Elia Kazan in the 1920s and 30s

Kazan Comments

I. Early Years Biography

II. Group Theatre Work

III. Other Theatre Work

IV. Play credits

V. Sources

I. Early Years Biography

Elia Kazan was born Elias Kazanjoglou on September 7, 1909 in Turkey to parents of Greek descent. After completing high school in New York City and New Rochelle, NY Elia went on to Williams College in Massachusetts. He graduated from Williams in 1930 and followed his best friend to Yale University where he ended up studying drama. At first he had no interest in theater but his decision to do it was important in his later career. Kazan left Yale a year before he earned his degree and married Molly Thatcher, his best friend’s former girlfriend. They had a child together in 1932. Kazan’s wife Thatcher wanted to be a playwright but she ended up being a play reader, an editor of theater journals and a critic.

II. Group Theatre Work

The summer of 1932 was the first summer that Elia Kazan was a part of the fledgling group known as the Group Theatre. He spent the summer as an apprentice with people like Harold Clurman, Cheryl Crawford, and Lee Strasberg. By the end of his second summer in 1933 with the Group Theatre he officially became a member of the group. At the end of the summer of 1932 Cheryl Crawford secured Kazan a job as an assistant stage manager for the Theatre Guild for Lawson’s play The Pure in Heart.

In 1935 the Group Theatre was approached by the New Theatre League about writing a play about communism to present in their series the New Theatre Nights. This show ultimately became Waiting for Lefty by Clifford Odets. This show was revolutionary and stunned audiences who saw it for the first time. It automatically made Clifford Odets the man in demand and Kazan got a lot of recognition and respect for being such an essential role in the show. One of the nicknames that Kazan received was the “Proletariat Thunderbolt” which he relished. This play was so effective because of the overall theme of wanting to restore power the working class citizens of the United States and because of the timing. America was in the midst of the Great Depression which shocked the nation’s economy into a downward spiral and most people were barely surviving. This made for a receptive audience because so many of them didn’t have jobs or were getting paid next to nothing for their work and needed something like this to give them the push to get more rights.

After the success of Waiting for Lefty the group theatre decided that they would focus on the next summer’s season instead of doing their already scheduled follow up play. This made a lot of people in the Group Theatre company angry because coming off of the success of Waiting they were left with no jobs and no income. People in the company wanted to do Awake and Sing!, but Harold Clurman didn’t like the show and therefore he pigeonholed the effort which created tension in the group. They finally produced Awake and Sing! in February of 1935 with Elia Kazan in a starring role. The show was critically lauded, but it wasn’t as well received as Waiting for Lefty because it wasn’t quite as revolutionary.

Following directly after Waiting for Lefty was Weep for the Virgins which was ultimately a flop and put a lot of pressure on the Group to produce another hit show. Paradise Lost followed with Elia in a role as a “bourgeois nightmare”. This show was a success, but in comparison to Waiting it was still not as important. Odets compared Paradise to the work of Chekov which received harsh criticism from critics because it wasn’t really comparable to the works of Chekov. The show only lasted for two shows and when it ended the season was done as well.

In 1936 the Group Theatre started to fall apart and dismantled for a while. In 1937 they reassembled temporarily, but ultimately the Group Theatre closed it’s doors forever in 1940.

III. Other Theatre Work

This was also a point in time where there was a lot of activity in the theatre community which led to the formation of groups such as the Theatre of Action, the Theatre Union and the Theatre Collective. Elia Kazan didn’t immediately become involved with any of these organizations because he felt like they didn’t have the right intentions. The summer of 1933 started Kazan’s work with the League of Workers Theatre and the Workers’ Laboratory Theatre whose slogan was, “Theatre is a Weapon”. Kazan started to get involved with some of these organizations during the year and worked with the Group Theatre during the summer season. He also started to teach classes at the New Theatre League which was a Communist front organization. Evemtually Kazan warmed to the Theatre of Action and became a part of their group. They were a unique group of people who lived, slept, ate and rehearsed together. They shared everything that they had together and lived in true Communistic style, which Kazan grew tired of.

IV. Play credits in the time period

The Pure In Heart 1932 Assistant Stage Manager

Chrysalis 1932 Actor

Men in White 1933-34 Actor/Stage Manager

Gold Eagle Guy 1934-35 Actor

Waiting for Lefty 1935 Actor

Weep for the Virgins 1935 Actor

Till the Day I Die 1935 Actor

The Young Go First 1935 Actor

Waiting for Lefty 1935 Actor

Paradise Lost 1935-36 Actor

The Crime 1936 Director

Case of Clyde Griffiths 1936 Actor

Johnny Johnson 1936-37 Actor

Golden Boy 1937-38 Actor

Casey Jones 1938 Director

The Gentle People 1939 Actor

Thunder Rock 1939 Actor

V. Sources

Bigsby, Christopher, and Don B. Wilmeth. The Cambridge History of American

Theatre. Volume 2. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

"Elia Kazan." Answers.com. 2006. Answers Corporation. 1 Oct 2006

< http://www.answers.com/topic/elia-kazan>.

“Elia Kazan.” Books and Writers 25 September 2006

< http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/kazan.htm>.

"Elia Kazan." Internet Broadway Database. 2006. The League of American

Theatres and Producers. 1 Oct 2006

<http://www.ibdb.com/person.asp?ID=15277>.

"Elia Kazan." Learnthings 2005 26, September, 2006

<http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAkazan.htm>.

Kazan, Elia. Elia Kazan: A Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1988.

Mordden, Ethan. The American Theatre. New York: Oxford University Press,

1981.

Schickel, Richard. Elia Kazan: A Biography. New York: HarperCollins

Publishers, 2005.