Theresa Helburn

Theresa Helburn

Theresa was born on January 12, 1887 in New York City.  As a child her mother frequently took her to the theater which she loved! She graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1908 and took up writing producing a few plays, none of which were terribly successful.  In 1914 she co-founded the Washington Street Players in New York City, later called the Theatre Guild, which presented European plays.   

The Guild enjoyed a successful first season and gained a reputation as America’s foremost art theater, specializing in bringing the highest-quality drama of Europe and America to Broadway stages. Theresa was the executive Director and took part in all aspects of production, using her writing talents to rewrite dialogue, (with- and sometimes, without - the playwrights approval) and became known as the “play doctor.”

Despite some great success, the Guild was bankrupts in 1943. Theresa decided to turn the play Green Grow the Lilacs into a musical and hired Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein to write it.  The result was the musical Oklahoma! which became a great success and revolutionized American musical theater.  The Kiowa Indian tribe of Oklahoma made Theresa a chief and named her “Little Lady Who Sees Far.”

Two years later she again hired Rodgers and Hammerstein to turn the play Liliom into a musical and the result was Carousel, another great hit. She continued to bring serious plays to the American public and established close working relationships with Eugene O’Neill and George Bernard Shaw.