Norman Lee Swartout, Sr. (April 17, 1879 - October 30, 1930) was an American playwright. He was the editor and manager of the play department for Longman, Green & Co. He became the director of the

Summit Playhouse The Summit Playhouse is a theater in Summit, New Jersey and home to one of the oldest continuously operating amateur community theaters in the United States producing a new show each calendar season. In 2011, it presented ''Meet Me in St. Louis'', ...

in 1918.

Biography

He was born in Auburn, New York, on April 17, 1879. He attended the University of Rochester where he was a member of the

Alpha Delta Phi Alpha Delta Phi (), commonly known as Alpha Delt, ADPhi, A-Delt, or ADP, is a North American Greek-letter social college fraternity. Alpha Delta Phi was originally founded as a literary society by Samuel Eells in 1832 at Hamilton College in Cli ...

fraternity and graduated around 1901. He made his stage debut ''Don Caesar's Return'' with James Keteltas Hackett at

Wallack's Theatre Three New York City playhouses named Wallack's Theatre played an important part in the history of American theater, as the successive homes of the Repertory theatre, stock company managed by actors James William Wallack, James W. Wallack and hi ...

in Manhattan. He wrote the farcical play ''The Arrival of Kitty'' in 1906. He married Helen Louise Briggs around 1912. They had two children: Norman Lee Swartout, Jr. (born 1914) who married Hildegarde Spindler; and Barbara Swartout. He became the director of the

in 1918. He died on October 30, 1930, in

Summit, New Jersey Summit is a city in Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The city is located on a ridge in northern- central New Jersey, within the Raritan Valley and Rahway Valley regions in the New York metropolitan area. At the 2010 United Sta ...

, he was 51 years old.

Plays

*The Toastmaster *Half Back Sandy *One of the Eight
The Arrival of Kitty
(1906) *One of The: A College Comedy in Four Acts (1908) *Every Man For Himself
Close to Nature
A Farcical Episode in the Life of an American Family, in Four Acts (1915)

External links

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Swartout, Norman Lee 1879 births 1930 deaths 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights 20th-century American male writers American theatre directors People from Auburn, New York University of Rochester alumni Writers from Summit, New Jersey Writers from New York (state)