The founders included Hutchins Hapgood, EMILY
BIGELOW HAPGOOD, and MABEL DODGE, and
later members included EUGENEO’NEILL. George
Cram Cook had a major influence on the group in
its formative years.
The troupe, which began staging productions
in 1915, included works by O’Neill and is credited
with launching the career of the Nobel Prize– and
PULITZER PRIZE–winning writer. The Province-
town Players relocated to GREENWICHVILLAGEat
the end of 1916 and there became a vital part of
the avant-garde theater community. It worked
with writers such as Edna St. Vincent Millay and
PAUL GREEN, the white Pulitzer Prize–winning
playwright whose works included INABRAHAM’S
BOSOM, a drama that the Players produced in
1926 to much acclaim. The Provincetown Players
lasted for some 15 years and presented their final
productions in 1929.
Bibliography
Sarlos, Robert. Jig Cook and the Provincetown Players:
Theatre in Ferment.Amherst: University of Mas-
sachusetts Press, 1982.
Pulitzer Prize
A prestigious award given to individuals who
demonstrate excellence in such fields as literature,
journalism, and music. Joseph Pulitzer, an intrepid
and entrepreneurial Hungarian-American pub-
lisher, endowed the prizes in his will. Pulitzer, who
also allocated funds to establish the Columbia
School of Journalism, indicated that the prizes
should be awarded in the fields of journalism, let-
ters, drama, and education, and also include four
prizes to fund travel.
The first prizes were given in 1917. During the
Harlem Renaissance, winners included PAUL
GREENfor his play INABRAHAM’SBOSOM(1926);
writer ZONAGALE, who in 1924 helped to judge
the annual Opportunity literary contest; MARC
CONNELLYfor his play THEGREENPASTURES: A
FABLE(1930); novelist JULIA MOODPETERKIN;
and composer Virgil Thomson, who collaborated
with COUNTEECULLENin the 1930s on musical
adaptations of the poet’s work.Bibliography
Hohenberg, John. The Pulitzer Diaries: Inside America’s
Greatest Prize.Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University
Press, 1997.
Juergens, George. Joseph Pulitzer and the New York World.
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966.
Seitz, Don Carlos. Joseph Pulitzer: His Life and Letters.
1924; reprint, Garden City, N.Y.: Garden City Pub-
lishing Company, 1927.Purple Flower, TheMarita Bonner(1928)
An abstract one-act play by MARITABONNER.
Published in the January 1928 issue of THECRISIS,
the play centers on “Sundry White Devils” and
their competition, “The Us’s.” Set on an “open
plain” that is “bounded distantly on one side by
Nowhere and faced by a high hill—Somewhere,”
the play contemplates issues of oppression, en-
croachment, and survival.
The Us’s are made up of figures who could “be
as white as the White Devils, as brown as the
earth, as black as the center of a poppy” and who
“may look as if they were something or nothing.”
The group, whose description suggests that they
symbolize African Americans, bemoan their plight
at the hands of the elitist “Sundry White Devils”
and plot how best to overcome their tormentors.
The group, intent on scaling the high hill on the
horizon, realizes the need for capable leaders and
the importance of group solidarity.
Bonner used the play to advance her critique
of contemporary American society.Bibliography
Flynn, Joyce, and Joyce Occomy Striklin. Frye Street &
Environs: The Collected Works of Marita Bonner.
Boston: Beacon Press, 1987.Purple Flower, The 435