Actors’ Workshop

In spring 1935 the Tennessee Players student dramatic club was disbanded. Within a month, a new club—the Actors’ Workshop, affiliated with the English Department—was formed. The goal of the new organization was to study the dramatic arts, not necessarily to produce them. The English Department sponsored a playwriting contest, and the winning plays (by Dorothy Remine, who won first place, and by James Chandler and John Baugh, the two runners-up) were staged by the workshop on May 22 in Alumni Memorial Auditorium. The club was reorganized in 1936, and the name UT Playhouse was adopted. Laboratory productions were begun.