RURAL DRAMA 237 



replies, which were received from practically every section, told 

 the story of social starvation. They wanted some place to go. 

 They wanted to be entertained. Moral degeneracy in the coun- 

 try, like the city, is usually due to lack of proper social recrea- 

 tion. When people have something healthful with which to oc- 

 cupy their minds they rarely think of wrongdoing. 



The impulse of building up a community spirit in a rural 

 neighborhood may come from without, but the real work of 

 socialization must come from within. The country people them- 

 selves must work out their own civilization. 



With a knowledge of these basic facts in the mind the idea 

 of the Little Country Theater was conceived. The theater be- 

 came a reality when a dingy old chapel on the second floor of 

 the administration building at the North Dakota Agricultural 

 College, located at Fargo, was remodeled into what is now known 

 as the Little Country Theater. It is simply a large playhouse 

 placed under a reducing-glass, and is just the size of the aver- 

 age country town hall. The decorations are plain and simple, 

 th,e color scheme being a green and gold. 



Simplicity is the keynote of the theater, for it was not meant 

 for the institution alone, but for every rural community in 

 North Dakota and the rest of America as well. It is an ex- 

 ample of what can be done with hundreds of village halls, un- 

 used portions of school-houses, and garrets and basements of 

 country homes and country churches. 



The object of the Little Country Theater movement is to pro- 

 duce such plays and community programs as can be easily staged 

 in just such places, or, in fact, in any place where people as- 

 semble for social betterment. Its principal function is to stim- 

 ulate an interest for good, clean drama and original enter- 

 tainment among the people living in the open country and 

 villages, in order to help them find themselves and become 

 better satisfied with the community in which they live. In 

 other words, its real purpose is to use the drama, and all tfaat 

 goes with the drama, as a sociological force in getting people 

 together and acquainted with each other, so that they may find 

 out the hidden life forces of nature itself. Instead of making 

 the drama a luxury for the classes, its aim is to make it an in- 

 strument for the enlightenment and enjoyment of the masses. 



