E. Martin Browne

E. Martin Browne (1900–80), English director and producer, directed the first production of Murder in the Cathedral, with Robert Speaight as Thomas Becket (1935); and he went on to produce all of TSE’s subsequent plays. In 1930 he had been appointed by George Bell, Bishop of Chichester, to be director of religious drama for the diocese: one of his first projects was the production at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London, of TSE’s The Rock (1934). He was director of the Pilgrim Players, 1939–48; of the Mercury Theatre, 1945–48; director of the British Drama League, 1945–57; and director from 1951 of the York Mystery Plays; Visiting Professor at the Program in Religious Drama, Union Theological Seminary, New York, 1956–62; Drama Adviser, Coventry Cathedral, 1962–5. See Browne, The Making of T. S. Eliot’s Plays (1969) and E. Martin Browne and Henzie Browne, Two in One (1981).