques created

for Broadway.60 However, after weeks of rehearsal and the performances of their newly

opened play, The Mob, selling out, the amateurs and professionals became a single

“playhouse family.”61

The schedule for the Neighborhood Playhouse after the addition of a professional

company resembles the schedule of the amateur years except for the absence of the

motion pictures. The professional company performed nightly during the time the motion

pictures were previously played and two weekends per season remained for performances

of the Festival Dancers.62

The professional company caused the Playhouse to spend more money than in the

days of the amateur company, and the small house was unable to meet the production

costs.63 The Lewisohns decided to sell season subscriptions rather than relying on their
57 Tomko 110.
58 Crowley 172.
59 Crowley 99.
60 Crowley 104.
61 Crowley 107.
62 Sayler 17.
63 Crowley 109.
 12

typical neighborhood audience.64 The subscriptions added another area to the already

large “Playhouse family” but forced the Playhouse to ascribe to a definite schedule for the

season, which stopped extended runs for successful shows.65 Despite this disadvantage,

the playhouse kept the subscription audience due to the “loyalty and interest” of the

group.66

Although a subscription audience added to the income of the theatre, production

costs continued to be a problems as the artistic areas of the theatre needed more money to

further experiment and develop their styles. The Playhouse staff decided to test repertory,

which at least reduced the number of new productions each season.67

The repertory format brought more problems than benefits for the Playhouse. The

Neighborhood Playhouse had to meet union standards, which encroached upon the

creative process that was invaluable to the artistic vision of the theatre. Alice Lewisohn

complained that “rehearsals had become a luxury.”68 Directors were not allowed to touch

any object on the stage and rehearsals ran precisely by the clock.69 The Playhouse also had

to maintain performances of one production while creating a new one to form a rotating

repertory. The repertory necessitated a formal structure for a playhouse that thrived on the

informal and ambiguous.

The attempt to force a theatre that was formed from experimentation and free-

flowing creativity to follow the structured environment of repertory caused many

problems other than following union rules and maintaining productions. It caused

64 Crowley 109.
65 Ibid.
66 Ibid.
67 Crowley 219.
68 Cowley 220.
69 Ibid.
 13

inconsistencies in the artistic vision. The continuous conflicts between the needs of the

lyric style and drama escalated, and the artistic staff refused to stop exploring either lyric

forms or new styles of drama.70 The Playhouse also presented an inconsistency in

production styles. Lyric productions such as Dybbuk and The Little Clay Cart stood in

sharp contrast to the annual production of The Grand Street Follies, which imitated the

famous Ziegfeld Follies. These productions represented another inconsistency of the

artistic staff: the inability to choose to continue their original theatrical experimentation

or move to the theatre of popular demand.71 These inconsistencies combined with the

demand for more money and the necessity to “depart from the informal point of view”72

caused the closing of the Neighborhood Playhouse in 1927.

Although the Neighborhood Playhouse closed the doors forever in the late

twenties, it left a legacy of experimentation and creativity that is important to the

development of new forms of dramatic performance. Beginning as part of a settlement

house to aid in the transition of immigrants to Americans, the Lewisohns developed

festivals and pageants to provide a creative outlet for the community. These performances

culminated in the lyric drama performed in later years at the Neighborhood Playhouse.

Unfortunately the company grew artistically at a fast rate and the amateur company was

no longer compatible with needs of the Playhouse. The professional company caused a

need for more money that even the subscription audience could not fulfill. The move to

repertory was the final attempt to provide the money needed to continue the theatrical

experimentation. The repertory format caused problems ranging from a structured and

70 Crowley 21.
71 Tomko 130.
72 Wald 170.
 14

formal rehearsal process to increasing disagreements between the production staff and the

existing artistic vision. These discrepancies along with the newly acquired structure and

the need for more money caused the closing of the Neighborhood Playhouse.