Baker, George Pierce, 1866–1935, American educator, b. Providence, R.I., grad. Harvard, 1887. He taught (1888–1924) in the English department at Harvard and there conceived and instituted (1906) the 47 Workshop, a class on playwriting techniques and a laboratory of experimental productions. The first of its kind, the workshop was an inspiration to many young dramatists and gave impetus to the movement toward campus theater. In 1925 he went to Yale, where as professor of the history and technique of drama and director of the university theater he continued his work. Baker wrote The Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist (1907, repr. 1965) and Dramatic Technique (1919) and edited the works of his students.
See memorial by J. M. Brown et al. (1939); W. P. Kinne, George Pierce Baker and the American Theatre (1954, repr. 1968).
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