Frederic Lansing Day

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Frederic Lansing Day was an American playwright b. 1886 in Boston, Massachusetts d. 1982 in New Hampshire. Frederic Day (also known as "Lanny") the son of H.B. Day the founder of the Day Trust Company was a Socialist and Unitarian. He graduated from Yale in 1908 and married Katharine Munroe (b. 1892 d. 1955) whom he later divorced. They had a home built in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1920, which remained in the family until 1956. He later remarried. Frederic Day worked briefly as a journalist and as an employee in his father's bank, but did poorly in both jobs and did not need full time employment to support his family. Day considered himself to be a failure having little success in regular employment and publishing a relatively small body of works, only one of which brought him any fame having been performed at a number of theaters. He is best known for two plays, The Makers of Light: A Play in Three Parts (1925) originally produced by The 47 Workshop of Harvard and published by Brentano's and The Slump (1920), also produced by The 47 Workshop.

[edit] Makers of Light

Makers of Light is a drama copyrighted by Day in 1920 and published in 1925. It was first shown at the Agassiz House Theater in Cambridge Nov. 25, 1921. The cast consisted of F.C. Packard, Jr., Angela Morris, Edith Coburn Noyes, Dorothy Sands, Oviatt McConnell, Henry Carlton, James Daly, F.L. Strong, Norman Clark, E.P. Goodnow and Robert Bushnell. It opened at the Neighborhood Playhouse of New York, the Little Theater of Cleveland and the Play House of Cleveland.

"Makers of Light, when originally produced by the 47 Workshop made so deep an impression that later it was played at the Neighborhood Playhouse, New York City. Here it was again praised for its sincerity, subtle characterization of the chief figures and its power. Given at the Little Theater, Clevland, in the winter of 1924, it was revived the following autumn." Profesor George P. Barker

The dedication to the Makers of Light reads, "To my father; For his affection in spite of disapproval, his loyalty in spite of disbelief."