The Group Theatre was founded in 1932 by Ormerod Greenwood, the dancer Rupert Doone, and others determined to revitalise the English Theatre. It set out to combine music, dance and poetry, to explore new collective ways of working, and to forge a social role for the performing arts. It attracted the interest, commitment and energy of writers, composers, dancers and actors as varied as John Allen, W.H. Auden, Benjamin Britten, T.S. Eliot, Tyrone Guthrie, Christopher Isherwood, Louis MacNeice, John Moody, Stephen Spender and W.B. Yeats.
The Group gave a platform to Auden and Isherwood's early theatrical experiments, including The Dog Beneath the Skin, The Ascent of F6 and On The Frontier, as well as Stephen Spender's Trial of a Judge and to Louis MacNeice's Out of the Picture. The Group's activities came to an end with World War II.
Purchased from A. Rosenthal, Ltd. in 1995.
Compiled by Judith Tydeman, with the Group's history from Michael Sidnell's volume.
The collection is catalogued.
The programme collection includes the following programmes for Group Theatre performances;
19 Nov 1935, Timon of Athens at the Westminster Theatre.
1 and 8 Nov 1936, The Agamemnon of Aeschylus at Westminster Theatre.
5 and 12 Dec 1937, Out of the Picture at Westminster Theatre.
14-19 Nov 1938, On the Frontier at The Arts Theatre Cambridge.
12 Feb 1939, On the Frontier at Globe Theatre.
27 Jun 1939 onwarrds, The Ascent of F6 at The Old Vic.
Also held are the following Left Theatre programmes;
4 Dec 1935 at Islington Town Hall and 8 Dec 1935 at the Phoenix Theatre, Easter 1916.
10 May 1936, Stay Down Miner at Westminster Theatre.
7 and 21 Mar [1937], Left Theatre Revue at Collin's Music Hall including 'Blimp's Parade' by Montagu Slater, music by Britten.
'Dances of Death; the Group Theatre of London in the thirties' by Michael Sidnell, Faber and Faber, London, 1984.
Archive
https://www.bpacatalogue.org/archive/MSC17
