Black Female Playwrights: An Anthology of Plays before 1950

Eulalie Spence

Eulalie Spence (1894-1981) Eulalie Spence during the early 19408. (Courtesy of Patricia Hart) Eulalie Spence around the time she won the Crisis Playwriting Award in 1927. (Courtesy of Patricia Hart) I have seen plays written by our Negro writers with this caption: To Be Read, Not Played! A play to be read! Why not the song to be read not sung, and the canvas to be described, not painted! To every art its form, thank God! And to the play, the technique that belongs to it. 1 EULALIE SPENCE WAS ONE of the more experienced female playwrights prior to the 1950s. She graduated from New York City's Wadleigh High School and the New York Training School for Teachers, then received a B.A. from New York University in 1937 and an M.A. from Teachers College , Columbia University, in 1939. While at Columbia, Spence studied playwriting with such professors as Hughes Hatcher and Estelle H. Davis. Spence began her teaching career with the New York public school system in 1918. She taught elocution, English, and dramatics at Eastern District High School, Brooklyn, from 1927 until her retirement in 1958. Born June 11, 1894, Spence migrated to the United States in 1902 from the island of Nevis, West Indies, with her parents and four of five sisters. (Another sister would be born in. the United States.) At the turn of the century , her father, a sugar planter, had lost his entire crop to a hurricane and came to America to seek employment. In an unpublished 1973 interview located in the Hatch-Billops Collection, Spence recalled the difficulty her father had obtaining work because he was West Indian. She grew up realizing that West Indians, particularly those with some basic education, were not popular in this country. It wasn't until later in life that Spence realized she had grown up poor and unfortunate. Spence's mother instilled in her daughters a strong sense of pride, making them aware that they were important individuals regardless of how little they possessed materially. Eulalie Spence was "prim, proper and ultracorrect in her speech and dress, yes-but she was gentle, generous and loving and the backbone of a family of seven girls.,,2 Inspired by her mother, who often read stories to the girls, she developed an interest in writing. In the same 1973 interview, Spence spoke of her father as being a very quiet man who left most decisions up to her mother when it came to the seven girls. She indicated that perhaps the female characters in her plays were very strong personalities as compared with the weak male figures because of her upbringing. However , she did not consciously intend for the characters to appear as such. In 1926, Spence's Foreign Mail-possibly her first play-placed second in the Crisis competition for playwriting. But the year 1927 was a coup for her. She won the Opportunity second place award for The Hunch and one half of third place for The Starter. That same year, W. E. B. DuBois entered Foreign Mail as well as Fool's Errand in the David Belasco Little Theatre Tournament. Fool's Errand won the Samuel French $200 prize and 106 / EULALIE SPENCE both plays had the distinction of being published by French. Two of Spence's sisters, Doralyne and Olga, performed in her plays. In fact, Spence coached her sister Doralyne when she took over Rose McClendon's role in Abraham's Bosom at the Cherry Lane during the 1920s. A member of DuBois's Krigwa Players from 1926 until the group's demise two years later, Spence respected the activist, but the two had major disagreements . DuBois attempted on many occasions to persuade her to use her excellent writing skills for propaganda. Spence emphasized that her rationale for avoiding propaganda issues was that she knew nothing about lynchings, rapes, nor the blatant racial injustices in this country. As a West Indian, she claimed, these issues were not a part of her background. Spence was also adamant in her belief that a play could not depend on propaganda for success. She was a "folk dramatist," who wrote for fun and entertainment . Despite their differences, DuBois and the Krigwa Players presented a third play by Spence, Her, as part of their second season in 1927 at the 135th Street New York Public Library. Her, a ghost play, is an interesting piece centered...