In Behalf of the Feminine Side of the Commercial Stage: The Institute of the Woman's Theatre and Stagestruck Girls

By Mabel Rowland's public accounting, the Institute of the Woman's Theatre helped hundreds of so-called stagestruck girls realize their ambitions by providing a safety net for the pitfalls of the commercial theatre. The organization, officially established in 1926 and in operation until roughly 1930, was said to have begun years earlier, “the outgrowth of a group which was formed in 1910 and used to meet in the Fitzgerald Building.” As president, Rowland—a press agent, well-known comedic monologist, and all-around theatre factotum—was supported by society women and a cadre of famous female writers and performers, including Florence Reed, who served as Vice President, and charter members Julia Arthur, Irene Castle, Rachel Crothers, Helen Hayes, Violet Heming, Elsie Janis, Anita Loos, Mary Pickford, and Mary Shaw, plus about a dozen more. At the time of its official founding, the institute announced that it would undertake three activities. First, it sought to establish aprofessionalBroadway theatre as exclusively a women's operation, employing female playwrights, designers, directors, managers, producers, box-office staff, and so forth: “The only men who will be connected with the enterprise … are the actors and stagehands.” Second and third, the institute would give “aid and advice to girls from out of town who think they have something to offer the theater, read scripts and give opinions thereon, and in other ways labor in behalf of the feminine side of the stage.” The institute's goal of a theatre in tandem with discovering talented women looked to create a meaningful shift in women's inclusion and power within commercial theatre.