the American stage. And our desire has been strong enough to face
and fight, and to continue to face and fight, the ever-growing,
ever-changing problems of finance, art, and human
inter-relations, which are the inescapable factors of the
theatre.

We believed in the democracy of the drama. But we understand
democracy to mean, not the gratification of the taste of the many
to the exclusion of that of the few, but the satisfaction of all
tastes. We had no quarrel with the stage as it was, save that
there wasn't enough of it. We felt there was a public that wanted
something other than it could get -- as evidenced by the rise of
such institutions as the Drama League -- and that that public was
large enough to support what it wanted once it learned where to
find it. The problem was to bridge the gap of waiting. And it was
met by the sacrifices of all those who worked at first for
nothing, and then for little more, so that the Players would not
fall into debt in the process of reaching an audience. As an able
New York dramatic critic stated, the establishment of the
Washington Square Players was merely one more proof that in
America, as elsewhere, joy was a greater incentive to work than
money.

This enthusiasm among the workers, both in quality and quantity,
was generously shared by the spectators. The public which looked
for plays, acting and producing different from what it could find
on the regular stage, proved us right in believing that it was
sufficiently large and interested to warrant our experiment.
Critics and patrons gave us from the first, and we hope will
continue to give us, that personal interest and sympathetic