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Susan Glaspell

SUSAN GLASPELL

  (1876 - 1948)
Nationality:    USA
email:    n/a     Website:    n/a

Literary Agent:    n/a

Susan Keating Glaspell (July 1, 1876 - July 27, 1948) was an American Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, actress, director, novelist, biographer, poet, and journalist. With her husband George Cram Cook, she founded the Provincetown Players, one of the first modern American Theater companies. During the Great Depression she served in the Works Progress Administration as Midwest Bureau Director of the Federal Theater Project. A best-selling author in her own time, Glaspell's novels fell out of print after her death, during which time she was remembered primarily for discovering Eugene O'Neil, and for Trifles (1916), a one-act play frequently cited as one of the greatest works of American Theater. Critical reassessment has led to renewed interest in her career, and she is today recognized as a pioneering feminist and America's first important modern female playwright.A prolific writer, Glaspell is known to have published over fifty short stories, nine novels, and fourteen plays.[6] Often set in her native Iowa, these semi-autobiographical tales frequently address contemporary issues, such as gender, ethics, and dissent, while featuring deep, sympathetic characters who make principled stands. - Wili

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below is a list of Susan Glaspell's plays - click on a Play Title for more information

         Alison's House         Bernice         Chains of Dew         Close the Book         Comic Artist, The         Inheritors         Outside, The         People, The         Springs Eternal         Suppressed Desires         Tickless Time         Trifles         Verge, The         Woman's Honor
Alison's House

Synopsis:
Inspired by the life and work of the American poet emily Dickinson, the play is set by Glaspell in her native Iowa. It is 18 years since Alison Stanhope, the country's foremost poet, died. Now the house she lived in must be sold, but it holds secrets. Did Alison sacrifice the man she loved for the sake of her family's reputation? And who do such sacrifices benefit? the play's struggles are set in 1899, on the cusp of the 20th Century in which very different values will come to prevail.

Notes:
winner of Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1931

1st Produced:
Eva Le Gallienne's Civic Repertory Theatre, 14th Street, New York     01 Dec 1930

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  5            Female:  6            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Bernice

Synopsis:
Bernice is dead. The audience can see the body on the floor in a room off the main stage. She had lived in the house with her father and life long maid Abbie. Abbie's husband arrives. Abbie tells him that she committed suicide. Craig thinks she did it because she had found out about his secret affair. But did she kill herself?

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-     1919

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Chains of Dew

Synopsis:
Poet Seymore Standish spends part of the year in bohemian Greenwich Village with his lover Nora Powers. The other part of the year he spends at home in the bourgeois Mid Westwith his wife Dotty and her mother. Nora is tired of him complaining all the time about his wife stifling so follows him. She finds that Dotty and her mother feel stifled by him. The three women decide to join the Birth Control League and open a branch in the living room

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Provincetown Playhouse     27 Apr 1922

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

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Close the Book

Synopsis:
A hero of the Revolution founds a college. Years later it is still being run by descendants. One of the younger generation, Peyton, who teaches at the college announces his engagement to Jhansi. Jhansi claims to have Gypsy heritage. Craig's family are appalled and oppose the marriage. Then it is discovered she was not telling the truth she is from a rich family and one of her family is a Senator. Jhansi denies this but it is proven to be true. Craig tells her that his mother is probably illegitimate and this makes her feel better

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-     1917

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Frank Shay 1918   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Comic Artist, The

Comic Artist, The
-

Notes:
written by Susan Glaspell and Norman Matson

1st Produced:
Morosco Theatre, New York     19 Apr 1933

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
F A Stokes 1927   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Inheritors

Synopsis:
the play concerns the legacy of an idealistic farmer who wills his highly coveted midwest farmland to the establishment of a college (Act I.) Forty years later, when his granddaughter stands up for the rights of Hindu nationals to protest at the college her grandFather founded, she jeopardizes funding for the college itself and sets herself against her own uncle, the president of the institution's trustees (Acts II & III.) Ultimately, she defies her family's wishes, and as a consequence is bound for prison herself (Act IV.). the play was a stirring defense of free speech and an individual's ability to stand for his or her own ideal during a time of aggressive anti-Communist politics in the US.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Wharf Theatre In Provincetown, Massachusetts     1922

Organisations:
Provincetown Players

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Outside, The

Synopsis:
the plot centers on two women, Mrs. Patrick, Allie Mayo, who have exiled themselves from the world because of emotional pain caused by their husbands. Allie Mayo has refused to say an unnecessary word since the death of her husband (the Outside 51). Mrs. Patrick has returned to the place that she and her husband used to visit and had talked of buying to bury the things that hurt her. the main action of the play takes place in an abandoned life-saving station that Mrs. Patrick has recently bought, on the cape, in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Three men, Bradford, Tony, and the Captain, fight to save a man who has drowned at their old station, now the house of Mrs. Patrick. the men have brought the victim to this place because of convenience, since the body was found only forty feet from the house, and out of habit, since they used to work from this location. At the end, it is Allie who tries to save Mrs. Patrick from the life that she wants.

Notes:
the Outside (1917) is the shortest and least written about plays by Susan Glaspell. She uses symbolism to convey the emptiness of Mrs. Patrick's life on the outside. Glaspell uses the imagery of the station and the areas beyond to show that Mrs. Patrick is keeping herself away from the things she once knew. Glaspell's use of symbolism aides the characters onstage as well as the audience in realizing the situation the women are facing.

1st Produced:
-     1917

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
short play

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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People, The

Synopsis:
The editor of the magazine "The People" is on a fund raising tour in California. A woman from Idaho arrives at the magazine headquarters wanting to see the editor. When she is told he is away she says that she will sit outside and watch people walking past. Various contributors to the magazine arrive and blame themselves for the decline in sales of the magazine

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Greenwich Village Theatre, New York     20 May 1918

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Springs Eternal

Synopsis:
New York State, 1943. Author Owen is married to Margaret, but his ex-wife Harry is still very much present following her husband Stewie's elopement with the much younger Dottie. the effect of World War II resonates as a damaging revelation about Owen and Harry's son emerges.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Suppressed Desires

Synopsis:
Henrietta is obsessed with interpreting her husband Stephen and sister Mabel's dreams. When talking to a psychiatrist tells Henrietta that Mabel's dreams indicate she wants to have an affair with Stephen and Stephen's dreams indicate that he wishes he was single

Notes:
written by Susan Glaspell and George Cram Cook

1st Produced:
Comedy Theatre, New York     31 Oct 1917

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
short play

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Tickless Time

Synopsis:
Ian has a problem with clocks - he believes are false. He tells his wife Eloise to gather up all the clocks in the house and he will bury them in the garden. However, Eloise hides one clock

Notes:
written by Susan Glaspell and George Cram Cook

1st Produced:
-     1918

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
One act

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Trifles

Synopsis:
the play is loosely based on the murder of John Hossack, which Glaspell reported on while working as a news journalist for the Des Moines Daily News. Hossack's wife, Margaret, was accused of killing her husband. However, Margaret argued that an intruder had killed John with an axe. She was convicted but it was overturned on appeal.

Notes:
adapted into the short story A Jury of Her Peers (1917)

1st Produced:
Wharf Theatre In Provincetown, Massachusetts     08 Aug 1916

Organisations:
Provincetown Players

1st Published:
Contained in: ""Women in Literature: Life Stages Through Stories, Poems and Plays" published by Prentice Hall 1988   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

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Genre:
short play

Parts:
Male:  4            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Verge, The

Synopsis:
Claire a botanist and her assistant Anthony have created a monster of a plant - The Breath Of Life. House guests complain about the lack of heat - it has all been diverted to the greenhouse. They confront Claire but she becomes increasingly agitated an incoherent

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-     1921

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:

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Woman's Honor

Synopsis:
A very attractive young man is accused of murder. He is innocent but refuses to divulge his alibi - he had spent the night in question with a lady. His lawyer leaks this information to the press. Several women come forward and claim they were the one who spent the night with him

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-     1918

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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