Phyl

PHYL is the story of Phyllis Chester, a passionate, feisty young woman desperate to break through the barriers that confine her, eager to find excitement, pleasure and happiness.

Cicely Hamilton (1872-1952) was an actor, an author and a crusader for women’s rights who believed that true progress requires recognizing woman “as a responsible human being with an individuality and interests of her own.” She wrote several plays tackling social issues.  But it was DIANA OF DOBSON’S that caught London’s eye and heart with its light touch and romantic bent in spite of its consideration of ‘serious issues.’  First performed in London in 1908, the play was “accepted as a true picture of the shop-assistant’s life,” to quote from a 1908 press clipping that, “convinced people that something should be done about it.”

On Friday, October 23rd at 7 PM, Mint will present a reading of DIANA OF DOBSON’S, introduced by J. Ellen Gainor of Cornell University, who suggested the play to us in 2001.

A Little Journey

“The Mint Theater Company, one of New York’s most admired Off-Broadway troupes, specializes in neglected plays that have slipped through the cracks. More often than not it comes up with gems, among the most notable of which was Rachel Crothers’s SUSAN AND GOD, first seen in 1937 and revived by the Mint to impressive effect in 2006. Now the company has gone back to the same well with an equally strong staging of another Crothers play, A LITTLE JOURNEY, which hasn’t been performed professionally in New York since it closed on Broadway in 1919—and guess what? It’s just as good.”¹

Rachel Crothers (1878-1958) was among America’s most successful and produced playwrights during the first three decades of the twentieth century. Nearly 30 of her plays opened on Broadway between 1906 and 1937.  “Although it rare now to find anyone who has heard of her,” wrote the New York Times in 1980, “Miss Crothers at the apex of her career was a symbol of success in the commercial theater.”

Susan and God

“Surprisingly up-to-date, fast-paced, and engaging,”¹ declared the New York Times of Rachel Crothers’ neglected masterwork, SUSAN AND GOD. The 2006 production reclaimed Crothers as the “first lady” of American playwrights and was awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts: Mint’s first.

RACHEL CROTHERS (1878-1958) was born in Bloomington, Illinois. When her mother embarked on a medical career, Crothers was sent to live with an aunt in Massachusetts. She learned early about the struggle to balance a career with family life. The lesson would prove a recurrent theme in her plays.

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