Playwright's Debut

John E. Wulp '50 had his comedy, "The Saintliness of Margery Kempe," produced at the Poets' Theatre in Cambridge, Mass., in February. His first play, "The Saintliness of Margery Kempe," is based on the autobiography of a woman mystic who lived in England in the 14th century. Wulp's satire on pretentions to holiness was well received by audience and reviewer alike. The Boston Globe reviewer, prophesying that more would be heard from the young writer, said, "Author John Wulp must be an exceptional writer for the theater, for while this play is said to be his first, it has none of the usual defects of the beginner."

Wulp is no stranger to the theater. His introduction to it began, however, not with writing, but with acting and set designing. Classmates may remember the stage sets he did at Dartmouth for The Players — sets for Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie" and Sean O'Casey's "Juno and the Paycock" made him famous in Hanover. Wulp had also designed scenery for his high school plays in New Rochelle, N. Y., where he grew up. Besides set designing at college, Wulp found time to be a Phi Bete student, a member of Green Key and Chi Phi, and student director of The Players his senior year.

After graduation Wulp went to the Yale Graduate School where he studied design under Donald Oenslager. His studies were interrupted by service in the Marine Corps and at this time he turned from designing sets to writing plays. Since "The Saintliness of Margery Kempe" he has written two plays and is presently working on a fourth, plus two television scripts. But all this is on his own time; during business