a mere amusing toy. What we want is the opportunity for our men and women, our boys and girls to get a chance to see the works of the greatest dramatists of modern times, as well as the classics, for their pleasure as well as their cultivation.... Young dramatists should have a theatre where they can see the ripe works of the masters and see them well acted at a moderate price. There should be in every city a theatre where we can see the best drama worthily treated."[8] Owing to war conditions, the Manchester project has had to be abandoned, and so, for the most part, have other similar enterprises. They rarely became self-supporting, but depended on subsidy of one kind or another, which under new economic conditions is no longer forthcoming. The Birmingham Repertory Theatre continues, however, under the direction of John Drinkwater, and has become famous through its production of his Abraham Lincoln. "John Drinkwater, I see, has recently defined a Repertory Theatre," writes William Archer, in his latest article on the subject, "as one which 'puts plays into stock which are good enough to stay there.'" Enlarging this definition, I should call it a theatre which excluded the long unbroken run; which presents at least three different programs in each week (though a popular success may be performed three or even four times a week throughout a whole season); which can produce plays too good to be enormously popular; which makes a principle of keeping alive the great drama of the past, whether recent or remote; which has a company so large that it can, without overworking its actors, keep three or four plays ready for instant presentation; which possesses an ample stage equipped with the latest artistic and labor-saving appliances; and which offers such comfort in front of the house as to encourage an intelligent public to make it an habitual place of resort.

"That there exists in every great American city an intelligent public large enough to support one or more such playhouses is to my mind indisputable. But the theatre might have to be run at a loss for two or three opening seasons, until it had attracted and educated its habitual supporters. For even a public of high general intelligence needs a certain amount of special education in things of the theatre." This testimony is in a highly optimistic vein.

A talk with B. Iden Payne, once director of the Manchester Players, reveals the fact that in England at the present time the repertory idea is being taken over with more promise of success by the small groups that represent the Little Theatre movement in that country. The repertory theatre there did succeed in arousing in the locality in which, for the time being, it existed an interest in intelligent plays, but it was not equally successful in confirming a distaste for unintelligent plays. The study of these experiments will repay Americans who are interested in seeing the repertory idea fostered over here by endowment or otherwise.

THE LITTLE THEATRE

The year 1911 saw the beginning in the United States of the Little Theatre movement, which has grown with phenomenal rapidity and has spread in all directions. The first Little Theatres in this country were located in large cities; but in the course of time the idea has penetrated to small towns and rural communities all over the United States. Barns, wharves, saloons, and school assembly halls have been transformed into intimate little playhouses. There were European precedents for this idea. The Théâtre Libre, opened in Paris in 1887 by André Antoine as a protest against the kind of play then in favor, is generally called the first of this type. In the years from 1887 to 1911 Little Theatres were opened in Russia, in Belgium, in Germany, in Sweden, in Hungary, in England, in Ireland, and in France. In Europe these theatres came into being, generally speaking, in order to give freer play to the new arts of the theatre or for the purpose of encouraging a more intellectual type of drama than was being produced in the larger houses.

There are two conceptions of the Little Theatre current in the United States. According to one, it is a theatrical organization housed in a simple building, that makes its productions in the most economical way, does not pay its actors, does not charge admission, and uses scenery and properties that are cheaply manufactured at home.

Twelfth Night on the stage of the Théâtre du Vieux Colombier, New York.

The Little Theatre is, however, more commonly conceived of as a repertory theatre supported by the subscription system, producing its plays on a small stage in a small hall, selecting for production the kind of play not likely to be used by the Commercial Theatre, most frequently the one-act play, and committed to experiments in stage decoration, lighting, and the other stage arts. The Little Theatre and the one-act play have developed each other reciprocally, for the Little Theatre has encouraged the writing of one-act plays in Europe and in this country. The one-act play is the natural unit of production in the Little Theatre, both because it requires a less sustained performance from the actors, who have frequently been amateurs, and because it has offered in the same evening several opportunities to the various groups of artists collaborating in the productions of the Little Theatre. Though the movement has had the effect of stimulating community spirit and has been the means of solving grave community problems, the Little Theatre is not, in the technical sense, a community theatre; in the sense, that is, in which Percy MacKaye uses the word. It is not, in fact, so portentous an enterprise, because it does not enlist the participation of every member of a community. The community theatre is an example of civic co-operation on a large scale; the Little Theatre, of the same kind of co-operation on a small scale.

Notably artistic results have been achieved by such Little Theatres as The Neighborhood Playhouse in New York, built in 1914 by the Misses Irene and Alice Lewisohn, in connection with the social settlement idea, to provide expression for the talents of a community that had been previously trained in dramatic classes for some years; by the Chicago Little Theatre, founded in 1911, now no longer in existence, but for a few years under the direction of Maurice Browne, a disciple of Gordon Craig's; by the Detroit Theatre of Arts and Crafts, once under the direction of Mr. Sam Hume, also a follower of Gordon Craig's; by the Washington Square Players, who during several seasons in New York gave a remarkable impetus to the writing of one-act plays in America; by the Provincetown Players, whose first productions were made on Cape Cod, who later opened a small playhouse in New York, and who gave the public an opportunity to know the plays of Eugene O'Neill; by the Portmanteau Theatre of Stuart Walker, that uses but one setting in its productions, but varies the effect with different colored lights, and as its name implies, is portable, one of the few of its kind in the world; by the 47 Workshop Theatre that has arisen as the result of the course in playwriting given at Harvard University by Professor George Pierce Baker, and the productions of which have served to introduce many new writers; and by the Théâtre du Vieux Colombier, that came to New York from Paris in 1917, and remained for two seasons to illustrate the best French practice. These theatres also enjoy