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Creator
Neighborhood Playhouse (New York, N.Y.)
Call number
MssCol 2112
Physical description
.4 linear feet (1 box)
Language
Some correspondence in French and Italian; English
Preferred Citation

Neighborhood Playhouse Records, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library.

Repository
Manuscripts and Archives Division
Access to materials
Request an in-person research appointment.

The collection consists chiefly of correspondence received by Alice and Irene Lewisohn, creators of the Neighborhood Playhouse, a theater and teaching facility for dance and drama that began as part of the Henry Street Settlement on New York City's Lower East Side.

Biographical/historical information

Philanthropist sisters Alice (1883-1972) and Irene (1892-1944) Lewisohn founded the Neighborhood Playhouse in 1915 as a home for the Neighborhood Players, an amateur acting troupe for adults and children at the Henry Street Settlement on New York City's Lower East Side. The Players participated in pageants and festivals sponsored by the Settlement and produced plays that highlighted the ethnic diversity of the neighborhood.

In 1914, the Lewisohns bought a lot on the corner of Grand and Pitt Streets and donated it to the Settlement as the site of a new theater that would provide better performance space and teaching facilties. The Neighborhood Playhouse opened in 1915, showing both motion pictures and theatrical performances. By 1920, professional actors had replaced the amateurs and the Playhouse became renown for its experimental and avant-garde productions, often incorporating dance, music, and poetry, and for its popular revue, "The Grand Street Follies."

The Playhouse officially closed in 1927. However, under the general management of Helen F. Ingersoll, the company began producing plays on Broadway. In addition, the Lewisohn sisters and Rita Wallach Morganthau established the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in 1928. The School is still in operation at 340 East 54th Street.

Scope and arrangement

The Neighborhood Playhouse Records is a small collection consisting chiefly of letters received by the Lewisohns and Helen Ingersoll from prominent playwrights, actors, and theater critics as well as students and audience members. With the exception of the letters from actresses Yvette Guilbert and Eugenie Leontovich, there are generally no more than one or two letters per correspondent. Some letters are addressed to Playhouse collaborators Elise Lathrop, Gertrude Kingston, and Helen McDowell. Many of the letters express appreciation for Playhouse productions, particularly The Silver Box by John Galsworthy (1913), Salut au Monde, based on poems by Walt Whitman (1922), and Bitter Oleander, a translation of Bodas de Sangre by Federico García Lorca (1934-1935). Some letters have little content and were clearly retained for their autographic value.

In addition to the letters, there are a few carbon copies of the Lewisohns' outgoing correspondence and two holograph playscripts, The Touch of Pan by Algernon Blackwood and The Green Ring by Zinaida Gippius, which was produced by the Playhouse during the 1921-1922 season.

The Neighborhood Playhouse records are arranged in two series:

Administrative information

Source of acquisition

Gift of Alice Lewisohn Crowley, 1947.

Processing information

Compiled by Valerie Wingfield; revised by Melanie Yolles; machine readable finding aid created by FAKER.

Related Material

Neighborhood Playhouse Archives. The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. 340 E 54th St. New York, NY 10022-5017.

Additional materials concerning the Neighborhood Playhouse can be found in the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, Music Division, and Billy Rose Theatre Collection of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts 40 Lincoln Center Plaza New York, N.Y. 10023-7498

Using the collection

Location

Manuscripts and Archives Division
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, New York, NY 10018-2788
Brooke Russell Astor Reading Room, Third Floor, Room 328