Ames, Winthrop

(1870-1937)

   Born into a wealthy family in North Easton, Massachusetts, Winthrop Ames was educated at Harvard University for a career in art and architecture. Among the first producers to bring European modernist theatrical concepts to America, Ames produced and directed at Boston's Castle Square Theatre from 1904-1907, where his stock company changed the bill on a weekly basis, presenting the typical theatrical fare of the day. However, after a long European trip during which he was introduced to new performance concepts often described as the New Stagecraft, Ames presented a series of classical productions at New York's New Theatre from 1909-1911. This attempt was unsuccessful in part because the theatre was too far off the main stem, so Ames built the Little Theatre in 1912 and the Booth Theatre in 1913 with the aim of continuing productions in the new style. To inspire interest, Ames offered a prize for the best new American drama. Alice Brown's Children of Earth won the competition from nearly 2,000 entries, but Ames's production failed to find public favor. Undaunted, he produced Max Reinhardt's Sumurun and employed Norman Bel Geddes to develop innovative lighting techniques for use in his theatres.

   Regarded as one of the outstanding directors of the era, Ames produced and/or directed a series of important European and American plays reflecting the heightened seriousness and experimentation of the New Stagecraft movement, including The Affairs of Anatol (1912), The Pigeon (1912), Prunella (1913), A Pair of Silk Stockings (1914), Pierrot the Prodigal (1916), The Green Goddess (1921), Will Shakespeare (1923), Beggar on Horseback (1924), Minick (1924), Old English (1924), White Wings (1926), and Escape (1927). He also presented revivals of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, including Iolanthe (1926), The Mikado (1927), and The Pirates of Penzance (1927). At his retirement in 1932, Ames had expended most of his fortune in support of theatrical experimentation.