Postcard of Theatre Arts Building from 1940s.

History of Theatre at Iowa

The University of Iowa Theatre Arts Department is one of the oldest and most respected theatre programs in the country.

Quick Takes

• Founded in 1920 by E.C. Mabie, the department has always been committed to the creation of new work for the stage.
• Iowa Theatre Arts was among the first to initiate the study of film and television.
• In 1939 it conferred the nation’s first MFA degree in Theatre.
• For decades the department’s doctoral program provided not only faculty members but also department chairs for many American universities.
• The department’s facilities, which look out onto the beautiful Iowa River, have always been among the nation’s finest.
• Among the department’s many alumni are playwrights Tennessee Williams and Lee Blessing, actors Gene Wilder and Mary Beth Hurt, and producer-directors Barry Kemp and Norman Felton.
• Today the department offers the BA and MFA degrees to a student population of nearly 300 students each year.

Milestones by Decade

1920-1929

1920-21: Assistant professor Edward Charles Mabie arrives in Iowa.

The Englert Theatre (then a legitimate stage) announces to the University clubs who produce plays there that it is raising its rental rates. Eight of these clubs decide to cooperate in exile from their performance space, becoming the “University Theatre”. Mabie is appointed its first director, and he immediately strikes a deal with the administration: the University will provide lights and curtains for the Natural Science Auditorium (now Macbride) and he will promise to hold all future productions in that space. Thus the University Theatre is born.

The Department is renamed the Department of Speech. Mabie initiates and new graduate MA program and founds the “Out-of-Door Players”, who perform several plays every summer in various places on campus until 1925.

1921-24: Mabie and Walter Prichard Eaton of New York establish the Little Theatre Circuit, which allows the University Theatre production to tour cities throughout Iowa. The purpose of the organization is to (in Earton’s words) “take the spoken drama to places where the professional theatre never reached, and to call out the creative energies of the people themselves.”

1923: Dean Carl E. Seashore tells Glenn Merry that his department of speech is “an art department that never should be allowed a doctoral degree in its own right. So I exploded in mental and professional anxiety… and on three days notice resigned.” E.C. Mabie becomes acting head of the department, until 1925, and then head until his death in 1956.

1925: The first of a series of small performance spaces around campus is christened the Sueppel Studio Theatre. (Frances Sueppel was a prominent Iowa City actor.) It is a former classroom in the Liberal Arts Annex (known as the southern wing of the Engineering Building) and seats 60 with a small stage. Sueppel Studio Theatre sees the beginning of a tradition as Mabie emphasizes the importance of new plays and playwrights, and begins to premiere plays which go on to Broadway.

Mabie brings A. Craig Baird, a specialist in forensics, to Iowa from his professorship at Bates College.

1927: The Sueppel Studio Theatre is given up in favor of a new space in the basement of the new Union. Plans are made for an addition to the Union to include a 775-seat theatre. Monies are short, and the Depression forces the University to shelve the project (and the funds) for the time being.

1928: Under Baird’s guidance, Iowa becomes a member of the newly formed Western Conference (the Big Ten, minus Chicago) and participates in many debate tournaments.

1929: The School of Fine Arts is established, comprising the Graphic and Plastic Arts and History and Appreciation of Art. The department is re-named the Department of Speech and Dramatic Art.

Baird takes a debating team to England to debate eighteen British colleges and Universities.

1930-1939

1930: At this point, the University Theatre is virtually the only play-producing body on campus, under the rubric of the new Department of Speech and Dramatic Art, of which Mabie is chair. The first two doctorates in speech are bestowed. The department begins instruction in radio broadcasting.

1931: A new lighting control system, designed by faculty member Hunton Sellman, is installed in the Natural Science Auditorium. Unfortunately, cramped quarters and lack of shop space curtails some creative efforts.

Arnie Gillette, a recent graduate of Yale drama school with a degree in design, joins the faculty.

1933: A new studio space is created in Old North Hall, on the Pentacrest, and the Union Studio Theatre is given up. The University, over the next few years, acquires the land on the West Bank of the Iowa River, and E.C. Mabie, music chair Philip Greeley Clapp, President Walter Jessup, and Union Director Rufus Fitzgerald, have the inspiration for a “riverside campus for the arts”.

1934-35: Mabie travels to New York to obtain a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation for the new scene shop. Ground is broken in February for the theatre, and a second trip to the Rockefeller Foundation wins Mabie an even more ambitious and elegant building.

The department launches a scholarly publication called the Archives of Speech, to provide graduate students with a place to publish.

1935-36: The dramatic Arts Building opens to an invited audience on November 7. The production is of E.P. Conkle’s Two Hundred Were Chosen, which is in simultaneous rehearsal in New York and opens on Broadway just two weeks after its Iowa premiere. The main building is slowly finished over the next several years.

1939: The scenery turntables are motorized.

The first MFA is conferred by the School of Fine Arts upon Henderson Forsythe, whose thesis was titled, “An Actor’s Preparation and Interpretation of Three Widely Different Roles in the Theatre.” Eric Forsythe, current professor of acting and directing, is Henderson's son.

The final issue of the Archives of Speech is published.

1940-1949

1942-43: The north scene shop is completed, and the Studio Theatre in Old North Hall is given of to other departments.

At the start of World War II “A Community Theatre for Victory Program” is begun by the University Theatre. Many men (and a few women) are leaving campus for the front, and non-traditional casting is explored in several productions, including casting women in male roles in All’s Well That Ends Well. The University Theatre produces a Living Newspaper production of It’s Up To You for the Department of Agriculture, in which the goal is to educate the public about the role of food in the war effort.

1950-1959

1950: Mabie suffers a series of paralyzing strokes which, through determination and perseverance, he is able to overcome. Nonetheless, fears spring up about the future leadership of the department. Mabie channels Department energy into the new field of television and broadcasting, feeling strongly that Iowa must be a pioneer in the modern era. He never ceases reminding the administration that his building is not finished, and that the Department must have funding from outside sources to complete this essential structure.

1956-57: E. C. Mabie dies of a stroke.

H. Clay Harshbarger is named chair.

The Bachelor of Fine Arts degree is eliminated from the Department.

1958: The first performance in the Old Armory Theatre, a 190-seat performance space in the Old Armory (north of the University Library) is Frank Mosier’s Christine Fonnegra. The existence of this new space expands the production possibilities for the Department.

1960-1969

1968-69: Black Action Theatre is begun.

The Art Museum is completed. The Department of Speech and Dramatic Art Chair, Samuel Becker, pushes for a new theatre space. The Old Armory is overrun with problems, including rats, bats, and major violations of the fire code.

1970-1979

1971-73: The Playwrights Workshop is begun, under the leadership of Oscar Brownstein.

Hancher Auditorium opens, and annual musicals become a tradition of cooperation between the Departments of Musc, Theatre, and Dance. Space in Maclean Hall (room 301) is secured as a small performance space. The 477-seat theatre in the original Dramatic Arts Building is renamed the E.C. Mabie Theatre.

1976: The University Office of Facilities Planning recommends that two new buildings be built to house the dividing department of Speech and Dramatic Arts: one on the east campus for broadcasting and film, and one in addition to the existing building on the arts campus (the west side of the river) for theatre.

1980-1989

1980-81: The annual Hancher musical is abandoned, since each department feels that it is spending too much energy and too many resources there, and wishes to focus on its core program. The Department is renamed the Department of Communication and Theatre Arts, reflecting the gradual shift in focus of the last 50 years.

The University Theatre is re-named the University Theatres (adding the ‘s’) to reflect the fact that it produces performances in several spaces, including Mabie Stage, the Old Armory Theatre, the Studio II Theatre in the Old Armory, MacLean Hall 301 Theatre, and others. Emphasis on the MFA program and the Playwrights Workshop develops under the leadership of Robert Hedly.

1984-85: The department of Theatre Arts becomes an autonomous department. The use of MacLean 301 is lost.

The new Theatre Building opens. The Old Armory is slated for demolition. This is the first time all theatre offices, classrooms, and performance spaces, as well as shops, have been under one roof.

1990-1999

1991: Alan MacVey is appointed Chair and renews the department’s commitment to bring cutting edge theatre artists to campus.

1992-94: The new Partnership in the Arts program premiers work by Ann Bogart, Theodora Skipitares and Maria Irene Fornes. The program continues to bring outstanding artists to campus to create new work.

1995: the MFA Program in Dramaturgy is established; it is one of the nation’s first to specialize in new play dramaturgy.

1999: Iowa Summer Rep celebrates its sixteenth anniversary by becoming an URTA/Equity Theatre, offering students a chance to work with professionals and earn points toward their Actor's Equity membership cards.

2000-present

2000: The Division of Performing Arts is established, providing close ties between Theatre, Dance and Music, and deepening the technical resources available to all three units. The MFA Program in Stage Management is enlarged and strengthened.

2004: The department broadens its international reach by hosting artists from the Middle East, Africa and the Philippines.

2007: Composer/Director/Actor Rinde Eckert begins a two year interdisciplinary project using students from theatre, dance and music to create a new piece in collaboration with the University Hospitals and Clinics. The project initiates a new program called Creating the Future, which brings well known interdisciplinary artists to campus to create new works.

2008: Major flooding destroys the theatre basement and damages the stages and shop areas. After spending the fall semester in Brewery Square, classes resumed in the Theatre Building in January 2009.

2010: Rinde Eckert's Eye Piece, a collaboration between the Theatre Department, Hancher Auditorium, and the Center for Macular Degeneration, opens February 5.