Maurice Browne

This article is about the theater producer. For other persons named Maurice Brown or Maurice Browne, see Maurice Brown (disambiguation).

Maurice Browne (12 February 1881 – 21 January 1955) was a man of the theatre in the United States and the United Kingdom. A poet, actor and theatre director, he has been credited, along with his then-wife Ellen Van Volkenburg, as the founder of the Little Theatre Movement in America through his work with the Chicago Little Theatre.^[1]

Maurice Browne
Maurice Brown, circa 1918
Born	(1881-02-12)12 February 1881 Reading, England
Died	21 January 1955(1955-01-21) (aged 73) Torquay, England
Resting place	Dartington church yard
Spouse	Ellen Van Volkenburg

Early life

He was born in Reading, England, the son of the Rev. Frederick Herbert Browne, a graduate of Wadham College, Oxford and head of Ipswich School, and his wife Frances Anne Neligan, daughter of the Rev. Maurice Neligan D.D.^[2][3][4]

He was educated at Temple Grove School and Winchester College.^[5] In 1894 his father committed suicide, leaving four children. Frances moved to Eastbourne to run a school, and Maurice moved to Eastbourne College. From there he won a scholarship to Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he matriculated in Michaelmas Term 1900, having first joined up to the British Army and spent time in South Africa during the Second Anglo-Boer War. He graduated B.A. in 1903.^[6][7]

Career

At Cambridge Browne struck up a friendship with Louis Wilkinson.^[8] He belonged to a poetic coterie with Harold Monro who became a close friend, Guy Noel Pocock and Herman Leonard Pass.^[9][10][11] He wrote no more poetry once he graduated.^[2] In 1904 Browne was teaching at St. Paul's School, Darjeeling.^[7]

On his return to London, Browne became involved in printing and publishing. As a small press publisher he concentrated on verse.^[7][12] He ran the Samurai Press (active 1907–1909) with Harold Monro, who had married his sister Dorothy in 1901 (they divorced 1916); the name referenced A Modern Utopia by H. G. Wells.^[13]

Chicago Little Theatre, c.1912

Meeting Ellen Van Volkenburg at Florence when travelling in Italy, Browne went to Chicago to marry her in 1912. That year they adapted a space in the Fine Arts Building to create the Chicago Little Theatre.^[14] In 1921, Browne and Volkenburg acted in the performance of George Bernard Shaw's The Philanderer at the Cornish School playhouse.^[15] They ran the theatre for five years.^[16] They went on to found the department of drama at the Cornish School in Seattle in 1918.^[17]

At the opening night of the Theatre of the Golden Bough, Volkenburg had the title-role in Browne's play, The Mother of Gregory, which played June 6, 7, and 14, 1924.^[18]

Browne's greatest triumph came in 1929 when he produced Journey's End, by R. C. Sherriff in London.^[19] The production was also highly profitable for him. He was able to invest in stakes in the Globe Theatre and Queen's Theatre in London's West End.^[20]

Death

Browne died on 21 January 1955 in Torquay, England.^[21]