Photograph - Alice Keating Cheney and Constance Grenelle Wilcox (Pignatelli)
1915 – 1930
Copy of a black and white photograph of Constance Grenelle Wilcox Pignatelli (1875 -1977) and Alice B. Keating Cheney (1894 - 1981) sitting in a garden (likely the garden behind Oakledge, where they put on their plays).Madison was home to the country's earliest summer theater. In 1918, Constance Grenelle Wilcox and Alice B. Keating founded the Woodland Garden Plays. The first performances were held in the woods behind the Wilcox home on Island Avenue, but later moved into an old barn on the property, called the "Playbarn". The plays were popular fundraisers for charitable causes including post WWI relief, the Madison Historical Society and the preservation of the Lee Academy. The Jitney Players were founded in 1923 by Alice Keating Cheney and her husband, Horace Bushnell (Bush) Cheney. They were headquartered at the Talcott Bradley House on Boston Post Road.
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