Alice Erya Gerstenberg (August 2, 1885 – July 28, 1972) was an American

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes play (theatre), plays, which are a form of drama that primarily consists of dialogue between Character (arts), characters and is intended for Theatre, theatrical performance rather than just Readin ...

, actress, and activist best known for her experimental,

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

drama and her involvement with the

Little Theatre Movement As the new medium of cinema was beginning to replace theater as a source of large-scale spectacle, the Little Theatre Movement developed in the United States around 1912. The Little Theatre Movement served to provide experimental centers for the ...

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

Background

Gerstenberg was born in Chicago, Illinois, the only child of Julia and Erich Gerstenberg. Gerstenberg's grandfather was a founder and member of the

Chicago Board of Trade The Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), is an American futures exchange, futures and options exchange that was founded in 1848. On July 12, 2007, the CBOT merged with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) to form CME Group. CBOT and three other excha ...

in 1848, a position Gerstenberg's father inherited later on, which meant that the Gerstenbergs enjoyed a higher standard of living than most middle-class families in Chicago at the time.Atlas, Marilyn. "Alice (Erya) Gerstenberg." ''Dictionary of Midwestern Literature''. 1. Philip A. Greasley (ed.) Indianapolis: 2001. Print. Growing up, Gerstenberg had ample travel experiences and social indulgences including commercial theater. She attended a private school in Chicago and graduated from

Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh language, Welsh: ) is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as a ...

in 1907. After college, she spent some time in New York watching the rehearsals of David Belasco before returning home to Chicago.Chansky, Dorothy. "Textbook Cases: Learning to Be and See Little Theater Women." in Composing Ourselves: The Little Theater Movement and the American Audience. 1st ed. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004. 164 -185. Print.

Career

After living in New York for a period, Gerstenberg returned to Chicago, where she continued to write plays; became involved with the

Little Theatre movement As the new medium of cinema was beginning to replace theater as a source of large-scale spectacle, the Little Theatre Movement developed in the United States around 1912. The Little Theatre Movement served to provide experimental centers for the ...

, supported her parents, and exercised a strong feminist dedication to bringing non-commercial theater to new playwrights, children, and Chicagoans. Her previous involvement with the theater during her childhood, the plays she wrote at college, as well as the time spent in New York led her to continue writing plays for the rest of her life, working occasionally as an actress, and maintaining an activist role in the theater. ''

Overtones An overtone is any resonant frequency above the fundamental frequency of a sound. (An overtone may or may not be a harmonic) In other words, overtones are all pitches higher than the lowest pitch within an individual sound; the fundamental i ...

'' has continued to be produced since its publication in 1913.

Themes and plays

In 1913, Gerstenberg wrote ''Overtones'', a one-act play, her second stage play, and her most frequently performed and printed, which was first produced in November 1915 by the

Washington Square Players The Washington Square Players (WSP) was a theatre troupe and production company that existed from 1915 to 1918 in Manhattan, New York City. It started as a semi-amateur Little Theatre then matured into a Repertory theatre with its own touring ...

at the Bandbox Theater in New York. It has been anthologized alongside

Susan Glaspell Susan Keating Glaspell (July 1, 1876 – July 28, 1948) was an American playwright, novelist, journalist and actress. With her husband George Cram Cook, she founded the Provincetown Players, the first modern American theatre company. First know ...

’s '' Trifles'' as classic examples of modern

one-act plays A one-act play is a play that has only one act, as distinct from plays that occur over several acts. One-act plays may consist of one or more scenes. The 20-40 minute play has emerged as a popular subgenre of the one-act play, especially in writi ...

by women involved in the little theater movement. The play, which combines experimental form with conventional dramatic conflict, enjoyed many productions due to its innovative use of the split subject, a technique

Eugene O'Neill Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of Realism (theatre), realism, earlier associated with ...

would later use in his play '' Strange Interlude''. Gerstenberg continued to write many one-act plays early on in her career, many of which were performed by regional or little theaters in and around Chicago. The majority of these plays demonstrate her feminist tendencies – critiquing the social roles and decision which constrained women of the time. Gerstenberg continued to write plays throughout her life, later on publishing several radio plays as well as several commissioned dramatizations of children's stories.

Regional theater and the Little Theater Movement

Gerstenberg played a crucial role in the foundation and success of several theater companies as well as the Little Theater Movement in Chicago. In 1921, she founded the Junior League Children's Theater in Chicago; in 1922 she founded the Playwrights Theater; and she supported an amateur theater company that was eventually named for her at its foundation in 1955. Gerstenberg was one of a handful of women invited to speak at the National Drama Council and National Theatre Conference. In 1936 she was an invited speaker at three AETA conferences and she won the Chicago Foundation for Literature Award in 1938. Gerstenberg had many opportunities to move to New York, but instead chose to remain in Chicago.

Plays and novels

;Plays * '' A Small World'' (1908) * ''Overtones'' (1913), one-act edition * ''

Alice in Wonderland ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (also known as ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English Children's literature, children's novel by Lewis Carroll, a mathematics university don, don at the University of Oxford. It details the story of a ...

'' (1915), dramatization of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass * '' The Buffer'' (1916) * '' Beyond'' (1917) * '' Hearts'' (1917) * '' Attuned'' (1918) * '' The Unseen'' (1918) * '' Illuminati in Drama Libre'' (1919) * ''He Said and She Said'' (1919) - One-act comedy of gossip. * '' Fourteen'' (1920) * '' Ten One-Act Plays'' (1921) * '' The Pot Boiler or The Dress Rehearsal'' (1923) * '' Four Plays for Women'' (1924) * '' Mah-Johngg'' (1924) * '' Their Husband'' (1924) * '' Ever Young'' (1924) * ''

Seaweed Seaweed, or macroalgae, refers to thousands of species of macroscopic, multicellular, marine algae. The term includes some types of ''Rhodophyta'' (red), '' Phaeophyta'' (brown) and ''Chlorophyta'' (green) macroalgae. Seaweed species such as ...

'' (1924) * '' At the Club'' (1925) * '' The Land of "Don’t Want To"'' (1928), dramatization of Lilian Bell's children's story Lilian Bell 001

* ''Overtones'' (1929), three act edition * '' Comedies All'' (1930) * '' The Water Babies'' (1930), dramatization of Charles Kingsley's work * ''

Sentience Sentience is the ability to experience feelings and sensations. It may not necessarily imply higher cognitive functions such as awareness, reasoning, or complex thought processes. Some writers define sentience exclusively as the capacity for ''v ...

'' (1933) * '' Glee Plays the Game'' (1934) * '' Within the Hour'' (1934) * '' Across the River'' (1939), radio play * '' Lake Front'' (1939), radio play * '' Time for Romance'' (1940) * '' Got Your Number'' (1942, unpublished) * ‘’ Victory Belles ‘’ (play) 1944) * '' On the Beam'' (1963, unpublished) * '' Time for Living'' (1969) * '' Concordia'' (Unpublished, n.d.) * '' Port of Chicago'' (Unpublished, n.d.) * '' The Hourglass'' (n.d.) ;Novels * '' Unquenched Fire'' (1912) * '' The Conscience of Sarah Platt'' (1915)

Legacy

Gerstenberg's play ''Overtones'', her most frequently performed and printed work, was adapted into the chamber opera The Clever Artifice of Harriet and Margaret in 2013 by composer-librettist Leanna Kirchoff. The opera won the National Opera Association's 2014-2016 Chamber Opera Composition Competition,Considine, Basil. "Opera minus the high costs and testosterone." ''Twin Cities Daily Planet'', January 24, 2015. and was given its professional premiere by Really Spicy Opera at the Minnesota Fringe Festival in 2015.Minnesota Fringe Festival. "The Clever Artifice of Harriet and Margaret." The opera was later staged by the National Opera Association and Gateway Opera in 2016.Kirchoff, Leanna. Composer website. http://www.leannakirchoff.com/

References

External links

* * *
Alice Gerstenberg Papers
at

The Newberry Library The Newberry Library is an independent research library, specializing in the humanities. It is located in Chicago, Illinois, and has been free and open to the public since 1887. The Newberry's mission is to foster a deeper understanding of our wor ...

Opera minus the high costs and testosterone
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gerstenberg, Alice 1885 births 1972 deaths American stage actresses Bryn Mawr College alumni 20th-century American novelists American women novelists American women dramatists and playwrights Actresses from Chicago Writers from Chicago 20th-century American actresses 20th-century American women writers 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights Novelists from Illinois