Clyde Fitch and the American Theatre

Clyde Fitch was a major figure in the American theatre, influential in his time and to the playwrights who followed. A collection of Fitch’s letters published in 1924 provided a sanitized record of his life, but no major biography has since appeared. Clyde Fitch and the American Theatre: An Olive in the Cocktail is the missing piece in the study of this important playwright and his contributions to gay history in a way that gives his plays the reconsideration and revival deserved.

Kevin Lane Dearinger is a retired actor-singer and former English teacher. His publications include The Bard in the Bluegrass; Marie Prescott; Clyde Fitch and the American Theatre; Eleanor Robson Belmont, a Theatrical Life; five other poetry collections: Moth and Wasp, Caught in the Devotion of Time, Rose Cloud and Demon Thunder, This Mortal Coil, and Cold As a Silver Spoon; and two memoirs: Bad Sex in Kentucky and On Stage with Bette Davis: Inside the Fabulous Flop of Miss Moffat. His published plays, available for new productions, include Regarding Mrs. Carter, Naked on Request, Four Squares on a Kentucky Quilt, Three Short Plays, and Expiation. For WUKY Radio and the AthensWest Theatre Company, he contributed scenes to Limestone 1833 and abridged Oscar Wilde's Importance of Being Earnest. He has contributed several introductory essays to the work of others and chronicled the artistic life of The Lexington Theatre Company. His poems have also appeared in a variety of journals and magazines. His writing attempts to keep time with his Kentucky heritage, his love of family, his LGBTQ identity, his recognition of time lost, and his own erratic pulse.

Acknowledgments Prologue Act One: Inciting Incident Chapter One: "Not so delicate, my dear, as you think." Chapter Two: "I think I'll stick it out." Chapter Three: "I am not trying to teach, but I want to suggest." Chapter Four: "Like the little boy with the ice-cream" Chapter Five: "You must be happy just as you are, for you can't be different." Chapter Six: "Invent me a language of love." Act Two: Rising Action Chapter Seven: "Isn't it an opportunity!" Chapter Eight: "Certain temperaments of men" Chapter Nine: "I shut myself up in my room& went to work." Chapter Ten: "Born differently" Chapter Eleven: "The right to call the heart in his bosom his own" Chapter Twelve: "To tell the Truth in the Theatre" Chapter Thirteen: "Bully!" Chapter Fourteen: "Sapho hangs about my neck!" Act Three: Plot Reversal and Recognition Chapter Fifteen: "I can do the biggest things in my power." Chapter Sixteen: "Somehow I can't stop working." Chapter Seventeen: "Fool that I am, I write too m