Virgil Geddes

Virgil Geddes (1897–1989) was an American playwright.[1][2]

Virgil Geddes
Geddes in 1936, while directing the Federal Theatre Project production of Chalk Dust
Born1897
Nebraska
Died(1989-05-24)May 24, 1989 (aged 92)
Togus, Maine
Occupation(s)Writer, newspaper columnist, and playwright
Geddes, Hallie Flanagan and Harry Hopkins at a performance of Chalk Dust (1936)
Poster for the Federal Theatre Project production of Native Ground (1937)

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), class on 1916. The couple moved to Brookfield, Connecticut in 1929.[3]

Geddes, a member of several Communist organizations including the League of American Writers, Workers Film and Photo League (USA), and the League of Workers Theaters, was listed multiple times by the House Un-American Activities Committee in its 1948 Report.[4]

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.[5][3]

Geddes was the long-serving postmaster in Brookfield, a job he told the Hartford Courant that he took because it offered a steady income.[6]

Plays

Books
  • Collected poems of Virgil Geddes, National Poetry Foundation, 1977
  • Country Postmaster, 1952
  • The Melodramadness of Eugene O'Neill, Brookfield Players, 1934

References
  1. "Virgil Geddes Is Dead; Ex-Playwright Was 92". New York Times. May 25, 1989. Retrieved April 28, 2018.
  2. "Virgil Geddes". Nebraska Authors. University of Nebraska. Retrieved April 29, 2018.
  3. Barbara Page, "Remembering the Twenties," Vassar Quarterly, Volume LXXVI, Number 4, June 1, 1980.
  4. "Report of the Senate Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, 1948 : Communist Front Organizations", sections 238, 278, 389..
  5. Duffy, Albert (August 6, 1933). "High-Grade Drama Staged at Low Cost in Summer Theaters; Virgil Geddes, Impresario, Believes Natural Cooling System, Controlled By Hinged Clapboards, Second To None". Hartford Courant. ProQuest 558335646.
  6. "Brookfield Has Noted Postmaster: Virgil Geddes, Playwright and Farmer, Admits He Sought Job Because He Likes Steady Income". HartfordCourant. December 5, 1941. ProQuest 559603978.
  7. Atkinson, Brooks (March 14, 1937). "Virgil Geddes's 'Native Ground' Put on by the Experimental Theatre of the WPA". New York Times. ProQuest 102196631.
  8. Dark Victory: The Life of Bette Davis. Macmillan. 2008. ISBN 978-0805088632. Retrieved April 27, 2018.
  9. "Provincetown's Next Bill; Virgil Geddes's Tragedy, "The Earth Between," to Open Feb. 19". New York Times. January 24, 1929. Retrieved April 28, 2018.
  10. "First Performance of "Native Ground"". Boston Globe. April 16, 1929. ProQuest 758004757.
  11. Internet Broadway Database- Retrieved 2018-05-02
  12. Kazacoff, George (2011). Dangerous Theatre: The Federal Theatre Project as a Forum for New Plays. p. 111.
  13. Mossiker, Frances (1996). Pocahontas: The Life and the Legend, (1st Da Capo Press ed.). New York: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0306806991, p. 327
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