Frank Alonzo McMullan papers

Frank Alonzo McMullan, son of Birda Cornelia Brown McMullan and Wilson Henry McMullan, was born in Jonesboro, Georgia on October 12, 1907. He graduated from Boy's High School, Atlanta, in 1925, received a B.A. from the University of Georgia in 1928, and the LL.B. from the Atlanta Law School in 1930. In 1934 McMullan completed the three year M.F.A. program in drama at Yale, where he studied with George Pierce Baker, Alexander Dean, and Allardyce Nicoll.

From 1934 to 1936, McMullan was on the faculty of Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, and was co-director of the Stephens College Theater. In 1936 he joined the Yale drama faculty as assistant professor of play production and was acting chairman of the drama department from 1941-1943. From 1943 to 1945 he served in the United States Army where he directed the soldier shows program in New York City for the Special Services division. From 1945 to 1965 McMullan was the head of the directing department at Yale, and until his death was associate professor emeritus of play production at the Yale School of Drama.

McMullan was the director of the University of Vermont School of Drama summer sessions from 1937-1940, and guest directed at numerous professional and educational theatres, including Wellesley (Massachusetts) Playhouse; the University of Arkansas; Ohio State University; University of Connecticut Summer Theatre; Shakespeare Festival (San Diego, California); the Champlain Shakespeare Festival (Burlington, Vermont).

In addition to his work in the United States, McMullan was involved in a number of international educational and professional theatre activities. With his production of Measure for Measure in 1946, McMullan became the first American to direct a Shakespearean play at Stratford-on-Avon, England.

In 1958 McMullan received a Fulbright grant to Chile where he was guest director and lecturer in theatre arts at the Teatro Experimental of the University of Chile and Teatro de Ensayo of Catholic University of Santiago. His direction of the Latin American premiere of Look Homeward, Angel at the Teatro Experimental, and a production of The Taming of the Shrew at the Teatro Ensayo earned him the Chilean national award for directing. As a recipient of a Smith-Mundt grant to Panama in 1959, McMullan assisted in establishing a theatre program and directed The Matchmaker at the University of Panama. In 1962 he organized and headed a performing arts mission to the United Arab Republic on behalf of the United States Department of State and National Guidance of the United Arab Republic.

In 1950 McMullan directed stage and film versions of Telephone Pioneers for the Southern New England Telephone Company, and in 1954 his production of The Merry Wives of Windsor was televised for the NBC series "Omnibus." Between 1956 and 1957 McMullan appeared on his own weekly televison series on station WNHC in New Haven, Connecticut.

McMullan contributed articles to Theatre Arts, Players Magazine and Education Theatre Journal, and authored One World in Drama (1950), Play Interpretation and Direction (1951) (translated into Spanish in 1959), Producing Shakespeare (1954), Shakespeare: Of an Age and for All Time (1954), The Directorial Image (1962), The Director's Handbook (1964), and Directing Shakespeare in the Contemporary Theatre (1974).

McMullan married Elizabeth Eckhard on March 26, 1938 and was the father of two sons, David and John McMullan. Elizabeth McMullan died on December 5, 1977. McMullan subsequently married the former Audrey Tower. Frank McMullan died in Canaan, Connecticut on September 7, 1987.