Baseball Fan Ethel Barrymore at the Court Square Theater

April 28th fell on a Wednesday in 1943, as it does this year. For one day only, Ethel Barrymore and the New York cast of “The Corn is Green” played at the Court Square Theater in Springfield, Massachusetts.

The play had been the triumph of the 1940-41 Broadway season. John Mason Brown of the New York Post described opening night, when “The bravos which filled the theater at the final curtain were deafening and prolonged. There was every reason for them because Ethel Barrymore gives the finest, most thoughtful and concentrated performance she has given in many years.”

Miss Barrymore played 461 performances in the role on Broadway before starting her nationwide tour, and by this time travel was subject to wartime restrictions.

After the war Ethel Barrymore returned to Hollywood and a busy second career as a character actress. Since baseball is a recurring theme on my other blogs this week, Another Old Movie Blog, and New England Travels, we might mention here that Ethel Barrymore was an avid baseball fan. Author Hollis Alpert in “The Barrymores” (The Dial Press, New York, 1964) notes that while on movie sets, in between takes she would “hurry to her dressing room, where she would listen to ball games on her radio. She rooted less for single teams than for individual players, and when there was not a major league game to listen to would settle for the Coast League games.”

At this stage of her life, she preferred freelancing rather than signing on with a single studio. Her reasoning was, “The first thing I know they would be lending me out for a lot of money and a couple of outfielders.”

Opening of "The Kate"

A couple of days ago, a new theater opened, or re-opened we should say, in New England. We welcome the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center.

Located in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, the theater was once the town hall that opened in 1911, and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

For many years the building was the home of the Musical and Dramatic Club, showed movies, and the Ivoryton Players moved here for a time during WWII. Ethel Barrymore trod the boards in 1935. By the 1950s, the town offices required more room and theatre was abandoned.

When the town offices moved to a new Town Hall, the historic building underwent, and is still undergoing, a most delightful transformation as the Town of Old Saybrook set upon creating a 250-seat theater, as well as a museum honoring Katharine Hepburn, their most famous resident.

Have a look at the link above and welcome the inaugural season of “The Kate.”

Ethel Barrymore and the Democracy of Summer Theatre

One of the most fascinating and irresistible aspects of summer theatre is the prevailing panache of democracy not clashing, but complimenting stage “royalty.”

Here we have an ad from a Cape Playhouse program from August 1935 announcing the upcoming appearance of the legendary Ethel Barrymore in “The Constant Wife.” Her name is followed by a group of lesser actors, most of whom are probably unknown to most of us today, but who for that moment are noted forever as colleagues of the great Ethel Barrymore.

Ethel Barrymore, Library of Congress photo.

The producer, Raymond Moore, also boldly proclaims with equal enthusiasm, a couple of kiddy shows featuring a magician and some puppets. Ethel had to share the bill with puppets, but probably took it in her stride.

Ethel Barrymore's Curtain Call

According to New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson, “Everything about ‘The Corn is Green’ reawakens enthusiasm for the theatre.”

He wrote in 1940 on Ethel Barrymore’s Broadway performance. We’ve noted on this blog the recent performance in Boston, in the same role of Miss Moffat, by Kate Burton (see post here). Ethel Barrymore also appeared in Boston with this play, where the audience contributed to an ethereal experience at the curtain.

The play, which had earlier been a hit in London, was offered first to Helen Hayes when it was brought to this country, but handed over to Ethel Barrymore when Miss Hayes declined, which Miss Barrymore also did on first reading, and was later persuaded to take the part. Despite the misgivings of more people than just these two celebrated actresses, the play went on to become an enormous hit.

Then, as now, it was tricky times for the theater. We were in the last years of the Great Depression. Just the happy realization that such a first class production representing the best of what theater could be could also be a financial success, seemed heaven-sent.

As Mr. Atkinson noted, “As things go in the theatre, this is a great part, and as things are gong in the theatre just now, Miss Barrymore plays is magnificently…from now on she can wear Miss Moffat as a jewel in her crown.”

In May 1942, Ethel Barrymore toured with the play. On May 19th, her brother, famed actor John Barrymore collapsed in Hollywood, suffering from several serious health conditions. Her other equally famous brother, Lionel Barrymore, stayed with John and kept Ethel informed of John’s illness and that John requested she not come to the hospital, but that she remain with her show.

Ten days later, on evening of May 29th, John Barrymore died. Earlier that afternoon Lionel called Ethel after her matinee performance on the box office telephone at the Wilbur Theatre on Tremont Street in Boston. He told her that the end was likely near. In taking his call, according to “The Barrymores” by Hollis Alpert (The Dial Press, NY, 1964), she fell before reaching the phone. Only after she hung up the phone and had difficulty walking back to her dressing room, did she realize she had hurt herself. She had broken a bone in her foot, and played that evening’s performance with her ankle taped.

As Alpert described it, when she came on stage for her curtain call and “…the audience gave her a stunning ovation for several minutes, and through the tumult of sound that filled the theater she stood with head bowed.”

She realized suddenly the tribute was for John, offering condolences. It was a tribute to herself, and Lionel Barrymore, and possibly all their acting ancestors, so great was the contribution made to American theater by one family.

A playbill of Ethel Barrymore’s performance at the Wilbur Theatre is currently being offered on eBay. Have a look here.

For more on the history of the Wilbur Theatre, have a look at this website.

Intro to Theatre 101

This is to introduce a new blog on theater in New England. The New England states have a rich tradition in theater, even though it was banned in Massachusetts in the mid-18th century. Somewhere along the line our fascination with the footlights overcame our suspicion, mostly.


One hundred years later railroads brought stock companies, and with the advent of the automobile and the heyday of summer stock, actors who had been or would be famous in films were well-known to local audiences in West Falmouth, Cape Cod; Williamstown, Mass.; Westport, Connecticut; East Haddam, Connecticut; Harrison, Maine; and Skowhegan, Maine.

Many actors started their careers here, in some cases in theaters that were no more than a barn in a field, a boathouse on a pier. Past and present come together in the theater, where present-day performances of classics, or just well-worn chestnuts are spiritedly referred to as “revivals”, as if they never really expire, as if the last act was never called.


If you are a member of the theatrical community, which always includes patrons, then I hope you’ll find this blog a resource for current productions and a place of nostalgia for New England’s rich theater past. If you have any memories you’d like to share, just leave your comments. We’d all like to hear them.

I’ll be posting every Wednesday. Think of it as a Wednesday matinee.

On with the show. Places, please….