Charles Norris Houghton (26 December 1909 – 9 October 2001) was an American stage manager, scenic designer, producer, director, theatre manager, academic, author, and public policy advocate. Houghton is known as an American expert in 20th-century Russian Theatre; as a major force in creating the "off-Broadway" movement; as a student and educator of global theater; and as an influential advocate of arts education.
Houghton taught at Princeton, Columbia, and Vassar; his academic career continued at the State University of New York, where he helped create the SUNY Purchase campus and served as founding Dean of Theatre and Film. He wrote many books and articles. His books and papers are preserved for study in several university and college libraries and archives.http://findingaids.princeton.edu/simpleSearch?text1=Norris+Houghton&maxdisplay=50 Abstracts and finding aids for Norris Houghton collections at Princeton libraries and listing of Princeton classes; listing for Norris Houghton as undergraduate and as alumnus. Advance from Broadway by Norris Houghton, 1941: Abstract: Consists of manuscripts for Norris Houghton's book. Advance from Broadway. Location: Manuscripts Division Call Number:C0167 Princeton Playgoers, Inc. Records, 1941–1942: Creator Princeton Playgoers, Inc. . Abstract: Princeton Playgoers, Inc. was a theater production company formed in 1942, during the wartime period when the engagements of Triangle Club were limited. Location: Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library. Princeton University Archives. Call Number:AC315 Theatre Intime Records, 1919–2011: Creator: Princeton University. Theatre Intime. Abstract: "...contains records of the Princeton University student-run theatre...and includes correspondence, clippings, photographs, playbills, posters, scripts, designs, and promotional materials. Location: Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library Call Number ACO22 Miscellaneous Playscripts Collection, 1882–1961: Creator:Princeton University Library Dept. of Rare Books and Special Collections. Abstract: includes some playscripts stamped or addressed by theater agencies in Chicago, New York City, and Hollywood...others were used at McCarter Theater or by the Princeton University Players. Location: Manuscript Division Call Number TCO30 McCarter Theatre Records, 1928–2007: Creator: McCarter Theatre Center. Abstract: "The McCarter Theatre was conceived as a permanent home for the Princeton University Triangle Club. McCarter began as a booking theater but moved ...producing its own performances. The ...records document the history of the McCarter Theatre, including administration, performances and productions, and the building..." Location: Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library Princeton University Archives. Call Number: AC131 Princeton University Class Records, 1798–2011: Creator:Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library. Abstract:...consist of a diverse set of materials documenting the history and activities of Princeton University Classes during their time as undergraduates and as alumni...correspondence, newsletters, publications, photographs, and memorabilia, all of which pertain to a particular Princeton University graduating class. Location: Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library. Princeton University Archives. Call Number: AC 13011. www. Beta.worldcat.org/archivegrid. Norris Houghton collections in the Princeton Firestone Library and Yale University Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.Yale University Library Collections. . Archibald MacLeish Collection. Finding Aid for Phoenix Theatre: Box 19.http://www.clio.cul.columbia.edu. Finding aid Norris Houghton Book collection at Columbia University.Houghton, Norris. Entrances and Exits, Limelight Editions, 1990. 377 pages. An autobiographical memoir of Norris Houghton's lifeVassar College records. Norris Houghton curriculum vitae. The standard curriculum vitae record for faculty. Similar record at other colleges where Norris Houghton held faculty and administrative status.
Early life and introduction to the theatre
Charles Norris Houghton was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, the youngest of three children of Grace Norris and Charles Houghton of Oxford, Ohio. After his parents separated in 1921 he was raised by his devoted, quiet, intellectual mother and her sister, Sarah. He remained close to them throughout their lives and their many influences included a lifetime of resilient Christian faith.
Houghton discovered the stage at age seven, when he was taken by his maternal grandfather to see E.H. Sothern and Julia Marlowe in The Taming of the Shrew, and the following year to a musical brought from London, Chu Chin Chow. Live theater ("the road") was a predominant form of entertainment, but this introduction was more than a shared cultural experience: in theater he discovered his life's plan. By age 14, Houghton offered festivals of short plays in the family home, recruiting and training the Stringscraft Players of nine young marionetteers. This period revealed the role he would pursue throughout his long life: "finding (or writing) the play, peopling it with performers, both the marionettes themselves and the manipulators of their strings; the former must be costumed, the stage decorated and lighted...and the whole put together by an impresario (myself)." By age 16 at the New Gothic style sanctuary of Tabernacle Presbyterian Church he created two Christmas pageant tableaux extravaganzas for 150 performers, including coaching the choir and an organist in unfamiliar excerpts of Monteverdi and Pergolesi.
With a record that included captain of the debate team and senior class president, Houghton was admitted to Princeton, chosen over Harvard because of Princeton's Triangle Club, the oldest collegiate musical-comedy group in the nation. That choice gave him an early introduction to New York City theatre, an easy commute from Princeton. Many Triangle Club members became lifelong friends who helped shape modern theatre. He flourished as stage and costume designer as well as the Triangle's vice-president in this company that included Joshua Logan, Jose Ferrer, James Stewart, Erik Barnouw, Myron McCormick, Alfred Dalrymple, Bretaigne Windust, and Lemuel Ayers. As an undergraduate he balanced the student-run dramatic arts organization with studies in humanistic educational traditions, including highest honors thesis research in 17th Century English Masque productions.
The University Players Guild
At graduation from Princeton in 1931, Houghton had two choices: a fellowship at Princeton Graduate College to pursue English Literature or an invitation to join the University Players Guild.In the summer of 1931 "Guild" was dropped from the name of the University Players at the request of The Theatre Guild in New York City, which was then subsidizing the fledgling Group Theatre. After its 1931 summer season in West Falmouth, the University Players rebranded itself the "University Repertory Company" for its 18-week winter season in Baltimore. In the summer of 1932, it incorporated as "The Theatre Unit, Inc." See generally, Houghton, Norris, But Not Forgotten: The Adventure of the University Players. William Sloan Publishers, New York: 1951. The U.P.G.—started as summer theatre in Cape Cod, aspiring to become a year-round venture—was founded in 1928 by Bretaigne Windust and Charles Leatherbee with involvement of Josh Logan. Houghton chose the U.P.G., which melded his interests in theatrical productions with gifted artists. As with associations during his undergraduate years, he would know his U.P.G. friends as colleagues and notables who would dominate stage and screen for decades. In Houghton's first year with the U.P.G. (the group's fourth summer season) Leatherbee, Logan and Windust espoused "the idea of theatre artists working together over a long period of time subordinating themselves to the whole and finding therein a satisfaction beyond that accruing from individual glory." Performances emerged without long rehearsals; actors learned roles in several days; sets were designed with the sketchiest of preliminary layouts. Each summer provided adventures and emotional upheavals, chronicled in Houghton's account of the U.P.G. Players, But Not Forgotten. This concept of a collective ensemble would persist throughout Houghton's career. More than a concern for long term stability, it reflected his concept of advancing beyond tradition to open channels for new forms of creativity. While the U.P.G. did not succeed as a long term venture, Houghton recalled "we had the memory of a dream that was not yet really proved vain. It had been a glorious prelude to a life in the theatre."Houghton, Norris. 1952. But Not Forgotten. Praeger. Reprinted 1975, 346 pages. Memoir of the University Players.The Oxford Companion to American Theatre 3rd edition. 2004. Oxford University Press. ed. Gerald Bordman and Thomas S. Hischak. History of Princeton University Players: "...a group founded by Bretaigne Windust and Charles Leatherbee in 1928 as the University Players Guild. ...In the last year the company changed its name to the Theatre Unit, Inc., ... Among figures... who ... became famous were Henry Fonda, Joshua Logan, Myron McCormick, Mildred Natwick, Kent Smith, James Stewart, and Margaret Sullavan. Norris Houghton ... wrote the history of the company in But Not Forgotten."
Throughout this period, ranging from full to empty houses, Houghton never regretted rejecting the offer of assistant stage manager job for Mourning Becomes Electra with New York City's Theatre Guild, the nation's ace theatrical production company. Such coveted opportunities reflected both on Houghton's rapidly growing reputation and the evolution of his unique life plan; similar conflicts in decision making would recur throughout his life. History shows that he was guided by Leatherbee's advice to avoid alliance with the dated, no matter how distinguished. Houghton would persist in becoming a contributor to the future rather than remaining in the safety of the past.
New York to Moscow
Houghton was both an advocate of global theater and dedicated to the live theater of New York City. He moved there to await his chance, livened by his Princeton companions and the U.P.G. weekly beer parties on West 47th Street that brought together the older "alumni" and new young aspirants such as Burgess Meredith, Broderick Crawford, John Beal and Karl Malden. His first break came with an appointment as assistant to Robert Edmond Jones, an acclaimed designer who moved stage design into an integral part of stage productions; scenic design and artistic direction was a lifelong passion of Houghton's. Varied opportunities followed but none included a permanent position, so Houghton accepted a Guggenheim Fellowship for a year of study abroad. Following the suggestion of Henry Allen Moe, Guggenheim Director General, the fellowship transformed Houghton's career: it introduced him to the renowned but little understood Russian theatre, and led to a future that included expository writing appealing to both academic experts and a public audience. The experience and his writings led to his reputation as the preeminent American student and teacher of the Russian theater, illumined by his relationship with the major 20th-century Russian theater figure, Stanislavski. This year of study also ripened to a global perspective that remained a constant throughout his life.Houghton, Norris. 1936. Moscow Rehearsals. Octagon Books. Reprinted 1962, 1975, 291 pages.New York Times. April 1936. Review by Lewis Nichols of Moscow Rehearsals: "The Stage Behind the Soviet Proscenium; Moscow Rehearsals."Houghton, Norris. 1962. Return Engagement, Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 214 pages Memoir of repeated visit to Russian theater.New York Times. April 1962. Review by Howard Taubman of The Theatre in the USSR by Norris Houghton
Moscow rehearsals: the definitive work on Russian theatre