Maurice Browne (12 February 1881 – 21 January 1955), born in

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of Letter (alphabet), letters, symbols, etc., especially by Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process invo ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, was best known as a theater producer 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. The Cambridge-educated Browne was also a poet, actor, and theater director. He has been credited, along with his then-wife

Ellen Van Volkenburg Ellen Van Volkenburg (October 8, 1882 – December 15, 1978), born Nellie Van Volkenburg in Battle Creek, Michigan, was a leading actress, director, puppeteer and theater educator in the United States and the UK. Educated at the University of Mi ...

, 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 dr ...

in America through his 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 ...

. Browne and Van Volkenburg 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. Browne's greatest triumph came in 1929 when he produced ''

Journey's End ''Journey's End'' is a 1928 dramatic play by English playwright R. C. Sherriff, set in the trenches near Saint-Quentin, Aisne, towards the end of the First World War. The story plays out in the officers' dugout of a British Army infantry comp ...

'', by

R. C. Sherriff Robert Cedric Sherriff, FSA, FRSL (6 June 1896 – 13 November 1975) was an English writer best known for his play '' Journey's End'', which was based on his experiences as an army officer in the First World War. He wrote several plays, many nov ...

in London.Browne, Maurice. ''Too Late to Lament: An Autobiography''. London, Gollancz, 1955, pp. 306-309.

References

*Browne, Maurice. ''Too Late to Lament: An Autobiography''. London, Gollancz, 1955. *Chansky, Dorothy. ''Composing Ourselves: The Little Theatre Movement and the American Audience''. Carbondale, Seattle, Southern Illinois University, 2004. *Cheney, Sheldon. ''The New Movement in the Theatre''. New York, Mitchell Kennerley, 1914. *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.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Browne, Maurice British male stage actors American male stage actors British poets British theatre directors American theatre directors 1881 births 1955 deaths 20th-century American poets