Item Details

NY, Provincetown Playhouse, 1924, Disbound

First, VG

[Theatre Broadside] 1924 Original Broadside PROVINCETOWN PLAYHOUSE Greenwich Village FASHION! Life in N.Y.

Item is a 28” long x 6” wide original 1924 theatre broadside letterset in the mode of 19^th playbills. It advertises the opening of the revival of a 1845 American comedy Fashion! Or Life in N.Y. by Anna Cora Mowatt.

History of PROVINCETOWN PLAYHOUSE:

In 1918, in the heart of Greenwich Village, forever changing the landscape of American theater. The PROVINCETOWN PLAYHOUSE, a venue at 133 MacDougal Street, hosted its first performance. Founded by a group of artists including playwrights, directors, and actors in Provincetown, MA in 1915, the Provincetown Playhouse grew to become more than just a theater; it was a sanctuary for experimental and avant-garde theatre. The group originated as a gathering of writers and artists, most of whom spent summers in Provincetown, MA. They began to have play readings composed by the artists who were vacationing together. The first staging was on July 15, 1915, on the veranda of a rented ocean-view cottage. Initially led by George Cram Cook and John Reed, the Provincetown Players moved to New York City that fall of 1916 and turned the first-floor parlor of an apartment at 139 Macdougal Street, an 1840 row house, into a theatre. The group quickly found purchase and the initial space proved to be too small in short order. Three doors away at 133 MacDougal Street was an old stable that had recently been used as a bottling plant. The Players rented it for $400 a month and put in a scenery shop and dressing rooms in the basement and offices upstairs. Benches that could seat up to 200 were installed facing a stage.