TRADITION
BY
GEORGE MIDDLETON
Tradition is reprinted by permission of the author and the publisher, Henry Holt & Company, New York City. All rights reserved. For permission to perform, address the author, in care of the publisher.
The author and publisher of this play have permitted this reprinting of copyrighted material on the understanding that the play will be used only in classroom work. No other use of the play is authorized, and permission for any other use must be secured from the holder of the acting rights.
GEORGE MIDDLETON
George Middleton, one of the first to write and publish a volume of one-act plays in America, was born in Paterson, New Jersey, 1880. He was graduated from Columbia University in 1902. Since 1921 he has been literary editor of La Follette's Weekly, and, in addition, has been a frequent contributor to magazines and reviews on dramatic and literary subjects. During the last few years he has spent much of his time abroad.
George Middleton's chiefest interest has been in the one-act play. He has been an ardent champion of the shorter form of drama. Among his three volumes of one-act plays are Embers (including The Failures, The Gargoyle, In His House, Madonna, and The Man Masterful), Tradition (including On Bail, Their Wife, Waiting, The Cheat of Pity, and Mothers), and Possession (including The Grove, A Good Woman, The Black Tie, Circles, and The Unborn). Other one-act plays are Criminals and The Reason. His longer plays are Nowadays and The Road Together. Mr. Middleton has lectured widely on the one-act play before colleges, in Little Theatres, and clubs. Perhaps his most notable article is The Neglected One-Act Play, which appeared in The New York Dramatic Mirror in 1912.
Tradition is one of Mr. Middleton's best and most popular one-act plays; and it most nearly conforms to the organic technic of the one-act play.
FIRST PERFORMANCE AT THE BERKELEY THEATRE, NEW YORK CITY, JANUARY 24, 1913.
(Produced under the personal direction of Mr. Frank Reicher.)