John Charles Brownell papers relating to Mississippi Rainbow, 1923-1961.

0.42 linear feet (1 box)

English

In English.

Purchased from William Reese Co. (Swann sale 2342, 2014 March 27, lot 595), on the Edwin J. Beinecke Book Fund and the Carl Van Vechten Fund, 2014.

Arranged by type of material.

This material is open for research.

John Charles Brownell was born in Burlington, Vermont in 1877. He studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Art in New York City, and worked as a professional actor and scenario editor for film companies before undertaking a playwrighting career. His plays include The Nut Farm, Her Majesty the Widow, and A Woman of the Soil. His play Mississippi Rainbow, a comedy written for an all-black cast, was first produced as Nothin' but Trouble by an amateur cast at the Karamu Theatre, Playhouse Settlement in Cleveland, Ohio in 1934. The play went through rewrites and title changes, and was produced on Broadway as Brainsweat (1934), and by the Federal Theatre Project in Chicago as Mississippi Rainbow (1937). He was married to Estelle Wyne of Cincinnati. Brownell died in Starksboro, Vermont in 1961.

The collection consists of correspondence, scripts, contracts, photographs, a production program, press clippings and other materials documenting the script development and production history of John Charles Brownell's play, Mississippi Rainbow. Correspondents include Rowena Woodham Jelliffe of the Karamu Theatre, Playhouse Settlement, Cleveland; Frank J. Sheil of Samuel French Play Publishers and Authors' Representatives; Richard Madden of the Richard J. Madden Play Company; staff members of the Works Progress Administration and the Federal Theatre Project in New York and Chicago, including Shirley Graham (later Shirley Graham DuBois), Thomas J. McElhany, Bennet R. Finn, George Kondolf, and Hallie Flanagan; Theodore Ward, an actor in the Chicago production of Mississippi Rainbow, and an aspiring playwright whom Brownell mentored; New York theater critic Brooks Atkinson; and other correspondents from whom Brownell sought financial and professional assistance. Undated typescripts for Mississippi Rainbow and a one-act play, The Closet, are also included. Photographs include portrait photographs of Brownell and production photographs from the New York production of Brainsweat and the Chicago production of Mississippi Rainbow.

Archives or Manuscripts / Images

September 03, 2014

John Charles Brownell Papers Relating to Mississippi Rainbow. James Weldon Johnson Collection in the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

John Charles Brownell Papers Relating to Mississippi Rainbow. James Weldon Johnson Collection in the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Photographic prints - United States.