Discipline: Literature

Percy MacKaye

Discipline: Literature
MacDowell Fellowships: 1930
Percy MacKaye (1875-1956) was an American dramatist and poet. After graduating from Harvard in 1897, he traveled in Europe for three years, residing in Rome, Switzerland, and London, studying at the University of Leipzig in 1899–1900. He returned to New York City to teach at a private school until 1904, when he joined a colony of artists and writers in Cornish, New Hampshire, and devoted himself entirely to dramatic work. He wrote the plays The Canterbury Pilgrims (1903), Sappho and Phaon (1907), and Jeanne D’Arc (1907), among others. He also wrote The Mystery of Hamlet King of Denmark (1950), a series of four plays written as prequels to William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Percy MacKaye is considered to be the first poet of the Atomic Era because of his sonnet "The Atomic Law," which was published in the Christmas 1945 issue of The Churchman.

Studios

Adams

Percy MacKaye 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…

Learn more