Group Theatre (New York City)

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Group Theatre" New York City – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (August 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Group Theatre

The Group Theatre at Pine Brook Country Club in 1936
Formation	1931
Dissolved	1941
Type	Theatre group
Location	New York City
Artistic director(s)	Harold Clurman Cheryl Crawford Lee Strasberg
Notable members	Luther Adler Stella Adler Robert Ardrey Marc Blitzstein Roman Bohnen Phoebe Brand Joseph Bromberg Morris Carnovsky Lee J. Cobb Howard da Silva Leif Erickson Frances Farmer John Garfield Will Geer Michael Gordon Paul Green Elia Kazan Canada Lee Robert Lewis Eleanor Lynn Karl Malden Sanford Meisner Harry Morgan Ruth Nelson Clifford Odets John Randolph Don Richardson Martin Ritt Irwin Shaw Anna Sokolow Paul Strand Franchot Tone

The Group Theatre was a theater collective based in New York City and formed in 1931 by Harold Clurman, Cheryl Crawford and Lee Strasberg.^[1] It was intended as a base for the kind of theatre they and their colleagues believed in—a forceful, naturalistic and highly disciplined artistry. They were pioneers of what would become an "American acting technique", derived from the teachings of Konstantin Stanislavski, but pushed beyond them as well. The company included actors, directors, playwrights, and producers. The name "Group" came from the idea of the actors as a pure ensemble; a reference to the company as "our group" led them to "accept the inevitable and call their company The Group Theatre."^[2]

The New York–based Group Theatre had no connection with the identically named Group Theatre based in London and founded in 1932.

In the ten years of its existence, the Group Theatre produced works by many important American playwrights, including Clifford Odets, Sidney Kingsley, Paul Green, Robert Ardrey, and Irwin Shaw. Its most notable productions included Success Story starring Stella Adler and Luther Adler, Clifford Odets' Awake and Sing, Waiting for Lefty, Paradise Lost, and the 1937–38 Broadway hit Golden Boy, starring Luther Adler and Frances Farmer.

The Group Theatre included Harold Clurman, Lee Strasberg, Cheryl Crawford, Stella Adler (a founding member), Morris Carnovsky, Clifford Odets, Sanford Meisner, Elia Kazan, Harry Morgan (billed as Harry Bratsburg), Robert Lewis, John Garfield (billed as Jules Garfield), Canada Lee, Franchot Tone, Frances Farmer, Phoebe Brand, Ruth Nelson, Will Geer, Howard da Silva, Sidney Lumet, John Randolph, Joseph Bromberg, Michael Gordon, Paul Green, Marc Blitzstein, Paul Strand, Anna Sokolow, Lee J. Cobb, Roman Bohnen, Jay Adler, Luther Adler, Robert Ardrey, Don Richardson and many others.