Bet you thought a city like New York, or possibly Chicago was the hub of Modernism in America. Well, WRONG. Apparently, Provincetown, Mass. is where it's at.
Let's start with the obvious. Eugene O'Neill had his big summer theater there and made his name and those of his plays famous. The Provincetown Players were the leaders in experimental theater in the early/mid 20th century. Tennessee Williams also debuted several of his plays with this company.
Moving on. In 1925, Eugene O'Neill rented his house to Edmund Wilson, who came to Provincetown to seduce Edna St. Vincent Millay. When that didn't work out, Wilson had giant alcoholic bashes with E.E. Cummings and John Dos Passos. The house collapsed in 1931 (the ghost of too much partying shook it down)
Kerouac wrote sections of On The Road in Provincetown (not a big deal, right? He wrote that everywhere, but still)
And then, in 1935, Hans Hoffman opened his summer school of art there, which brought in the likes of Rothko and Pollock and Motherwell and Robert DeNiro's Dad. The first American exhibit of Abstract Expressionism was in Provincetown in 1949
AND Bette Davis made her stage debute in Provincetown.
Mailer lives there now, as does Grace Paley
