The Continental Players was a short-lived albeit well-chronicled Hollywood-based theater workshop and stock company founded in 1938 by Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle.
It was supported by Hollywood film executives with the aim of boosting the careers of European thespians in America, notably exiled Jews from Germany and Austria.
In Germany, in 1933, by decree of Joseph Goebbels under a newly created agency called Die Reichskulturkammer (DKK), Jewish actors were, among other things, prohibited from performing on German stage.
The main objective of The Continental Players was to help newly arrived European actors and actresses warm-up to American audiences and hone their performing skills in the English language.
The board included powerful industry luminaries Harry Warner, Charlotte Hagenbruch (wife of William Dieterle), A. Ronald Button, Leopold Jessner, and Walter Wanger, who, at the time, was President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.