Norris Houghton
Houghton taught at Princeton, Columbia, and Vassar; his academic career continued at the State University of New York, where he helped create the SUNY Purchase campus and served as founding Dean of Theatre and Film.
[3][9] Houghton discovered the stage at age seven, when he was taken by his maternal grandfather to see E.H. Sothern and Julia Marlowe in The Taming of the Shrew, and the following year to a musical brought from London, Chu Chin Chow.
This period revealed the role he would pursue throughout his long life: "finding (or writing) the play, peopling it with performers, both the marionettes themselves and the manipulators of their strings; the former must be costumed, the stage decorated and lighted...and the whole put together by an impresario (myself)."
By age 16 at the New Gothic style sanctuary of Tabernacle Presbyterian Church he created two Christmas pageant tableaux extravaganzas for 150 performers, including coaching the choir and an organist in unfamiliar excerpts of Monteverdi and Pergolesi.
He flourished as stage and costume designer as well as the Triangle's vice-president in this company that included Joshua Logan, Jose Ferrer, James Stewart, Erik Barnouw, Myron McCormick, Alfred Dalrymple, Bretaigne Windust, and Lemuel Ayers.
As an undergraduate he balanced the student-run dramatic arts organization with studies in humanistic educational traditions, including highest honors thesis research in 17th Century English Masque productions.
(the group's fourth summer season) Leatherbee, Logan and Windust espoused "the idea of theatre artists working together over a long period of time subordinating themselves to the whole and finding therein a satisfaction beyond that accruing from individual glory."
"[5][9][12][13] Throughout this period, ranging from full to empty houses, Houghton never regretted rejecting the offer of assistant stage manager job for Mourning Becomes Electra with New York City's Theatre Guild, the nation's ace theatrical production company.
weekly beer parties on West 47th Street that brought together the older "alumni" and new young aspirants such as Burgess Meredith, Broderick Crawford, John Beal and Karl Malden.
Following the suggestion of Henry Allen Moe, Guggenheim Director General, the fellowship transformed Houghton's career: it introduced him to the renowned but little understood Russian theatre, and led to a future that included expository writing appealing to both academic experts and a public audience.
Houghton's career coincided with the emergence of the postmodern era in the arts, and he was a keen observer of its effect in the theater and a reporter whose writing clarified complex concepts for his readers.
These experiences enabled Norris Houghton to become the preeminent American authority on Russian theatre and challenged him to look beyond fashionable modes, to understand art through experiential training, and to infuse those values in his productions.
The "Muny," as its devoted audience call it, then held summer performances on an enormous stage in Forest Park before 11,000 people seated on an open hillside.
Houghton's success in meeting the challenge of designing scenes for an outdoor stage that included two gigantic oak trees led to three seasons of invitations as art director.
Houghton resonated to the parting advice of a "living legend" among theatre aficionados, Edward Sheldon, who had advised him: "Seek out the people who put these things in motion.
"[9] These experiences crystallized into action by a series of events following Houghton's receipt of a manuscript dramatizing Herman Melville's Billy Budd, Foretopman co-authored by his fellow Princeton alumnus Robert Chapman.
Successfully finding backing for a production of Louis O. Coxe and Chapman's Billy Budd, with restaging by Josh Logan, the show opened on Broadway on February 10, 1951.
The series ended when CBS failed to find a show sponsor and Houghton found the TV environment "decivilizing," not allowing time for any of the cultural activities that enriched the life he might bring to his productions.
They agreed on principles that emerged from Houghton's two decades of experiences: their theatre would be separate from Times Square; it would be a "permanent" company; they would produce four to five plays for limited engagements; in contrast to the star system, actors would be listed alphabetically; the ticket price would be half of Broadway's top, with tickets available also for one dollar; the management structure would be a traditional limited partnership, but contributors would be asked to fund an entire season rather than each production.
The Phoenix opened December 1, 1953: the first production was Madam Will You Walk?, the posthumous performance of a new play by deceased Pulitzer Prize winner Sidney Howard, starring Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy.
A midnight review on CBS cited "an exciting and new theatrical adventure born tonight amidst laughter and hearty applause of 1200 enthusiastic people who stirred away from their TV sets to see a very witty and provocative play by Sidney Howard.
Brooks Atkinson called it "a light, gay, charming production...the only literate new musical of the season..",[This quote needs a citation] while others, notably Wolcott Gibbs in The New Yorker quibbled "Oh I liked her, but not very much.
These attracted the talent of numerous theatre artists, including: British actors Pamela Brown, Michael Redgrave, Rachel Kempson, and Peggy Ashcroft; directors and producers Elia Kazan, John Houseman, and Robert Whitehead[disambiguation needed]; writers and designers Robert Sherwood, John Latouche, Jerome Moross, Donald Oenslager, and William and Jean Eckart; American actors Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, Mildred Dunnock, Robert Ryan, Montgomery Clift, and Kaye Ballard; professional colleagues and friends, Howard Lindsay, Russel Crouse, Jo Mielziner, Oscar Hammerstein II, Peggy Wood, William Inge, and Arthur Miller.
[40][41][42] Examples of the span of productions include: The Doctor's Dilemma (George Bernard Shaw), The Master Builder (Henrik Ibsen), Story of a Soldier (music drama, Igor Stravinsky), Six Characters in Search of an Author (Luigi Pirandello), The Mother of Us All (opera, Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein), Measure for Measure (William Shakespeare), The Good Woman of Szechuan (Bertolt Brecht), Taming of the Shrew (William Shakespeare), and Anna Christie (Eugene O'Neill).
[33][34][35] Balancing these successes were two major impediments to Houghton's long-term alliance to the Phoenix: their model resulted in a frenetic pace to their productions and they had persistent financial problems.
Houghton recognized that they did not have a stable organizational structure or method to present theatre under a business plan that required appreciation by both establishment critiques and audiences.
[9][43] Houghton considered as a solution to this dilemma an academic life that would allow him to couple academia with the role of theatre partner to T. Edward Hambleton, who would remain with the Phoenix until it closed.
(1,2,3,33,34,35)[clarification needed] Houghton then accepted a full-time position as professor, department chair and director of the Vassar Experimental Theatre, attempting a compromise of living in the Hudson valley while continuing to work in New York City.
After his World War II service ended, he rejoined Princeton to participate full-time in the Creative Arts Program while completing his book Advance From Broadway.
"[47] He died in 2001 and was celebrated by a full-choir funeral ritual at First Presbyterian Church in the City of New York, where as long-time member and Elder he had coaxed the historic Manhattan congregation into sponsoring a Phoenix series of plays by Nobel prizewinners including dramas with religious themes.
