Clare Tree Major (1880-1954) portrait circa 1915

Clare Tree Major (1880 – 10 October 1954) was a stage director, playwright, producer of children's theater, and actress. She first acted in London, but in 1914 she came to New York to perform with the

Washington Square Players The Washington Square Players (WSP) was a theatre troupe and production company that existed from 1915 to 1918 in Manhattan, New York City. It started as a semi-amateur Little Theatre then matured into a Repertory theatre with its own tourin ...

. She was the first British actress to tour America from coast to coast. From the 1920s on she worked exclusively on theater for children, writing plays and sending professional actors on tour to perform them.

Biography

Clare Tree Major was born in 1880 in England. She emigrated to the United States in 1914. In 1924, she started the Children's Theatre of New York The following year, she produced ''The Little Poor Man''. She founded the Clare Tree Major Theatre Company in 1927 in Pleasantville, New York.

Personal life

Clare Tree Major married publisher John D. Kenderdine; the couple resided in Westchester County, New York. She died on 10 October 1954 in Manhattan, aged 74.

Legacy

The Clare Tree Major papers, 1912-1954, are held in the

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress ...

References

External links

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''The Traveling Plays of Clare Tree Major'' at ERIC
Date of birth unknown 1880 births 1954 deaths 20th-century British actresses British stage actresses British dramatists and playwrights British women dramatists and playwrights British theatre directors British women theatre directors British emigrants to the United States People from Westchester County, New York {{UK-bio-stub