Elizabeth B. Grimball

Elizabeth Berkley Grimball (November 11, 1875 – August 30, 1953) was an American theatrical and film producer, writer, director, entrepreneur, and educator. She founded and directed Inter-Theater Arts in New York, and produced more than two dozen historical pageants.

Elizabeth B. Grimball
A white woman wearing a wide-brimmed hat and a cloak with a fur collar
Elizabeth B. Grimball, from a 1925 publication
Born(1875-11-11)November 11, 1875
Union, South Carolina, U.S.
DiedAugust 30, 1953(1953-08-30) (aged 77)
Charleston, South Carolina, U.S.
EducationUniversity of Oxford
Alma materCurry School of Expression
Occupations
  • Theatrical and film producer
  • writer
  • director
  • entrepreneur
  • educator

Early life

Grimball was born in Union, South Carolina, the daughter of Harry Morris Grimball and Helen Emily Trenholm Grimball. Her mother was born in Liverpool. The Grimball family were prominent planters and slaveholders near Charleston before the American Civil War.[1] She earned a General Culture Diploma (GCD) from the Curry School of Expression in Boston in 1898, and attended courses at the University of Oxford.[2]

Career

Grimball worked in France during World War I, as part of the YMCA's Overseas Entertainment Bureau, producing entertainment for American troops.[3][4] In the 1930s, she taught and produced shows at the Mozarteum Summer Academy of Music, Theatre, and Dance in Salzburg, Austria.[5][6][7]

Grimball was founder and director of Inter-Theater Arts, a theater school and workshop in Greenwich Village.[2][8][9] She taught speech and drama classes at The Berkeley Institute in Brooklyn for two years.[10] She produced directed shows in Greenwich Village through the 1920s.[11][12][13][14] "It always fires me up to think that my work is to make other people play," she said in a 1925 interview.[2] Helen Gahagan was one of her students.[4][15]

In the South, Grimball wrote and produced more than two dozen historical and patriotic pageants and plays for children,[2] some with "immense"[16] casts of nonprofessional performers.[17][18] She made one silent film, The Lost Colony (1921), written by educator Mabel Evans Jones and meant for use in North Carolina schools and communities.[19][20] She taught elocution at Converse College,[21] and was head of the Oral English department at the Summer School of the Alabama Girls' Technical Institute.[10]

Publications
  • The Snow Queen: A Fairy Play for Children in Two Acts (1920)
  • The Torch Bearers of the Western World: A Pageant of South America (1920)[22]
  • The Waif: A Christmas Morality of the Twentieth Century (1923)[23]
  • Costuming a Play: Inter-Theatre Arts Handbook (1925, with Rhea Wells)[24]
  • Pelham Pageant, 1776-1926 (1926, with William R. Montgomery and F. E. Montgomery)
  • The Flag of the Free: A program and ceremonial for Independence Day (1926)[25]
  • Where to go in Charleston : a service view of America's most historic city, Charleston, South Carolina (1944, a guide for military personnel)

Personal life

Grimball died in 1953, in a Charleston hospital.[26]

References
  1. "Grimball Family Papers, 1683-1930". Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Retrieved August 30, 2022.
  2. Gilreath, Janie (November 1925). "Half Way to Broadway Stands Elizabeth Grimball's Shop". The American Magazine. 100: 67–68.
  3. Armes, Ethel (June 1920). "Dramatic Activities Fostered by Community Service". Theatre Magazine. 31: 541.
  4. Flinn, Jean Adger (February 10, 1924). "Carolina Girl Achieves Unique New York Place". The State. p. 12. Retrieved August 30, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. "Theatre Notes". Daily News. July 6, 1933. p. 207. Retrieved August 31, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. Stefferud, A. D. (July 18, 1937). "U.S. is Honored in Music Fete". The Charlotte Observer. p. 46. Retrieved August 30, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. "Survey Shows 125,000 Units in Production". Lansing State Journal. August 20, 1939. p. 9. Retrieved August 31, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. Hendershott, Carmen. "Elizabeth B. Grimball". Women Film Pioneers Project. Retrieved August 30, 2022.
  9. Archibald, R. H. (February 1923). "Musical Comedy and Drama". Musical Monitor. 12: 15.
  10. "Alumni News and Notes". Expression. 25 (3): 20. December 1918.
  11. "Grimball Players in 'What You Don't Hear'". Times Union. May 1, 1929. p. 11. Retrieved August 30, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. "Produce New Comedy at Little Theater". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. January 24, 1930. p. 36. Retrieved August 30, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. "Grimball Players". Times Union. February 9, 1930. p. 65. Retrieved August 30, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. "Ancient Rites in Greek Play". The Standard Union. March 20, 1930. p. 16. Retrieved August 30, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. "Making Professionals". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. June 23, 1929. p. 62. Retrieved August 31, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  16. "Stage is Set for Big Pageant Raleigh Shepherd of the Ocean Three Nights, Begins Tuesday". The News and Observer. October 17, 1920. p. 37. Retrieved August 31, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. "Big List of Players for Pageant is Made Public". The Wilmington Morning Star. May 22, 1921. p. 8. Retrieved August 30, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  18. "Horton Praises Training Camp". The News and Observer. August 5, 1921. p. 12. Retrieved August 30, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  19. Simpson, Bland (September 6, 2007). The Inner Islands: A Carolinian's Sound Country Chronicle. Univ of North Carolina Press. pp. 65–66. ISBN 978-0-8078-7674-9.
  20. Hutson, Jeannine Manning (March 16, 2011). "ECU history professor helps authenticate 1921 "Lost Colony" film". ECU News Services. Retrieved August 30, 2022.
  21. Converse College (1900–1901). Annual catalogue of the teachers, officers and students of Converse College. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Spartanburg, S.C. : [The College] – via Internet Archive.
  22. Grimball, Elizabeth B. The Torch Bearers of the Western World: A Pageant of South America, in a Prologue, a Dramatic Episode, (Or an Interlude) and an Epilogue. New York, NY: Young Women's Christian Association of the United States of America. National Board.
  23. Grimball, Elizabeth Berkeley [from old catalog (1923). The waif,a Christmas morality of the twentieth century. The Library of Congress. New York, N.Y., The Womans press.
  24. Grimball, Elizabeth Berkeley; Wells, Rhea (1925). Costuming a Play: Inter-theatre Arts Handbook. Century Company.
  25. National Recreation Association (1926). Community Drama: Suggestions for a Community-wide Program of Dramatic Activities. Century Company.
  26. South Carolina, U.S., Death Records, 1821-1970; death certificate for Elizabeth Berkley Grimball. signed September 8, 1953; at Ancestry.
  • Lost Colony (1921), a silent film directed by Elizabeth B. Gimball
  • Larry E. Tise, "'The Lost Colony Film': A Mixed Message of Violence and Peace" North Carolina Literary Review 21(2012): 12-28.
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