Discipline: Theatre – playwriting

William McCleery

Discipline: Theatre – playwriting
Region: Princeton, NJ
MacDowell Fellowships: 1945, 1946, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1974, 1975

William McCleery (1911-2000) was an American playwright and had two plays on Broadway in the 1940's, Hope for the Best with Franchot Tone and Jane Wyatt, and Parlor Story with Walter Abel. He also dramatized Francis Grey Patton's novel Good Morning, Miss Dove (starring Helen Hayes) and Peter De Vries's Mackerel Plaza. In 1949 Miss Hayes was acting with her daughter, Mary MacArthur, in Mr. McCleery's work Play for Mary in a pre-Broadway tryout, but when Miss MacArthur died of polio, the production was canceled. As an editor, Mr. McCleery was affiliated with Princeton University for many years. He was the founding editor of University: A Princeton Quarterly, edited the papers of Robert F. Goheen, president of the university and compiled several other volumes. He also was a reporter for The Associated Press and an editor for Life, PM and Ladies' Home Journal. He wrote a dozen plays for television (performed by Dennis King, Nanette Fabray and Hume Cronyn, among others) and was the author of Wolf Story, a children's book

Studios

Adams

William McCleery worked in the Adams studio.

Given to the MacDowell Association by Margaret Adams of Chicago, the half-timbered, stuccoed Adams Studio was designed by MacDowell Fellow and architect F. Tolles Chamberlin ca. 1914. Chamberlin was primarily a painter, but also provided designs for the Lodge and an early renovation of the main hall. The studio’s structural integrity was restored during a thorough renovation in…

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