The Group Theatre

Helen Krich Chinoy became one of our most distinguished American theater scholars and devoted over three decades to her study of the Group Theatre. This was a natural extension of a number of earlier projects, including the seminal Actors on Acting (1949) and Directors on Directing (1953), both still in print and co-edited with Toby Cole, and Women in American Theatre (1981), edited with Linda Walsh Jenkins. A Columbia University PhD, Helen spent most of her career at Smith College, USA. After her retirement, she held the Hoffman Eminent Scholar Chair in Theatre at Florida State University and the Harold Clurman Professorship at Hunter College, USA. In 1989 the Association for Theatre in Higher Education awarded her its Career Achievement Award.

Introduction: A Cautionary Tale PART I: PEOPLE 1. The Chosen Ones 2. Summertime and the Living is Collective PART II: PERFORMANCE 3. Early Rehearsals 4. Early Classes 5. Lee Strasberg: Artist of the Theater 6. Strasberg versus Adler 7. Testing the Theatrical 8. Harold Clurman: Author of the Stage Production 9. Odets in Clurman's Theater PART III: POLITICS 10. Art That Shoots Bullets 11. Pro Unit is Pro Group 12. Premature Feminists and the Boys 13. Organization, Angels, and Audiences 14. Who is the Group Theater? Epilogue: Survival of an Idea