The Carry Playhouse small theater and the one-act play were aspects of a sub-movement of the Chicago Literary Renaissance, 1911-17, with other tiny theater locations in town on the Aldis Compound, 1911, at Deerpath, Green Bay, and Illinois Rd, and at the Shaws’ Ragdale, with its outdoor Ragdale Ring, 1912. These settings for dramatic productions were offspring of Chicago’s 99-seat Little Theatre, Fine Arts Building, 1911-16, the genesis generally of modern American drama. Frances Wells Shaw and Mary Reynolds Aldis (Mrs. Arthur) also wrote, as well as acted in, many one act plays. Mrs. Aldis’s Plays for Small Stages was published in 1915.
