The Playwrights' Company was incorporated under the laws of the State of Delaware in July, 1938 to produce and exploit plays written by its members. The original incorporators were playwrights Maxwell Anderson, S. N. Behrman, Sidney Howard, Elmer Rice, Robert E. Sherwood, and John F. Wharton, the only non-playwright member, who served as counsel and financial supervisor. Impetus for launching what was to become the most successful such experiment by dramatists in producing their own works lay in the conflicts and restrictions they had previously experienced. As a group, the members of the Playwrights' Company were all friends, all well established in their careers by the time the company was formed, and all possessed of a liberal political philosophy.
The first play produced by the Playwrights' Company was Abe Lincoln in Illinois by Robert E. Sherwood, which opened on Broadway on October 15, 1938. Subsequently the company produced, either alone or in association, sixty-seven other productions. Except for two seasons during its twenty-two year existence (1944-1945 and 1947-1948) the company was represented on Broadway every year by at least one production. Among the company's other important plays were There Shall Be No Night (1940), The Patriots (1943), Dream Girl (1945), Darkness at Noon (1951), The Fourposter (1952), Ondine (1954), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955) and Tea and Sympathy (1955).
The Playwrights' Company was organized on the assumption that each member would submit one script and that three to five productions by outside individuals might also be produced each year. During its early years, however, the company produced only plays by its members but in general they were unable to meet the goal envisioned by the initial agreement. Contributing to this failure were the death of Sidney Howard in 1939 and the motion picture and wartime involvements of Sherwood and Rice. Then in 1946 S. N. Behrman withdrew because he felt his duties as producer cut too deeply into time needed for writing. In the same year the distinguished composer Kurt Weill joined the company, although his participation did not increase the number of available plays. As a result, during the immediate postwar period the company turned to works by nonmembers such as Sidney Kingsley and Garson Kanin. Plays of this period by company members included Anne of the Thousand Days, Joan of Lorraine, and Lost in the Stars. To deal with the continuing problem of acquiring suitable plays and to secure the services of a fulltime production head in 1951 the company admitted Roger Stevens as a partner. From this standpoint Stevens' nine-year tenure as head of the company was more successful than the previous thirteen, and he saw into production a total of forty-five plays (most of them by non-members). Among these were The Fourposter, Ondine, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Tiger at the Gate.
Other changes in membership during the 1950's included the death
of Weill in 1950, the admission of Robert W. Anderson in 1953, and the deaths of Sherwood in 1955 and Maxwell Anderson in 1959. After Anderson's death production activities continued until June 1960 when the company was formally dissolved.
