View PDF finding aid (590.79 KB) - New York Public Library

Chamberlain and Lyman Brown Papers
Sub-series 1 – Productions, 1910 – 1949 and undated
10 boxes
Arrangement: Alphabetical
This series documents the producing and production management activities of the
Brown brothers, from 1910 with one of Chamberlain Brown’s earliest productions
of his own script, The Chorus Boy, at the Village Hall in Annisquam,
Massachusetts, through the late 1940s. Materials consist of correspondence,
contracts, scripts, publicity materials, programs, sides, a few production materials,
subscriber surveys and brochures, clippings, and financial papers such as box
office statements, checkbooks, invoices, and receipts. Performers such as Judith
Anderson, Claudette Colbert, Glenda Farrell, Preston Foster, Ruth Gordon, Don
Murray, Florence Reed, Cesar Romero, Spencer Tracy, and Peggy Wood
appeared under their productions. They also presented Ruth St. Denis and Ted
Shawn in 1930. Under the auspices of Chamberlain Brown’s Castle Square
Theatre Company, director and producer Harold Prince also appeared in The
Third Degree at the DeMe. Studio, New York City (1948). Most of their
productions appear to have been financial losses.
Perhaps the most long-lived and best-documented of the various incarnations of
the stock companies run by the brothers was the Chamberlain Brown Players, also
known as the L. Chamberlain Brown Players. From the late 1920s to the late
1930s, the Brown brothers operated the company at several theaters, including the
Greenwich Theatre in Connecticut (1929), the Riviera Theatre in New York City
(1931-1932), the Westchester Theatre in Mt.Vernon, New York (1931-1932),
Bronxville Auditorium (1936), and at both (Nixon’s) Apollo Theatre (1933) and
the Earle Theatre in Atlantic City, New Jersey (1934). Correspondence from
Lyman to Chamberlain in the Personal and Family Papers indicates that Lyman
ran the day-to-day operations in Atlantic City. The Westchester Theatre
scrapbooks indicate that Lyman Brown also ran that company. One of
Chamberlain Brown’s plays, Idle Tongues, was performed in Cedarhurst, Long
Island in 1934 under the Chamberlain Brown Players’ auspices. A number of
versions of the script, some unproduced, are contained in the papers. Brilliants,
written by Lyman Brown, using the pseudonym Basil Bruce Trevino, was
scheduled for production by the Chamberlain Brown Players at the Greenwich
Theatre, but it is unclear if it ever opened. Materials on productions proposed but
never produced by the Chamberlain Brown Players may be found in the
Professional Projects - General series. Additional material on Chamberlain
Brown’s early productions is contained in the Scrapbooks series.
There are also materials for a number of individual productions including
Chamberlain Brown’s Scrap Book which opened at the Ambassador Theatre in
1932. This show caused Actors’ Equity Association to rule its actor members give
notice from performing in it, since Equity termed the production as a revue, while
Brown maintained it was a vaudeville. Although the ruling was reversed a week
later, Chamberlain Brown was forced to close the show, since the musicians
1