The second play of the fourth bill in the Players second New York season (1917-1918) was About Six by Grace Potter and, unfortunately, no copy of the script is known to exist.  One wonders if this is the same play that Potter submitted all the way back in October 1916 and was told it needed revision.  Potter was a psychologist who had graduated from Syracuse University, went to Europe to study with Jung, Ranke, and Freud, becoming close friends with Freud and his wife.  She also ran the Liberal Club, was a member of Heterodoxy, and a committed suffragist.  Potter was an original member of the Players organization, yet seemed to be more in a supportive rather than active role with the company.  According to James Light, her play About Six was a “snappy, witty domestic comedy that came to conclusion at 5:30pm with the line, ‘See you about six.’”(1)  Kenton confuses this description a little with her comment in the Boston Transcript in April that it was “another play of New York’s underworld, written with realism and understanding,” the idea of “underworld” referring to the characters also found in King’s play Cocaine.(2)  The program lists the time as “Wednesday,” the place “A Disorderly Flat in New York,” with the set designed by Louis Ell.  Some new actors to the Players were Ravida Harding, who played the role of Betty, and Mara Moreland as Ruby.  Alice MacDougal played Kitty, Hutchinson Collins played The Doctor, and Justus Sheffield played Eddie Schwartz.  The play was co-directed by Potter and Nina Moise.

© Jeff Kennedy, 2007.