ORSON WELLES (Debut) "ROMEO & JULIET" Katharine Cornell 1934 Detroit Playbill
(This is a rare December 3rd, 1934 program (playbill) from...)
This is a rare December 3rd, 1934 program (playbill) from the one-week, Pre-Broadway engagement of the KATHARINE CORNELL COMPANY's production of the WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE classic "ROMEO and JULIET" at the Cass Theatre in Detroit, Michigan. (Following a seven-month country-wide tour, the production opened December 20th, 1934 at New York's Martin Beck Theatre and ran for 77 performances.) ..... The production starred KATHARINE CORNELL as "Juliet" and BASIL RATHBONE as "Romeo" and included nineteen year-old ORSON WELLES in what would be his Broadway debut. Others in the cast included BRIAN AHERNE, EDITH EVANS, REYNOLDS EVANS, GEORGE MACREADY, JOHN MILTERN, MORONI OLSEN, ARTHUR CHATTERTON, JOHN EMERY, CHARLES WALDRON, PAUL JULIAN, FRANKLYN GRAY, JOSEPH HOLLAND, DAVID VIVIAN, ROBERT CHAMPLAIN, IRVING MORROW, BRENDA FORBES and IRBY MARSHAL ..... Side Note: The production was staged by GUTHRIE McCLINTIC and it was the first time either Cornell or McClintic had participated in any Shakespearean production. The company's first performance was on November 29th, 1933 at the Erlanger Theatre in Buffalo and a seven-month, cross-country tour followed that included three plays in repertory, "Romeo and Juliet", "The Barretts of Wimpole Street", and "Candida". Planned during the height of the Great Depression, many theater experts and actors advised against such an ambitious tour. In fact, this was the first time anyone had tried to take a legitimate Broadway show on an all-country tour, let alone three plays. It took them to cities such as Milwaukee, Seattle, Portland (Oregon), San Francisco, Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, Cheyenne, San Antonio, New Orleans, Houston, Savannah, and back up the east coast to New England. Because movies had so completely taken over from live theater, there were major areas of the country closed off to the tour. Many of the smaller cities hadn't seen live theater since the First World War, or ever. Nonetheless, box office records were
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