LEGITIMATE STAGE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 33, 9 February 1939, Page 18

LEGITIMATE STAGE

A THEATRE FOR CHILDREN

A pioneer in children's theatre production in New York is Mrs. Clare Tree Major, who for the past fifteen years has been director of the Children's Theatre, of New York, which she founded, states an exchange. Mrs. Major is a grandniece of the famous nineteenth-century English actress Helen Tree, and gave up a career as an actress herseli to experiment in an untried field —that of producing plays for boys and girls-

A mother herself, Mrs. Major believed that a good theatre for children was needed. Although theatrical people looked upon her enterprise as a hazardous venture, she organised a group of Broadway actors and actresses and gave 'Saturday morning matinees for New York children. Although the cast was largely composed of people engaged in other plays, they found time to rehearse for their Saturday morning appearances. From that first group of actors the Children's Theatre has grown to have six companies, visiting 33 States last season. Each unit travelled in a car and a specially designed truck carrying scenery, and each was equipped to play on the stages of metropolitan theatres or on the stages of village auditoriums.

Mrs. Major is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, of which Sir Herbert Beerboh % Tree was head. When a descenaant of the famous stage family of Tree went to him to study he was especially interest in her career and wrote the preface to her first book on the development of voice and personality.