Maurice Brown, circa 1918

Maurice Browne (12 February 1881 – 21 January 1955) was a man of the theatre in the United States and the United Kingdom. A poet, actor and theatre director, he has been credited, along with his then-wife Ellen Van Volkenburg, as the founder of the Little Theatre Movement in America through his work with the Chicago Little Theatre.[1]

Life

He was born in Reading, England, the son of the Rev. Frederick Herbert Browne, a graduate of Wadham College, Oxford and head of Ipswich School, and his wife Frances Anne Neligan, daughter of the Rev. Maurice Neligan D.D.[2][3][4] He was educated at Temple Grove School and Winchester College.[5] In 1894 his father committed suicide, leaving four children. Frances moved to Eastbourne to run a school, and Maurice moved to Eastbourne College. From there he won a scholarship to Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he matriculated in Michaelmas Term 1900, having first joined up to the British Army and spent time in South Africa during the Second Anglo-Boer War. He graduated B.A. in 1903.[6][7]

At Cambridge Browne struck up a friendship with Louis Wilkinson.[8] He belonged to a poetic coterie with Harold Monro who became a close friend, Guy Noel Pocock and Herman Leonard Pass.[9][10][11] He wrote no more poetry once he graduated.[2] In 1904 Browne was teaching at St. Paul's School, Darjeeling.[7]

On his return to London, Browne became involved in printing and publishing. As a small press publisher he concentrated on verse.[7][12] He ran the Samurai Press (active 1907–1909) with Harold Monro, who had married his sister Dorothy in 1901 (they divorced 1916); the name referenced A Modern Utopia by H. G. Wells.[13]

Meeting Ellen Van Volkenburg at Florence when travelling in Italy, Browne went to Chicago to marry her in 1912. That year they adapted a space in the Fine Arts Building to create the Chicago Little Theatre.[14] They ran it for five years.[15] They went on to found the department of drama at the Cornish School in Seattle in 1918.[16]

Browne's greatest triumph came in 1929 when he produced Journey's End, by R. C. Sherriff in London.[17] The production was also highly profitable for him. He was able to invest in stakes in the Globe Theatre and Queen's Theatre in London's West End.[18]

References

  1. ^ Browne, Maurice. Too Late to Lament: An Autobiography. London, Gollancz, 1955, p. 128.
  2. ^ a b Harbin, Billy J.; Marra, Kim; Schanke, Robert A. (2005). The Gay & Lesbian Theatrical Legacy: A Biographical Dictionary of Major Figures in American Stage History in the Pre-Stonewall Era. University of Michigan Press. pp. 73–76. ISBN 978-0-472-06858-6.
  3. ^ Foster, Joseph (1888–1892). "Browne, Rev. Frederick Herbert" . Alumni Oxonienses: the Members of the University of Oxford, 1715–1886. Oxford: Parker and Co – via Wikisource.
  4. ^ "Marriages". Berkshire Chronicle. 4 January 1879. p. 8.
  5. ^ "Browne, Maurice". Who's Who. A & C Black. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  6. ^ Hibberd, D. (13 February 2001). Harold Monro: Poet of the New Age. Springer. p. 15. ISBN 978-0-230-59578-1.
  7. ^ a b c "Browne, Frederick Maurice (BRWN899FM)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  8. ^ Powys, John Cowper; Gregg, Frances (1994). The Letters of John Cowper Powys to Frances Gregg. Cecil Woolf. p. 235. ISBN 978-0-900821-99-8.
  9. ^ Grant, Joy. Harold Monro and the Poetry Bookshop. University of California Press. p. 9.
  10. ^ "Pocock, Guy Noël (PCK899GN)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  11. ^ "Pass, Herman Leonard (PS894HL)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  12. ^ Kabatchnik, Amnon (2010). Blood on the Stage, 1925-1950: Milestone Plays of Crime, Mystery, and Detection : an Annotated Repertoire. Scarecrow Press. p. 233. ISBN 978-0-8108-6963-9.
  13. ^ Hibberd, Dominic. "Monro, Harold Edward (1879–1932)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/35071. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  14. ^ Pinkerton, Jan; Hudson, Randolph H. (2009). Encyclopedia of the Chicago Literary Renaissance. Infobase Publishing. p. 353. ISBN 978-1-4381-0914-5.
  15. ^ Wilmeth, Don B.; Bigsby, Christopher (28 July 1999). The Cambridge History of American Theatre. Vol. II. Cambridge University Press. p. 10. ISBN 978-0-521-65179-0.
  16. ^ Cornish, Nellie C. Miss Aunt Nellie: The Autobiography of Nellie C. Cornish, Ellen Van Volkenburg Browne and Edward Nordhoff Beck, eds. Seattle, University of Washington, 1964, p. 109.
  17. ^ Browne, Maurice. Too Late to Lament: An Autobiography. London, Gollancz, 1955, pp. 306-309.
  18. ^ Duberman, Martin B. (1989). Paul Robeson. London: Bodley Head. p. 122. ISBN 0370305752.

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