{{Short description|Hungarian-American theater historian, critic, educator, and anthologist}} '''John Waldhorn Gassner''' (January 30, 1903 – April 2, 1967) was a Hungarian-born American theatre historian, critic, educator, and anthologist.
== Early life and education == At birth in the town of Máramarossziget, Hungary (today in Romania), he was given the name Jeno Waldhorn Gassner. He emigrated to the United States in 1911 with his family and soon discovered theatre performance at his local school. Only four years in New York, he appeared in a school production of ''The Tempest.'' Gassner graduated from Dewitt Clinton High School in The Bronx. In his youth and early adulthood, he was a supporter of Socialism.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|last1=Sibley|first1=Joan|last2=Reyes|first2=Amanda|date=2017|title=Biographical sketch|url=https://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/findingAid.cfm?eadid=01194|url-status=live|archive-url=https://perma-archives.org/warc/20210627140621/https://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/findingAid.cfm?eadid=01194|archive-date=27 June 2021|access-date=8 July 2021|website=Harry Ransom Center}}</ref> Gassner received a Bachelor of Arts (1923) degree and a Master of Arts (1924) degree from Columbia University.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|last1=Albee|first1=Edward|last2=Anderson|first2=Robert|last3=Gassner|first3=Mollie|last4=Jeffers|first4=Robinson|last5=Loney|first5=Glenn Meredith|last6=Miller|first6=Arthur|last7=O’Casey|first7=Sean|last8=University|first8=Yalet|title=John Gassner: An Inventory of His Collection at the Harry Ransom Center|url=https://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/findingAid.cfm?eadid=01194|access-date=2021-09-25|website=norman.hrc.utexas.edu}}</ref>
== Writing career == Gassner was prolific and successful as a writer and editor.{{fact|date=March 2025}} He began his career as a book reviewer at ''The New York Herald-Tribune'' (1925–1928), also wrote frequently for ''New Theatre Magazine'' (1934–1937), ''The Forum'' (1937), ''Time Magazine'' (1938), ''Direction'' (1937–1941), ''One Act Play Magazine'' (1937–1941), and among several others, ''The Tulane Drama Review'' (1957–1967). He became a member of TDR's advisory board in 1958.<ref name=":0" />
== Literary, theatrical, and academic career == From 1931 to 1944, he was a play editor and later chairman of the Play Department of the Theatre Guild.
In 1940, he joined Erwin Piscator's Dramatic Workshop at the New School, where he taught playwriting and the history of theatre until 1949.
In 1956, Gassner accepted the prestigious post of Sterling Professor of Playwriting and Dramatic Literature at the Yale Drama School and remained there until his death. He also taught at Columbia University, Queens College, and Hunter College.<ref name=":1" />
Gassner discovered and mentored writers who later attained fame in America and abroad, including Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams. These two, in particular, shaped the development of the canon of American drama after World War II.<ref name=":0" /> Gassner's writings and teaching inspired figures in the American theatre, among them Joseph Papp and Richard Foreman. Papp turned to him for guidance and Foreman studied under him at Yale while completing his MFA in playwriting in 1962.<ref>George Hunka, "Style versus Substance: American Theatre Criticism since 1945," in: ''Theatre Criticism: Changing Landscapes'', ed. Duska Radosavljevic, Bloomsbury 2016, pp. 39–50, here: 40-1.</ref> Gassner mentored not only theater artists, but also editors like Edmund Fuller.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Fuller|first=Edmund|date=1999|title=Crown's first editor remembers|journal=Sewanee Review|publication-place=Baltimore|volume=107|issue=3 |pages=356–383|issn=0037-3052}}</ref>
Gassner died of a heart ailment at the age of 64.<ref>{{cite news |title=John W. Gassner Is Dead at 64; Critic, Drama Professor at Yale; Holder of Sterling Chair Was Prolific Writer and Editor --Served Pulitzer Jury |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/04/03/archives/john-w-gassner-is-dead-at-64-critic-drama-professor-at-yale-holder.html |access-date=9 July 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=3 April 1967}}</ref> In an obituary, the performance theorist, director, and ''TDR'' editor Richard Schechner wrote that Gassner was "a warm man" who had "a rare combination of humanity and intelligence."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Schechner|first=Richard|date=1967|title=Death notice|journal=Tulane Drama Review|volume=11|issue=4 |pages=22|jstor=1125134}}</ref> At the memorial service in New York City, playwright Robert Anderson and Yale dean Robert Brustein spoke.<ref>Loney, Glenn. “In Memoriam: John Gassner.” ''Educational Theatre Journal'', vol. 19, no. 3, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967, pp. 392–93.</ref>
== Anthologies and monographs (selection) == Gassner's anthologies appeared frequently and became a staple of the dramatic literature publishing world. Long after his death, even into the 1990s, Crown Publishers was issuing anthologies of ''The Best American Plays'' edited by other people but as part of the series called ''John Gassner Best Plays Series''. His work as an editor and anthologist was ambitious enough to prompt Milton Esterow to remark in a review that "hardly a day seems to pass without the publication of a book by John Gassner."<ref>{{Cite news|last=Esterow|first=Milton|date=24 June 1964|title=Review of: Theater and Drama in the Making. By John Gassner and Ralph G. Allen|page=35|work=The New York Times}}</ref> * ''Best Plays of the Early American Theatre: From the Beginning to 1916'' * ''The Reader's Encyclopedia of World Drama'' * ''Twenty-five Best Plays of the Modern American Theatre: Early Series'' * ''Twenty Best European plays on the American Stage'' * ''Best American Plays'' (several different anthologies) * ''Eugene O'Neill'' * ''Producing the Play'' * ''Masters of the Drama'' * ''Treasury of the Theater''
== Secondary sources == * Evelyn Mary MacQueen: ''John Gassner: Critic and Teacher''. Ann Arbor, Mich., University Microfilms [1972], Dissertation, University of Michigan, 1966.
== Archival sources == Gassner's records are kept at the Ransom Center<ref>{{Cite web|title=Inventory of the John Gassner Collection|url=https://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/findingAid.cfm?eadid=01194|website=Harry Ransom Center}}</ref> and, to a smaller extent, at Sterling Memorial Library at Yale.<ref>See the John Gassner Papers (MS 560) and select items in Yale’s Theatre Guild Archive (CAL MSS 436) at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.</ref>
== References == {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Gassner, John}} Category:Theatrologists Category:Historians of theatre Category:Hungarian emigrants to the United States Category:Columbia University faculty Category:The New School faculty Category:Yale Sterling Professors Category:1967 deaths Category:1903 births Category:Columbia College, Columbia University alumni Category:Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Category:American theatre critics Category:Queens College, City University of New York faculty Category:Hunter College faculty Category:People from Sighetu Marmației Category:DeWitt Clinton High School alumni