Winthrop Ames
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Winthrop Ames (November 25, 1870 - November 3, 1937) was an American theatrical director and producer, playwright, screenwriter and a theatre owner/operator.
Born in North Easton, Massachusetts to a wealthy manufacturing family, he worked in the publishing business before embarking on a career in the theatre. For three decades at the beginning of the 20th century, Winthrop Ames was an important force on Broadway whose repertoire includes directing and producing several Gilbert and Sullivan operettas.
In 1912, wanting to go against the tide of Broadway commercialism, Winthrop Ames used his own money to build the Little Theatre at 240 West 44th Street with the express idea of putting on experimental dramas and to give an opportunity to new playwrights. One of the plays he presented in October of the first year of operation was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs which he billed as the "First play written entirely for the enjoyment of children." The play was written by Ames using the pseudonym "Jessie Graham White" from the stories of the Brothers Grimm and received favorable reviews. By 1920, Ames began leasing the theatre to other producers and he produced his last Broadway play in 1930. In 1931, as he wound down his business affairs with age, he sold the Little Theatre building to the New York Times. In 1959, after years as an office building for the Timers, it was converted back to a theatre and was briefly renamed in 1964 as the "Winthrop Ames Theatre." In 1983 it was renamed again to the Helen Hayes Theatre.
Like other of the most influential Broadway theater producers, Ames's likeness was captured in caricature by Alex Gard for the wall of Sardi's, the New York City theater district restaurant. The picture is now part of the collection of the New York Public Library. [1]
In addition to his work in live theatre, Ames was contracted by the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation to write the screenplay for their 1916 motion pictures, Oliver Twist and Snow White.
Winthrop Ames died in 1937 in Boston.
