MACKAYE, PERCY (1875-), American poet and playwright, was born in New York City March 16 1875. He graduated from Harvard in 1897 and later was a student in the university of Leipzig. From 1900 to 1904 he was a teacher in private schools in New York, and in the latter year became a member of the Cornish (N.H.) colony of artists and writers. He was made a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1914.
His numerous works include The Canterbury Pilgrims (1903); Fenris the Wolf (1905); Jeanne d'Arc (1906, played by E. H. Sothern and Julia Marlowe); Sappho and Phaon (1907); The Scarecrow (1908); The Playhouse and the Play (1908, essays); The Civic Theatre (1912); Sanctuary (1913, a bird masque); A New Citizenship (1915, a civic ritual); Caliban by the Yellow Sands (1916, a community masque to commemorate the Shakespeare Tercentenary); Community Drama (1917, essay); Rip Van Winkle (1919, folk opera); The Pilgrim and the Book (1920, a dramatic “Service” for celebrating the Pilgrim Centenary). In 1912 he edited with J. S. P. Tatlock The Modern Reader's Chaucer.