The season opened with the A. E. Thomas comedy No More Ladies, a Lee Shubert production that closed for the summer at the Morosco Theater in New York, to be resumed there in the early fall. Shubert carefully guarded the rights to the play.
Arthur B. Curlier sought the play for Denver and its loyal clientele. As a result the Shuberts released it for this city alone, and, unless signs change, Denver is the only city that will witness the play until it has finally ended its run in New York when a touring company will carry it to the key cities of America.
Among the plays that followed were Sidney Kingsley’s Pulitzer Prize play Men IATliite, Claire Kummer’s Her Master’s Voice and Lawrence Langner and Armine Marshall’s The Pursuit of Happiness.
Lora Baxter was selected to be leading lady and Donald Woods to be the male lead. Lora Baxter was the wife of William Rose Benet, the distinguished author and editor of the Saturday Review of Literature. She won favorable attention on Broadway in 1932 with her performance opposite Leslie Howard in the Philip Barry comedy The Animal Kingdom. Ms. Baxter had played at Elitch as the ingenue of the 1924 company. Helen Bonfils and Glenn Langan, Denver actors, made their first appearances at Elitch in Men in White, playing minor roles.
Alan Campbell was a member of the Elitch company. He was also a writer whose articles appeared regularly in the New Yorker magazine. His wife was Dorothy Parker, famous short story writer and satirical poet.
As a drama critic, Dorothy Parker became famous for her caustic dismissal of plays and performers, once accusing Katherine Hepburn of running the gamut of emotions “from A to B.” When Campbell was cast for the summer season at the Elitch Theatre, he and Parker left their Manhattan East Side apartment for Denver and took up residence in a rental unit on Meade Street, a long way from The Cort or The Biltmore in New York. Alan was described as “outstanding in his small but important role” in the play Men in White. He appeared in nine of the ten plays presented that summer.
[Borrillo, T. A. (2012). Denver’s historic Elitch Theatre: A nostalgic journey (a history of its times). Colorado. p. 173-174]
Theatre Staff:
- Arnold a. Gurtler, President
- George L. Robert s, Treasurer
- Marie M. Gurtler, Secretary
- Addis on Pitt, Director
- Matthew o. Crowley, Stage Manager
- G. Bradford Ashworth, Scenic Designer
Resident Company:
- Lora Baxter
- Katherine Givne
- Helen Brooks
- Elizabeth Risdon
- Donald Woods
- Albert Van Dekker
- Alan Campbell
- Brandon Evans.
Productions:
- Week of June 23: No More Ladies, by A. E. Thomas
- Week of July 1: The Shining Hour, by Keith Winter.
- Week of July 8: Big Hearted Herbert, by Sophie Kerr and Anna Richardson.
- Week of July 15: Men in White, by Sidney Kingsley. Helen Bonfils and Glenn Langan, Denver actors, made their first appearances at Elitch’s in this production, playing minor roles.
- Week of July 22: Come What May, by Richard Flournoy
- Week of July 29: Her Master ‘s Voice, by Clare Kummer.
- Week of Aug. 5: That’ s Gratitude, by Frank Craven
- Week of Aug. 12: The Return of Peter Grimm, by David Belasco
- Week of Aug. 19: The Wind and the Rain, by Merton Hodge
- Week of Aug. 26: The Pursuit of Happiness, by Lawrence Langner and Armina Marshall
