Black Female Playwrights: An Anthology of Plays before 1950

Mary P. Burrill

Mary P. Burrill (1884-1946) Mary P. Burrill just before her retirement from Dunbar High School. (Courtesy of Dunbar High School, Washington, D.C.) THE SEPTEMBER 1919 ISSUE OF Birth Control Review, a monthly periodical advocating birth control rights of women, featured a special issue on "The Negroes' Need for Birth Control, as Seen by Themselves." In this issue Mary P. Burrill contributed her play They That Sit in Darkness, along with a short story by her close friend Angelina Weld.Grimke. They That Sit in Darkness was one of two published plays written by Burrill. The other, Aftermath, was published the same year in another periodical, the Liberator . Aftermath was produced by the New York Krigwa Players, where it appeared in the David Belasco Little Theatre Tournament in 1928. They That Sit in Darkness was produced by smaller groups in the New York area. Although these are her only two available plays, she was known to have written others. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Burrill graduated in 1901 from the famous M Street School, later Dunbar High. When her family moved to Boston, Burrill attended Em~rson College of Oratory, which later became Emerson College, and received a diploma in 1904. She returned to Emerson in 1929, and earned her Bachelor of Literary Interpretation (BLI). While at Emerson, Burrill revised They That Sit in Darkness and retitled it Unto the Third and Fourth Generations. The play was published in the 1930 Emersonian yearbook and was awarded "Best Junior Play of the Year." Burrill had an outstanding reputation as a teacher and as a director for numerous dramatic productions throughout the Washington, D.C. area. Burrill spent most of her career at Dunbar High where she taught English, speech, and dramatics. According to Burrill's colleague, Mary Hundley: In dramatics, Miss Mary P. Burrill gave many years of outstanding service in the training of speech and acting. . .. Students from underprivileged homes, whose color barred them from the usual cultural contacts, found themselves developing in speech, posture, and poise. At one period, Miss Burrill persuaded Walter L. Smith, principal, to introduce a daily program of posture drill at the beginning of each class period throughout the schoolP During Burrill's years at Dunbar, she inspired many young students to write plays and try their han~ at, directing. She encouraged Willis Richardson , one of her prize students, to write plays. Richardson went on to become the first black dramatist on Broadway with The Chip Woman's Fortune. Her inspiration also prompted her student May Miller to write Pandora's Box, which won Miller a fifty-cent cash prize as well as the honor of being published in School's Progress magazine in 1914. So well respected was Burrill that upon her retirement, the Dunbar Class of 1945 dedicated their yearbook to her. During the 1920s, Burrill became known throughout the district for her productions of Maeterlinck's The Blue Bird and J. M. Barrie's Quality Street. Her annual presentation of "The Other Wise Men" at Howard University drew large crowds from around the city. Burrill also served as di- 56 / MARY P. BURRILL rector of the School of Expression, which was a part of the Washington, D.C., Conservatory of Music, headed by Harriet Gibbs Marshall. As director from 1907 to 1911, she taught elocution, public speaking, and dramatics. Upon her retirement in 1944, Burrill moved to New York City. She died on ~Iarch 13, 1946. NOT E S 1. Hundley, Mary Gibson, The Dunbar Story 1870-1955. (New York: Vantage Press, 1965), p. 133. ...