Ellen Van Volkenburg (October 8, 1882 – December 15, 1978), born Nellie Van Volkenburg in

Battle Creek Battle Creek is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan, in northwest Calhoun County, at the confluence of the Kalamazoo and Battle Creek rivers. It is the principal city of the Battle Creek, Michigan Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), which encom ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

, was a leading actress, director, puppeteer and theater educator in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and the UK. Educated at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, Van Volkenburg has been credited, along with her then-husband Englishman

Maurice Browne Maurice Browne (12 February 1881 – 21 January 1955), born in Reading, England, was best known as a theater producer in the United States and the UK. The Cambridge-educated Browne was also a poet, actor, and theater director. He has been cred ...

, with being the founder of the

Little Theatre Movement As the new medium of cinema was beginning to replace theater as a source of large-scale spectacle, the Little Theatre Movement developed in the United States around 1912. The Little Theatre Movement served to provide experimental centers for the dra ...

in America through their work with the

Chicago Little Theatre A theater company formed in 1912, the Chicago Little Theatre spearheaded and lent its name to a historic, popular wave in American Theater, the Little Theatre Movement. Founded in its namesake city by Ellen Van Volkenburg and Maurice Browne, the co ...

. Van Volkenburg and Browne went on to found the department of drama at the

Cornish School Cornish College of the Arts (CCA) is a private art college in Seattle, Washington. It was founded in 1914. History Cornish College of the Arts was founded in 1914 as the Cornish School of Music, by Nellie Cornish (1876–1956), a teacher of p ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

in 1918, now

Cornish College of the Arts Cornish College of the Arts (CCA) is a private art college in Seattle, Washington. It was founded in 1914. History Cornish College of the Arts was founded in 1914 as the Cornish School of Music, by Nellie Cornish (1876–1956), a teacher of pi ...

.Cornish, Nellie C. ''Miss Aunt Nellie: The Autobiography of Nellie C. Cornish'', Ellen Van Volkenburg Browne and Edward Nordhoff Beck, eds. Seattle, University of Washington, 1964, p. 109. Although she divorced Maurice Browne in 1922, for much of her life she signed herself "Ellen Van Volkenburg Browne."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Van Volkenburg, Ellen People from Battle Creek, Michigan 1882 births 1978 deaths University of Michigan alumni