45 Facts About Sophie Treadwell

Sophie Anita Treadwell was an American playwright and journalist of the first half of the 20th century.

Sophie Treadwell is best known for her play Machinal which is often included in drama anthologies as an example of an expressionist or modernist play.

The styles and subjects of Sophie Treadwell's writings are vast, but many present women's issues of her time, subjects of current media coverage, or aspects of Sophie Treadwell's Mexican heritage.

Sophie Anita Treadwell was born in 1885 in Stockton, California.

Sophie Treadwell's father had a Catholic education, and he was fluent in five languages.

Sophie Treadwell received her Bachelor of Letters in French from the University of California at Berkeley, where she studied from 1902 to 1906.

At Berkeley, Sophie Treadwell became very involved with the school's extracurricular drama and journalism activities, serving as the college's correspondent for The San Francisco Examiner.

Sophie Treadwell then studied acting and was mentored by renowned Polish actress Helena Modjeska, whose memoirs she was hired to write in 1908.

In 1915, Sophie Treadwell moved to New York, following her husband who had already made the cross-country move for his career.

In New York, Sophie Treadwell joined the Lucy Stone League of suffragists.

Sophie Treadwell maintained a separate residence from her husband, an idea encouraged by the League.

Sophie Treadwell's marriage was said to be one of mutual independence and acceptance of differing interests.

In New York, Sophie Treadwell befriended and became associated with many well known modernist personalities and modern artists of the time, notably Louise and Walter Arensberg who ran a New York Salon, and painter Marcel Duchamp.

Sophie Treadwell reached the peak of her professional career in journalism and in theatre in New York in the 1920s.

Sophie Treadwell attended lectures and completed an extensive study with Richard Boleslavsky of the Moscow Art Theatre which proved to be both influential and motivational for Sophie Treadwell's varied theatrical pursuits.

Sophie Treadwell underwent media controversy in the mid-20s for a drawn out dispute with the famous John Barrymore; Barrymore attempted to produce a play about Edgar Allan Poe supposedly written by his wife Michael Strange, which borrowed heavily from a manuscript that Sophie Treadwell had written and shared with him years prior.

Sophie Treadwell brought a lawsuit against Barrymore for stoppage of the play and won, although she was criticized heavily in the media.

Sophie Treadwell lectured and advocated openly for authors rights and was the first American playwright to win royalty payments for a play production from the Soviet Union.

Sophie Treadwell's husband died in 1933 due to heart complications, while they were on vacation in the state of Georgia.

Sophie Treadwell set herself apart from many female writers of her day, by pursuing commercial productions of her works on Broadway.

Seven of Sophie Treadwell's plays, listed below, appeared on the Great White Way between 1922 and 1941.

Critics often negatively judged Sophie Treadwell's plays as having poorly developed plots, unsympathetic characters, or objectionable themes.

Sophie Treadwell was known for having tense relationships with producers because she was reluctant to accept their feedback and edit her work.

Sophie Treadwell lived for a time as an expatriate in Vienna, Austria as well as in Torremolinos in Southern Spain.

When Sophie Treadwell returned to the US she lived in Newtown, Connecticut and spent time in Mexico and Stockton.

In 1949, Sophie Treadwell adopted a young German boy, whom she named William.

Sophie Treadwell retired in the mid-60s to Tucson, Arizona, where she spent her final years.

Sophie Treadwell is credited with writing at least 39 plays, numerous serials and journalistic articles, short stories, and several novels.

Many of Sophie Treadwell's works are difficult to obtain and only seven of her plays have ever been produced.

Many of Sophie Treadwell's plays follow the traditional late nineteenth century well-made play structure, but some share the more modern style and feminist concerns Sophie Treadwell is known for, including her often anthologized Machinal.

Some of Sophie Treadwell's plays contain hints of autobiography from Sophie Treadwell's heritage to her extra-marital affair.

Sophie Treadwell interviewed celebrities, such as Jack London, and covered several high-profile murder trials.

Later, when living in New York, Sophie Treadwell covered the murder trials of Ruth Snyder and Judd Gray whose stories influenced subsequent plays.

Sophie Treadwell traveled to France to cover the First World War; she was the only female foreign correspondent writing from overseas at that time, accredited by the State Department.

When Sophie Treadwell returned to New York, she was hired by the New York American, later renamed New York Herald Tribune where she wrote as a journalist and served as an expert on Mexican-American relations and Mexico.

In 1920, Sophie Treadwell covered the end of the Mexican Revolution and wrote a front page piece on the flight of Mexican President Don Venustiano Carranza.

In 1941, Sophie Treadwell spent 10 months in Mexico City as a correspondent for the Tribune.

Years later, Sophie Treadwell wrote for the Tribune about her visit to post-war Germany.

Sophie Treadwell was only peripherally involved in the movement through her work at the Provincetown Players during their early existence.

Sophie Treadwell remained widely unknown and un-talked about in the world of theatre scholarship until select feminist scholars resuscitated interest in her works following revivals of Machinal in 1990 by the New York Shakespeare Festival and in 1993 by the Royal National Theatre in London.

The majority of Sophie Treadwell's works are stored at the University of Arizona Library Special Collections and the rest at The Billy Rose Theatre Collection at the New York Public Library.

The rights to Sophie Treadwell's works were passed on in her will to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson: A Corporation Sole.

One who wishes to obtain the rights to Sophie Treadwell's plays can address an enquiry to: Fiscal and Administrative Services, Diocese of Tucson, PO Box 31, Tucson, AZ 85702.

Proceeds earned from the production or printing of Sophie Treadwell's works are used to benefit Native American children in Arizona.

All of Sophie Treadwell's plays are published electronically in "North American Women's Drama" through the academic database publisher Alexander Street Press.