Provincetown Players Centennial Celebration Set for July

Provincetown, MA, the oldest continuous arts colony in the country, is also heralded as the birthplace of the Provincetown Players, whose innovations shaped modern American drama. In July 1915, new ideas about politics, feminism, arts, psychology, and theater came to artistic fruition in Provincetown with the creation of a non-commercial, experimental theater, led by Greenwich Village writers, painters and philosophers who traveled to the tip of Cape Cod to write, direct and act in short plays still recognized for their witty, perceptive social commentary.

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of this widely influential theatrical milestone, the founding of the Provincetown Players establishing Provincetown as a center of modernism in the arts, and setting the stage for playwrights Eugene O'Neill and Susan Glaspell, the Provincetown Theater will host THE PROVINCETOWN PLAYERS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION in July 2015.

Over three weekends, Thursdays through Saturdays, July second -- July eighteenth, the Provincetown Theater will present "THEN AND NOW," with four productions each evening, of short plays written during the Provincetown Players' formative years: SUPPRESSED DESIRES by George Cram Cook and Susan Glaspell, produced by the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater and directed by Jeffry George: CONSTANCY by Neith Boyce, produced by the Provincetown Theater and directed by Brian Carlson; TRIFLES by Susan Glaspell, produced by the Payomet Performing Arts Center and directed by Judith Israel; and THE SNIPER by Eugene O'Neill, produced by CETK Arts and directed by Margaret Van Sant.

Saturday, July 11th, the Provincetown Theater will host the Eugene O'Neill Society and the Susan Glaspell Society for a day of presentations in the theater. The plays will be presented at 6PM, followed by a Humanities Panel at 8PM with O'Neill and Glaspell scholars Robert M. Dowling, Linda Ben-Zvi, and Jeffrey Kennedy, moderated by Susan Rand Brown. All events are open to the public.

Sunday, July 12th a Breakfast Brunch will honor the Societies at 11:00AM, followed by a book talk by Robert M. Dowling, author of "Eugene O'Neill: A Life in Four Acts." Dowling will be available to sign copies of the biography, named a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist in biography for 2014.

Tickets can be purchased on the theater website: www.provincetowntheater.org or by calling 508-487-7487.