Eulalie Spence facts for kids

Eulalie Spence (born June 11, 1894 – died March 7, 1981) was a talented writer, teacher, director, actress, and playwright from the British West Indies. She was a very important person during the Harlem Renaissance, a time when Black art and culture thrived. Eulalie Spence wrote fourteen plays, and at least five of them were published. She called herself a "folk dramatist" because she made plays for fun and entertainment. Many people thought she was one of the most experienced female playwrights before the 1950s. She even won several writing competitions!

Spence worked with W. E. B. Du Bois' Krigwa Players, a theater group, from 1926 to 1928. She also helped guide a famous theater producer named Joseph Papp. He later started The Public Theater and the popular Shakespeare in the Park festival in New York City.

Early Life in the West Indies and New York

Eulalie Spence was born on June 11, 1894, on the island of Nevis in the British West Indies. She was the oldest of seven girls born to Robert and Eno Lake Spence. She spent her early years on her father's sugar plantation.

When a hurricane destroyed their plantation in 1902, Eulalie and her family moved to New York City. They first lived in Harlem before settling in Brooklyn. Her niece, Patricia Hart, remembered Spence as a "prim, proper and ultracorrect" person who was also "gentle, generous and loving."

Life in New York was tough for the family. Her father found it hard to get a steady job, so they lived in a small, crowded apartment in Brooklyn. Eulalie's mother even made clothes from old uniform fabric from her work. The family felt a great sadness when their father gave up his dream of returning home. Eulalie also noticed that West Indians like her family were not always welcomed by the Black people already living in New York.

Despite these challenges, Eulalie had many good influences, especially from her mother. Her mother often read to her as a child. The strong and independent spirit her mother showed became a role model for Eulalie, both in her own life and in the strong female characters she created in her plays.

Eulalie's Education Journey

Eulalie Spence worked hard to get a great education, even though her family faced poverty. She graduated from Wadleigh High School and the New York Training School for Teachers. In 1924, she studied at the National Ethiopian Art Theatre School, which trained and employed Black actors.

She earned a bachelor's degree (B.A.) from New York University in 1937. Then, in 1939, she received a master's degree (M.A.) in speech from Teacher's College, Columbia University.

Eulalie began teaching in New York public schools in 1918. She taught for over thirty years (1927-1958) at Eastern District High School in Brooklyn. There, she taught elocution (the art of clear speaking), English, and dramatics. One of her students was Joseph Papp, who later became a famous playwright and producer.

Eulalie Spence's Writing Career

W. E. B. Du Bois, who started and edited The Crisis magazine for the NAACP, believed that Black theater should be created by Black people for Black audiences. In 1926, he founded Krigwa (Crisis Guild of Writers and Artists), also known as the Krigwa Players. This group held a yearly writing contest, including one for plays.

Eulalie Spence did very well in these contests. She won second place in the 1926 Krigwa playwriting contest for her one act play Foreign Mail. She also won a second place prize for her play Her in a contest held by Opportunity magazine.

In 1927, Spence's play Fool’s Errand was part of a big theater tournament. It was a special moment because it was the first time Black artists competed in a Broadway theatre. The Krigwa Players won one of the $200 prizes, and the play was published by Samuel French. Her play Undertow also tied for third place in the 1927 Crisis contest. The Hunch won second place in the 1927 Opportunity contest, and The Starter won third place. The Starter was even included in an important collection of African-American theater called Plays of Negro Life.

Spence's play Her opened the Krigwa Players' second season. Her sisters, Olga and Doralene Spence, also acted in the Krigwa Players' shows and received praise for their performances. Doralene even took over a lead role in a Broadway play called In Abraham's Bosom in 1927. A critic named William E. Clarke wrote that Her was "by far the best" play and was written with such skill that it felt like a three-act tragedy.

Another play by Spence, On Being Forty, was never published but was performed publicly at least twice. Eulalie Spence also directed two plays for a theater group called the Dunbar Garden Players.

A Disagreement with W.E.B. Du Bois

Eulalie Spence's plays helped make the Krigwa Players famous among both Black and white critics. However, Spence and Du Bois had different ideas about theater. Du Bois believed that theater should be used to spread messages and help the cause of Black Americans. He thought it should be a tool for propaganda.

Spence, on the other hand, felt that theater was mainly for entertainment. She didn't want plays to make people angry about society's problems. In a 1928 essay, she wrote, "We go to the theatre for entertainment, not to have old fires and hates rekindled." Du Bois tried many times to get Spence to write plays with political messages, but she always refused. She believed plays should follow the rules of good drama, not a political plan.

This disagreement caused problems. Du Bois used the $200 prize money from the 1927 Little Theatre Tournament to cover production costs and didn't pay the actors or Spence. Because of this, the Krigwa Players group eventually broke up.

The Whipping: A Unique Play

Spence's only three-act play was The Whipping, which she adapted from a novel by Roy Flannagan. The story is about a young white woman who causes a stir in a town. She is attacked by the Ku Klux Klan, a hate group, but she cleverly turns the situation around. She frames the Klan and uses the media attention to start a movie career.

This plot, about a white woman outsmarting the Klan, was very unusual for a Black female writer during the Harlem Renaissance. Most Black women writers at that time focused on Black folk life. Spence also broke racial barriers by working with a white author for publishing rights and hiring a white agent, Audrey Wood.

The Whipping was supposed to open in 1933, but it was canceled just four days before. Spence was very disappointed. She then sold the screenplay rights to Paramount Pictures for $5000. Even though her play never made it to the stage, it was important because it was one of the earliest attempts by an African-American writer to enter commercial theater. Spence later said that her screenplay was filmed as Ready for Love in 1934, starring Ida Lupino. She wasn't listed in the film credits, which might be why this connection isn't widely known.

Eulalie's Writing Style

Eulalie Spence's plays often showed her understanding of race and gender, influenced by her parents' experiences as Black immigrants. Most of her plays were comedies, but she also wrote three dramas: Her, Undertow, and La Davina Pastora.

Spence wrote "folk plays," which focused on the everyday lives of African-Americans, especially their home lives. She did not agree with Du Bois that Black theater should be used for political messages. Her plays often featured a love triangle and showed weak male characters compared to strong female characters. Spence said this contrast was probably from her own home life, where her quiet father let her mother make most decisions.

Her play Undertow is still considered one of her most lasting works from the Harlem Renaissance. It's about a woman who returns to Harlem to win back the man she loves from his wife. The play subtly touches on racial themes, as the man's dark-skinned wife is obsessed with the lighter skin of his former lover. Spence used the characters' backgrounds to develop the plot, rather than for racial messages. While her characters were clearly Black, Spence focused on universal themes that everyone could relate to, instead of just racial ones.

Using Black Dialect in Plays

Eulalie Spence believed that Black theater should help audiences appreciate its African roots. In the mid-1920s, there was a debate about how African-Americans should be shown on stage. Spence insisted on using Black dialect in her plays. She felt it was important for showing real Black life.

When asked to write a play without dialect, she refused, saying she had no suitable play. Spence's choice to use Black dialect on stage was considered "bold and dangerous" at the time. However, it actually highlighted racial awareness by showing Black women's struggles to keep their racial and gender identity. Her work helps us understand how language patterns on stage can show ethnicity and what that means in a performance.

Eulalie Spence's Legacy

Eulalie Spence was seen as one of the rising young playwrights of the Harlem Renaissance. However, she didn't achieve great financial success. The disagreement with W. E. B. Du Bois over prize money eventually led to the end of the Krigwa Players. The $5000 she received for her screenplay of The Whipping was the only payment she ever got as a writer. Spence, who never married, stepped away from public life after The Whipping. She focused on her work as a high school teacher, though she continued to write and act for Columbia University's Laboratory Players.

Her Influence on Joseph Papp

Eulalie Spence was a forward-thinking teacher who encouraged her students to discuss social issues. She taught in a mostly white classroom but pushed her students to think about race and gender in the books they read. This was very unusual before the 1960s.

The famous theater producer Joseph Papp called Eulalie Spence "the most influential force in his life." Even fifty years after being her student at Eastern District High School, he spoke about her with great respect. She was the only Black teacher at the school. Papp said Spence helped him improve his speech and grammar. She brought actors to class and gave her students poetry and plays to read. Papp felt that Spence "was interested in me. She made me feel good about myself. She took me under her wing." He never forgot her impact, though he only learned about her own plays years later at a museum exhibit.

Rediscovering Her Work Today

For a while, some scholars didn't pay much attention to Spence's plays because of her use of Black dialect and because she didn't have a long career in theater. However, many modern critics now value her work highly. They recognize her important contributions to theater history, especially to the art theater movement and African American theater.

Some experts, like Elizabeth Brown-Guillory, believe Spence helped start feminism in plays by Black women. James Hatch and Ted Shine noted that Spence was one of the first to write "black characters into non-racial plots." They also called her one of the best craftswomen of the Harlem Renaissance.

Modern Performances of Her Plays

While Eulalie Spence was once overshadowed by famous writers like Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, scholars have recently started to look at her work again.

In 2015, the Xoregos Performing Company performed Spence's play The Hunch as part of their Harlem Remembered program. The show ran in New York City, Yonkers, and Newburgh. Her play The Starter also premiered in the Xoregos Performing Company's program Songs of the Harlem River in New York City in 2015. This program also opened the Langston Hughes Festival in Queens, New York in 2016.

Death

Eulalie Spence passed away in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on March 7, 1981, at the age of 86. She was living at her niece Patricia Hart's home and died at the Warner Hospital. Her obituary only mentioned that she was a retired schoolteacher, not her important career as a playwright.

Annie M Warner Hospital and Nurses Home, Gettysburg Pa. Eulalie Spence was in this hospital at the time of her death.

Written Works by Eulalie Spence

Plays

• The Starter (1923)
• On Being Forty (1924 - This play was never published, and no copies of the script have been found.)
• Foreign Mail (1926)
• Fool’s Errand (1927)
• Her (1927)
• Hot Stuff (1927)
• The Hunch (1927)
• Undertow (1927)
• Episode (1928)
• La Divina Pastora (1929)
• The Whipping (1934)

Essays

• "A Criticism of the Negro Drama as it Relates to the Negro Dramatist and Artist." Opportunity, June 28, 1928.
• "Negro Art Players in Harlem." Opportunity, December, 1928.

See also

• Harlem Renaissance