Discipline: Theatre – playwriting

Frederick Ballard

Discipline: Theatre – playwriting
MacDowell Fellowships: 1911, 1912, 1913, 1914, 1920, 1921, 1922, 1925, 1930, 1931
John Frederick Ballard (1884-1957) was a playwright from Grafton, NE. Ballard received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English literature from the University of Nebraska and Harvard University. Additionally, he lived in Chicago where he studied the theatre industry and wrote the play Believe Me, Xantippe, a work that won the John Craig, Harvard Prize, and would be adapted into a musical and a motion picture. Other plays Ballard wrote are Young America, Ladies of the Jury, What’s Wrong, We, The People, A Rainy Day, Out of Luck, The Cyclone Lover, and Dollars and Chickens.

Studios

Phi Beta

Frederick Ballard worked in the Phi Beta studio.

Funded by the Phi Beta Fraternity, a national professional fraternity of music and speech founded in 1912, Phi Beta Studio was built between 1929–1931 of granite quarried on the MacDowell grounds. The small studio is a simple in design, but displays a pleasing combination of materials with its granite walls and colorful slate roofing. Inside is…

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