THE GIRL: I’M SO TIRED! I’D LIKE SOMETHING NICER ” 52 TANNER: YOU FORGET THAT I AM A NOVELIST ” 80 PREFACE No one can deny the present Dramatic Renaissance. Plays profitable and unprofitable, popular and unpopular, proper and improper, plays priggish and plays profane, are being presented, read, discussed, revised, written about and quarrelled over. The Drama is furiously to the fore and, in spite of the “Movies,” continues to hold the absorbed interest of an increasing number of people. In the midst of all this dramatic stir, this unrest of expression, certain ones, weary of being onlookers, arise and announce, “We too will act,” and others cry out, “We too will write.” So the Amateur providing his own cue, makes his entrance, and after being regarded a bit askance by “The Profession” is allowed to play his part. In the Spring of 1911 I cast an affectionate and calculating eye upon a small frame house next door. It was shortly acquired; partitions and ceilings were pulled out, the lean-to kitchen became the stage; dressing-rooms were added and a miniature theatre which we called The Playhouse was ready. In the five Summers since, a group of amateur players have presented some fifty one-act plays to the great pleasure and interest of themselves and the alternate, sometimes mingled, amusement, surprise, disapproval and horror of their neighbors. Many of the plays given were written by the players themselves or adapted from short stories. Others were translated from the French, German or Italian. All were experimental, undertaken in a spirit of adventure with the simple motive of amusing the players and their friends. The five plays in this book were written for production at “The Playhouse.” They have all gained in rehearsal by suggestions from the actors. In the comedies much is left to the interpretation of the players. Often amusing lines or “business” comes to a player from the response of the audience, but he and his fellows must be quick of wit that such improvisation may seem entirely natural. Amateurs have one great advantage, they give a play only once or twice and so attain a freshness and spontaneity that it would take years of technical training to enable them to keep up through a long run. H. T. Parker, commenting in _The Boston Transcript_ upon a performance of the “Lake Forest Players” on a dramatic visit to the Toy Theatre in Boston says: