Provincetown Playwright: Play Analysis

The Provincetown Players’ primary purpose was to “give venue to American playwrights and new American plays, purposefully encouraging plays that would be in contrast to the melodramas and triangle-relationship plays they observed producers were presenting on Broadway.” (Provincetown Playhouse) Ultimately a group of dedicated amateurs, the Players expected and required that all their members be active participants in all aspects and roles of production, from playwrights, actor, and playreaders, to designers, stagehands, and business managers. (Sarlós) “The Provincetown Players was a most unusual organization in that it stood for theatre as collective creativity in which the person temporarily functioning as playwright served as a first among equals.” (Sarlós)
The Players did more than live up to this mission: they exceeded it. “Scholars of theatre and drama generally recognize the Provincetown Players as one of the most influential theatre groups in America,”(Black) Robert K. Sarlos has deemed the company “the single most fruitful American theatre prior to the Second World War: it introduced more native playwrights, had a greater impact on audiences and critics, and a longer life than any other similar group.” (Black) “We started out to write and act American plays,” said Mr. Cook. We aimed to write about people we knew and reflect truly the life that we knew. The writers were released by the principles of our organization from any influence of commercialism that might hamper their freedom, and it was up to them to make good.” (New York Tribune) …show more content…
Having chosen Cape Cod as their official summer getaway, “an habitual summer residence for artists and writers disillusioned with prevailing