Little Theater Club (Swarthmore College) Records

The Little Theater Club was established at Swarthmore College about 1922 to build a firm foundation for theatrical projects and coordinate productions on campus. No course credit was given for participation. By the mid 1930s, it planned and supervised long plays at least twice a year as well as one-act plays. No course credit was given for participation. Membership was elected, based on try-outs for crews and parts. In 1937, a Workshop was added, open to all students without try-outs.

The mid 1940s, the workshop had evolved into a Laboratory Theater, offering workshops in all aspects of the theater. Little Theater Club continued to be responsible for a full length production each semester, with an elected membership. Faculty and staff, with spouses, also participated in theater on campus with a mid year production.

Barbara Pearson Lange (1910-2003) became director of the Little Theater Club in 1946. She was the daughter of Paul M. Pearson, professor of public speaking and director of Swarthmore Chautauqua. After attending Swarthmore College for two years, she completed her education at the Yale Drama School. In 1932 she married Gordon Lange, a writer and actor who died in 1979. Gordon Lange directed the faculty/staff production of Alice in Wonderland in 1963. Her second husband, Warren Godfrey, died in 1981. She left the directorship of the Little Theater Club in 1962 to serve in other administrative capacities on campus, but continued to directly a yearly faculty production.

After Swarthmore created a Drama Department in 1968-69, there was increasing tension over what role the Little Theater Club could play on campus because all funds designated for theater required approval by the Drama Department. Creating the Drama Department was intended to end the membership-only requirements, but the result was less extracurricular theater productions on campus, and the Little Theater Club became inactive.