The Theatre Guild was a theatrical society founded in New York City in 1918 for the production of high-quality, noncommercial American and foreign plays. The guild, founded by Lawrence Langner (1890–1962), departed from the usual theatre practice in that its board of directors shared the responsibility for choice of plays, management, and production. The first two seasons, which included plays by Jacinto Benavente, St. John Ervine, John Masefield, and August Strindberg, demonstrated the artistic soundness of the plan.
Following the world premiere of George Bernard Shaw’s Heartbreak House in 1920, the guild became Shaw’s American agent, producing 15 of his plays, including world premieres of Back to Methuselah and Saint Joan. Eugene O’Neill’s long association with the guild began with its production of Marco Millions in 1928. Other American authors whose works were produced by the guild included Sidney Howard, William Saroyan, Maxwell Anderson, and Robert Sherwood—all Pulitzer Prize winners.
Many distinguished actors appeared in Theatre Guild productions, including Helen Hayes in Caesar and Cleopatra and Alla Nazimova in Mourning Becomes Electra. Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt first acted as a team there in Ferenc Molnár’s Guardsman and went on to act together in many other notable guild productions, such as Arms and the Man and The Taming of the Shrew.
The Theatre Guild contributed significantly to American musical theatre by producing George Gershwin and DuBose Heyward’s Porgy and Bess and by bringing Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II together for such collaborations as Oklahoma! Continue reading from Encyclopedia Britannica
Lawrence Langner Biography (The Westport Library)
List of the Theatre Guild's Broadway Productions (Internet Broadway Database)
Theatre Guild Production Photographs (Bryn Mawr Archives)
Theatre Guild Records, 1949-1952 (New York Public Library Archives)
Theatre Guild Archive (Archives at Yale)
During the 1930s, internal division within the Guild led to the development of competing, splinter groups, such as the Group Theatre and The Playwrights' Company, and, ultimately, the reorganization of the Guild itself. By 1939, the Theatre Guild had become a leaner organization, with Langner and Helburn replacing the board and now functioning as co-directors. Buoyed by the financial success of the musical, Oklahoma! (1943), the Guild would begin several initiatives during the 1940s to reach a broader audience. Among these efforts were the implementation of a national subscription theater service and the regular broadcast of a radio program, The Theatre Guild on the Air (1945). In 1953, the radio program was transformed into a television show, The United States Steel Hour. This prize-winning anthology series was broadcast for twelve seasons. During the 1960s, the Guild grew increasingly involved with international touring and became a pioneer in arranging travel tours for its subscribers. By the 1970s, however, the Guild rarely produced any shows for the Broadway theater, although its corporate identity continued to exist in some form. In 1975, it launched the Theatre At Sea cruises, an annual offering, which continues to the present day. Continue reading from Social Networks and Archival Context
