Edward Sheldon
Edward Brewster Sheldon was an American playwright known for his exploration of complex social issues and personal pasts in his works. Born in 1886 to a well-off family in Chicago, Sheldon graduated from Harvard University, where he was mentored by notable playwriting professor George Baker. His early work, "Salvation Nell," highlighted the struggles of a young woman seeking redemption and became a platform for celebrated actress Minnie Madden Fiske. Throughout his career, Sheldon addressed themes of social conflict and identity, exemplified in plays like "The High Road," which deals with a woman's hidden past, and "The Nigger," which critiques racial identity and societal norms. He also wrote various comedies and political dramas, including "The Boss." Despite facing severe health challenges later in life, including arthritis and blindness, Sheldon continued to create, collaborating on successful plays until his death in 1946. His works reflect the complexities of human experience and the societal pressures of his time, making him a significant figure in American theater history.
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Subject Terms
Edward Sheldon
Playwright
- Born: February 4, 1886
- Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
- Died: April 1, 1946
Biography
A recurrent theme in Edward Sheldon’s plays is that everyone has a past, and this past will haunt and threaten to destroy them as they rise socially. Sheldon dealt with the pressing social problems of his day, although such problems seem less relevant today than they did to the post-Victorian audiences for which he wrote.
Edward Brewster Sheldon was the son of prosperous Chicago parents. He received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard University, where he attended Professor George Baker’s famed Workshop 47. Baker, one of the most effective teachers of playwriting in the first decade of the twentieth century, considered Sheldon his star pupil. As an undergraduate, with encouragement from Baker, Sheldon submitted his play, A Family Affair, to Alice Kauser, a leading literary agent of her day. Although Kauser rejected Sheldon’s play, she considered it an extremely promising first attempt at playwrighting and encouraged Sheldon to try again.
The result was his first play, Salvation Nell, which became a vehicle for Minnie Madden Fiske, one of the most celebrated leading ladies of her day. The title character is a humble scrub woman, pregnant out of wedlock, who struggles to redeem herself by joining the Salvation Army rather than by becoming a prostitute, the only other path that seems open to her. This would have been an exemplary naturalistic play had it not been for its romantic ending.
Fiske also starred in Sheldon’s The High Road, a play about a woman with a questionable past who makes a new life for herself and becomes a champion for the rights of working women. When her husband becomes governor, she seems the perfect governor’s wife. Her husband then becomes a presidential candidate and her past is revealed, badly compromising her husband’s political future.
Immediately after Salvation Nell, Sheldon tackled a difficult sociopolitical issue in The Nigger. When a prominent segregationist seeks to become governor of his southern state, he discovers that his great-grandmother was an octoroon, so that by legal definition in that state he is considered a Negro. The chaos engendered by this discovery almost leads to a lynching, but Sheldon concocted a more facile ending for his play.
Sheldon wrote a broad spectrum of plays, producing another political play, The Boss, which dealt with ward politics. He also wrote two comedies, Princess Zim-Zam, about a Coney Island snake charmer, and Egypt, a melodrama. In his most successful play, Romance, he relates the story of an impossible love affair between a young American clergyman and an Italian opera singer with a besmirched past. Sheldon also wrote an adaptation of Hermann Sudermann’s Das hohe Lied, which he titled Song of Songs.
Stricken with severe arthritis, Sheldon, bedridden and blind, collaborated on three successful plays, Lulu Belle with Charles MacArthur, and both Jenny and Dishonored Lady with Margaret Ayer Barnes. He helped Thornton Wilder and Robert E. Sherwood revise early versions of some of their plays to make them more stage worthy. He died on April 1, 1946.