Harold Chapin

Chapin was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1886. His mother was Alice Chapin an actress and suffragette and his father was Harvey Merrill Ferris.Maggie B. Gale, 'Chapin, Harold (1886–1915)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2015 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/107352, accessed 9 Nov 2017] His parents divorced and his mother took the three-year-old Harold to live in England where he was educated and she continued her career. In 1910 he married the actress Calypso Valetta (1884–1978); their son Harold Valetta Chapin (1911–1950) was also an actor.{{Cite news|date=27 April 1950|title=Harold V. Chapin|page=11|work=The Stage}}

Enlisting as a private in the 6th London Field Ambulance Royal Army Medical Corps of the British Army in September 1914, Chapin served as a lance corporal in France. He was killed in action at the age of 29 at the Battle of Loos in 1915.{{Cite web|title=Lance Corporal Harold Chapin|url=https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/729523/HAROLD%20CHAPIN/|access-date=27 October 2020|website=Commonwealth War Graves}}

Chapin's letters, written while he was training in the army and on service, were collected and published after his death.{{Cite book|last1=Chapin|first1=Harold|url=https://archive.org/details/soldieranddrama00darkgoog|title=Soldier and Dramatist: being the letters of Harold Chapin|last2=Dark|first2=Sidney|publisher=John Lane|year=1917|location=London}}

Chapin's acting career began at age seven when he first appeared publicly in a Frank Benson production. He studied singing and appeared in touring and London productions and as well as working as an assistant stage manager and stage director. Between 1908 and 1914 he worked for the impresario Charles Frohman and for the director and manager Harley Granville Barker. In January 1914 he appeared in Israel Zangwill's play The Melting Pot.{{Cite news|date=27 January 1914|title=The Melting Pot|page=9|work=The Times (London)}}

In December 1915 Alice Chapin, Calypso Valetta, Gerald du Maurier and Sydney Fairbrother appeared in a London memorial performance of four of his plays: The Philosopher of Butterbiggins, Innocent and Annabel, The Dumb and the Blind and It's the Poor that 'Elps the Poor. The performance raised funds for a YMCA hut to accommodate soldiers at the front in France.{{Cite news|date=24 April 1916|title=Harold Chapin memorial hut|page=8|work=Evening Mail}}

The novelist and playwright J.M. Barrie wrote the introduction to a collection of Chapin's plays: The New Morality, Elaine, Art and Opportunity, and The Marriage of Columbine. Barrie acknowledged Chapin's talent as a playwright.{{Cite news|date=4 November 1922|title=The plays of Harold Chapin|page=8|work=Sheffield Daily Telegraph}}{{Cite book|last=Chapin|first=Harold|url=http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc2.ark:/13960/t9959d33z|title=The Comedies of Harold Chapin|date=1921|publisher=Chatto & Windus|location=London|hdl=2027/uc2.ark:/13960/t9959d33z}}

His plays were produced throughout the UK and in New York City[http://www.ibdb.com/person.asp?ID=6071 Internet Broadway Database: Harold Chapin Credits on Broadway] from the 1920s to the 1950s. The New Morality and The Threshold were broadcast on the radio in 1927 and Art and Opportunity was televised in 1953. The New Morality was performed at the Finborough Theatre, London, in 2005{{Cite web|title=The New Morality – Finborough Theatre|url=https://finboroughtheatre.co.uk/production/the-new-morality/|access-date=2020-11-09|language=en-US}} and in New York City in 2015.{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/25/theater/review-the-new-morality-a-vintage-play-at-the-mint.html | title=Review: 'The New Morality,' a Vintage Play at the Mint | first=Alexis | last=Soloski | date=24 September 2015 | newspaper=The New York Times | access-date=22 June 2018}}

Chapin's plays were often social dramas (The Dumb and the Blind and It's the Poor that 'Elps the Poor) but he was also an established writer of comedy (The Marriage of Columbine and The Philosopher of Butterbiggins).{{Cite book|last=Nicoll|first=Allardyce|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/588815|title=English drama, 1900-1930; the beginnings of the modern period.|publisher=University Press|year=1973|isbn=0-521-08416-4|location=Cambridge [England]|pages=281–282, 556–557|oclc=588815}}

• Augustus in Search of a Father (1910) One Act
• The Marriage of Columbine (1910) Four Acts
• Muddle Annie (1911) One Act
• The Autocrat of the Coffee Stall (1911) One Act
• The Dumb and the Blind (1911) Originally titled Deaf and Blind
• The Dumb and the Blind (1911) One Act
• Innocent and Annabel (1912) One Act
• Elaine (1912) Three Acts
• Art & Opportunity (1912) Three Acts
• Wonderful Grandmama (1912) Two parts
• It's the Poor that 'Elps the Poor One Act (1913)
• Every Man for His Own (1914) One Act
• Dropping the Baby (1914) One Act
• The Philosopher of Butterbiggins (1915) One Act
• The New Morality (1920) Three Acts
• The Threshold (1921) One Act
• The Well Made Dress Coat Four Acts

{{Reflist}}

• [https://archive.org/details/soldieranddrama00darkgoog Harold Chapin, Sidney Dark - Soldier and dramatist: being the letters of Harold Chapin, American citizen...]

• [http://www.vlib.us/medical/Chapin/Chapinbio.htm Online Text of Harold Chapin's Life and Letters]
• {{Gutenberg author | id=7385| name=Harold Chapin}}
• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Harold Chapin |sopt=t}}
• [https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/25/theater/review-the-new-morality-a-vintage-play-at-the-mint.html?_r=0/ "New York Times" Article about The Mint Theater Production, 9 October 2015]
• [https://www.greatwartheatre.org.uk/db/person/940/ Harold Chapin on Great War Theatre]

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Chapin, Harold}}

Category:1886 births

Category:1915 deaths

Category:Royal Army Medical Corps soldiers

Category:British military personnel killed in World War I

Category:British Army personnel of World War I

Category:British male dramatists and playwrights

Category:20th-century English dramatists and playwrights

Category:20th-century American dramatists and playwrights

Category:20th-century American male writers

Category:Male actors from Brooklyn

Category:Writers from Brooklyn

Category:American emigrants to the United Kingdom