VOLLMER, LULA

(1895-1955)

Born in Keyser, North Carolina, Lula (sometimes called Lulu) Vollmer was educated at a school that became Asheville College, after which she moved to New York to seek a production for her first play,Sun-Up. Rejected by most producers, including the Theatre Guild, where she worked as a secretary,Sun-Upwas finally produced in 1923 for a short run during which it garnered positive response from critics for Vollmer's unique brand of Southernfolk drama. Her subsequent plays, includingThe Shame Woman(1923),The Dunce Boy(1925),Trigger(1927),Troyka(1930),Sentinels(1931), andThe Hill Between(1938), similarly brought to life the mountain people of North Carolina, particularly women living hardscrabble lives in rural poverty. None of Vollmer's works achieved long runs, althoughSun-Upwas revived by the Manhattan Little TheatreClubfor one performance in 1930, was made into a motion picture in 1925, and was seen as an early British television* production in 1939. Vollmer'sTriggerbecame a film under the titleSpitfire(1934) starring Katharine Hepburn.* Vollmer wrote an episode for television'sGeneral Electric Theatre.