The feminist writer and editor Edna Kenton (1876ndash;1954) was elected to the Executive Committee of the Provincetown Players by 1916. This theatrical company, first to present the plays of Eugene O'Neill, rebelled against the commercialism of Broadway and gave unrecognized dramatists the opportunity to experiment. Kenton was a great admirer of company leader George Cram Cook, and when Cook died in Greece in the early 1920s, Kenton dedicated herself to upholding his vision of a Dionysian ideal in American theater. This is Kenton's original history of the influential theatre, from the first seasons at Provincetown in 1915 and 1916, to the final New York season in 1922. This invaluable eyewitness account has been edited from the most complete and latest version of Kenton's text, with consultation of earlier incomplete versions. Kenton transcribed many playbills into the text, and included others whole between the pages; the latter are included as illustrations. An appendix reprints Kenton's two periodical articles about the Provincetown Players and articles from the New York Herald, the Boston Globe, and the Boston Evening Transcript, as well as other memories of the Provincetown Players, including those of Marsden Hartley, Nina Moise, M. Eleanor Fitzgerald, and Djuna Barnes.

"In this work, Cheryl Black argues that Provincetown has another, largely unacknowledged claim to fame: it was one of the first theatre companies in America in which women achieved prominence in every area of operation. At a time when women playwrights were rare, women directors rarer, and women scenic designers unheard of, Provincetown's female members excelled in all these functions, making significant contributions to the development of modern American drama and theatre. In addition to playwright Glaspell, the company's female membership included the likes of poets Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mina Loy, and Djuna Barnes; journalists Louise Bryant and Mary Heaton Vorse; novelists Neith Boyce and Evelyn Scott; and painter Marguerite Zorach.".

A comprehensive history of the Provincetown Players and their influence on modern American theatre The Provincetown Players created a revolution in American theatre, making room for truly modern approaches to playwriting, stage production, and performance unlike anything that characterized the commercial theatre of the early twentieth century. In Staging America: The Artistic Legacy of the Provincetown Players, Jeffery Kennedy gives readers the unabridged story in a meticulously researched and comprehensive narrative that sheds new light on the history of the Provincetown Players. This study draws on many new sources that have only become available in the last three decades; this new material modifies, refutes, and enhances many aspects of previous studies. At the center of the study is an extensive account of the career of George Cram Cook, the Players’ leader and artistic conscience, as well as one of the most significant facilitators of modernist writing in early twentieth-century American literature and theatre. It traces Cook’s mission of “cultural patriotism,” which drove him toward creating a uniquely American identity in theatre. Kennedy also focuses on the group of friends he calls the “Regulars,” perhaps the most radical collection of minds in America at the time; they encouraged Cook to launch the Players in Provincetown in the summer of 1915 and instigated the move to New York City in fall 1916. Kennedy has paid particular attention to the many legends connected to the group (such as the “discovery” of Eugene O’Neill), and also adds to the biographical record of the Players’ forty-seven playwrights, including Susan Glaspell, Neith Boyce, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Floyd Dell, Rita Wellman, Mike Gold, Djuna Barnes, and John Reed. Kennedy also examines other fascinating artistic, literary, and historical personalities who crossed the Players’ paths, including Emma Goldman, Charles Demuth, Berenice Abbott, Sophie Treadwell, Theodore Dreiser, Claudette Colbert, and Charlie Chaplin. Kennedy highlights the revolutionary nature of those living in bohemian Greenwich Village who were at the heart of the Players and the America they were responding to in their plays.

Thirteen short plays by women that were originally produced by the Provincetown Players.

A study of the most influential theatre group of the twentieth century, the Provincetown Players.