Student Leadership

The Masque and Gown, a student-run theater organization, was founded as the Bowdoin Dramatic Club in the fall of 1903. In its early years, Masque and Gown productions consisted of all-men casts in which men portrayed women. Cross-gender acting has an extensive history in Ancient Greece and English Renaissance theater because women were prohibited from performing. Eventually, Bowdoin faculty wives and staff were cast in roles, and in 1927, women from the Brunswick community began performing in shows. This photo depicts five Brunswick women acting in Masque and Gown’s 1960 production of “Playboy of the Western World.” When women matriculated as students, Brunswick women and faculty wives were phased out as actors in Masque and Gown plays, and women students became the primary actresses in campus productions.

“Playboy of the Western World,” Masque and Gown Production, photograph, 1960