Virgil Geddes (1897–1989) was an American playwright.
Geddes grew up in rural Nebraska, the setting for his plays ''The Earth Between'', and ''Native Ground''. He did not go to college. He spent several years in Paris where he met and married writer Minna Besser Geddes (
Vassar College
Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely follo ...
), class on 1916. The couple moved to
Brookfield, Connecticut
Brookfield is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, situated within the southern foothills of the Berkshire Mountains. The population was 17,528 at the 2020 census. The town is located northeast of New York City, making it par ...
in 1929.
[Barbara Page, "Remembering the Twenties," Vassar Quarterly, Volume LXXVI, Number 4, June 1, 1980.]
Geddes, a member of several Communist organizations including the
League of American Writers
The League of American Writers was an association of American novelists, playwrights, poets, journalists, and literary critics launched by the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) in 1935. The group included Communist Party members, and so-called " fell ...
,
Workers Film and Photo League (USA)
The Workers Film and Photo League was an organization of filmmakers, photographers, writers and projectionists in the 1930s, dedicated to using film and photography for social change.
History
Founded in 1930, the WFPL produced documentaries of ...
, and the
League of Workers Theaters, was listed multiple times by the
House Un-American Activities Committee
The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...
in its 1948 Report.
Geddes established a theater company,
The Brookfield Players. The company performed in an erstwhile tobacco barn, called the Brookfield County Playhouse, and both the company and the venue were referred to as the Brookfield Playhouse.
[
Geddes was the long-serving postmaster in Brookfield, a job he told the ]Hartford Courant
The ''Hartford Courant'' is the largest daily newspaper in the U.S. state of Connecticut, and is considered to be the oldest continuously published newspaper in the United States. A morning newspaper serving most of the state north of New Haven ...
that he took because it offered a steady income.
Plays
* 1929: ''The Earth Between''
The Provincetown Playhouse
The Provincetown Playhouse is a historic theatre at 133 MacDougal Street between 3rd Street (Manhattan), West 3rd and 4th Street (Manhattan), West 4th Streets in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It is named for the P ...
presented this drama in March 1929.Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (; April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989) was an American actress with a career spanning more than 50 years and 100 acting credits. She was noted for playing unsympathetic, sardonic characters, and was famous for her pe ...
was cast in one of her first roles.
The Federal Theatre Project
The Federal Theatre Project (FTP; 1935–1939) was a theatre program established during the Great Depression in the United States, Great Depression as part of the New Deal to fund live artistic performances and entertainment programs in the United ...
produced this play in 1937.[Mossiker, Frances (1996). ''Pocahontas: The Life and the Legend,'' (1st Da Capo Press ed.). New York: Da Capo Press. , p. 327]
Books
* ''Collected poems of Virgil Geddes,'' National Poetry Foundation, 1977
* ''Country Postmaster,'' 1952
* ''The Melodramadness of Eugene O'Neill,'' Brookfield Players, 1934
References
External links
*
Virgil Geddes Papers
at the University of Maine
The University of Maine (UMaine or UMO) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Orono, Maine. It was established in 1865 as the land-grant college of Maine and is the Flagship universities, flagshi ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Geddes, Virgil
American dramatists and playwrights
Writers from Nebraska
People from Brookfield, Connecticut
American Marxists
American communists
1897 births
1989 deaths
Lost Generation writers