Support First Flight's Mission Save Maxwell Anderson's Plays

Welcome new friends and old!

How fitting the fireworks we’ve all just enjoyed! In addition to the birth of our nation, they also herald First Flight Theatre Company’s annual fundraiser!

In our sixth year, while continuing our mission to produce playwrights and plays which bring poetry to the stage, First Flight Theatre Company is focusing on presenting and publishing the public domain plays of 20th Century American playwright Maxwell Anderson. We need support from our audiences to do what we do, and we hope that means you!

A playwright will be forgotten if their plays are forgotten. Originally dreaming of being a poet, Maxwell Anderson turned to the stage bringing his love of verse and language with him. He wrote 55 plays and 40 of them made it to Broadway. In fact, from the 1920s through the 1940s, he averaged one new play a year on Broadway! No other playwright in their lifetime has ever achieved that feat! First Flight Theatre Company, like those artists who saved the plays of William Shakespeare, is dedicated to making Anderson’s incredible body of work available to future generations by publishing them as they enter the public domain. Free to perform by anyone, the First Flight Press acting editions are available both as paperbacks and eBooks. In concert with performances of the plays, First Flight has already published the following, all available at Amazon.com: Maxwell Anderson and Laurence Stallings’ plays “What Price Glory” and “First Flight” as well as Artistic Director Frank Farrell’s adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s seminal “Little Women.” Plays soon to be published include “The Buccaneer” by Anderson and Stallings and Anderson’s own plays “Outside Looking In,” “Gods of the Lightning,” and “Saturday’s Children.”

Paired with live, streaming readings of Maxwell Anderson’s canon, First Flight continues its partnership with NJ’s premiere historical site, The Hermitage, producing and performing “Little Women,” “Poe Stories,” and a new adaptation of “A Christmas Carol” in 2024!

As First Flight continues to produce streaming readings and live theater in New Jersey, New York City and Chicago, we rely on our patron’s financial support for rehearsal and performing spaces, props and costumes, payments to actors and technical staff and the funds needed for marketing.

Visit http://www.firstflighttheatreco.com and discover what First Flight has been up to over the past 6 years! Check out the Blog section for programs from past productions!

First Flight Theatre Company is unique to American theater in that it’s resident company of artists are from all over the country allowing us to continue to share productions with the public on multiple platforms, in multiple states, both live and streaming! Please help support our efforts with your tax-deductible donation! Help us preserve the works of Maxwell Anderson whose plays capture the lived American journey through the 20th century as well as a mid-century modern perspective on history. His plays represent the immediacy of a bygone era embedded with potent universal human insights to illuminate future generations! With so many plays to be discovered, join us as we discover them anew with you!