Forgotten Broadway: The Selected Plays of Rachel Crothers: He and She; A Little Journey; Mary the Third; Let Us Be Gay

This collection brings Rachel Crothers’ best plays back into the public eye, outside of archives, to prove their continued relevance to life in the 21st century.

Rachel Crothers was considered in her own time to be ＂the most famous woman playwright in America＂ (Charles E. Barnum, Sunday Morning Star). At her peak, 26 of her plays graced Broadway and touring stages, on par with Eugene O’Neill’s record, and Hollywood adapted more than half of those for the silver screen, making her one of the most prominent playwrights of the early 20th century.

Forgotten Broadway is the first edited collection of plays by Crothers, demonstrating her impressive accomplishments as a writer-director during one of the most important periods of Broadway history. Known by her contemporaries as an ＂all-around woman of the theatre＂ due to her double duty as a writer and practitioner, despite all her successes, her plays have fallen out of print and are rarely produced in any theatrical setting.

The issues raised in plays such as He and She (1911), Mary the Third (1923), Let Us Be Gay (1929) and A Little Journey (1918) concern career versus motherhood/parenthood, marriage, the double standard, and generational divisions, providing representations that audiences today understand and appreciate.

This is a landmark play collection from one of the most celebrated female theatre practitioners of the 20th century.

Rachel Crothers (1878-1958) was an American playwright whose works, which were highly successful commercially, reflected the position of women in American society more accurately than those of any other dramatist of her time. Among theatre historians, she is generally recognized as ＂the most successful and prolific woman dramatist writing in the first part of the 20th century.＂

Karin Maresh is an associate professor in the Department of Communication Arts at Washington & Jefferson College, US, the current department chair for Communication Arts, and is the advisor to the Student Theatre Company and the College’s chapter of Alpha Psi Omega, the national honorary theatre society. She teaches a variety of courses including theatre history, film, gender and women’s studies, American studies, and acting. Additionally, she directs stage productions for the department, including musicals such as Avenue Q and Urinetown as well as dramas like Dancing at Lughnasa. Dr. Karin’s primary areas of interest include Irish theatre, particularly the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, women in theatre and film, American theatre, and musical theatre.