Samuel James Hume

Samuel James Hume (June 14, 1885 – September 1, 1962) was an American dramatic director, producer, art museum director, and book dealer.

Samuel Hume was born in San Francisco, California in 1885, the son of James B. Hume, a famous Wells Fargo detective. He attended Berkeley High School, graduating in 1904, and then the University of California at Berkeley, where he played leading roles in student drama productions and received a bachelor's degree in architecture in 1908.

He then traveled in Europe and studied modern European theater practices with Edward Craig in Florence. Returning to the U.S., he attended Harvard College in 1912-14, where he studied in the playwriting workshop of George Pierce Baker, earned a master's degree, and organized the first exhibition of stagecraft in the U.S. The exhibition was presented in Cambridge, New York, Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland.

From 1916 to 1918 Hume was director of the newly formed Arts and Crafts Theater in Detroit, Michigan, part of the Little Theatre Movement. He brought Sheldon Cheney, an old friend from Berkeley, to Detroit to launch Theater Arts magazine out of the Arts and Crafts Theater.

In 1918 Hume returned to California to become assistant professor of dramatic literature and art at the University of California where, in addition, he directed the Greek Theatre until 1924. In 1924–1925 he commissioned and produced Lexington, a left-leaning play by Sidney Coe Howard, in Lexington, Massachusetts. He then went to Europe and collaborated with Parisian architect and set designer Walter René Fuerst on the book Twentieth Century Stage Decoration.

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