Ruth Chorpenning

Ruth Barrows Chorpenning Norris (February 11, 1898 – July 3, 1980) was an American stage actress and monologuist whose Broadway career spanned from 1923 to 1941. Born in Springfield, Ohio, she was raised in Colorado and Minnesota. Her father, John C. Chorpenning, died of tuberculosis during her teenage years, and as an infant she survived spinal meningitis. Her mother, Charlotte Barrows Chorpenning, worked as a teacher, poet, and playwright. Chorpenning earned a degree from Radcliffe College in 1920 and completed her training at the School of the Theatre in 1922.

Her Broadway debut came in 1923 with The Jolly Roger, the same year she appeared in Cyrano de Bergerac, a production she returned to in 1926. Over the following two decades, Chorpenning accumulated an extensive list of stage credits, including Charley's Aunt (1925), Sam Abramovitch (1927), Hot Pan (1928), Him (1928), Dorian Gray (1928), The International (1928), Fiesta (1929), and Red Rust (1929). In 1930, she appeared in The Garrick Gaieties, and caricature artist Al Hirschfeld sketched her alongside fellow cast members that year. One of her most notable roles came in 1931, when she originated the character Ado Annie in Green Grow the Lilacs, a role documented in a 1931 photograph by Vandamm held in the New York Public Library Digital Collections.

Chorpenning continued performing through the 1930s and into the early 1940s, appearing in Lost Boy (1932), Jamboree (1932), Marathon '33 (1933), Ah, Wilderness! (1933), The Puritan (1936), Swing Your Lady (1936), Sun Kissed (1937), Love in My Fashion (1937), Family Portrait (1939), and Ring Around Elizabeth (1941), her final Broadway production. A 1941 photograph by Lucas-Monroe depicting Chorpenning as Vida alongside Herbert Yost in Ring Around Elizabeth is held in the Museum of the City of New York.

Beyond Broadway, Chorpenning choreographed and performed at a May Day pageant at Ohio State University in 1916. She collaborated with her husband, actor and playwright James Norris, on community theatre initiatives connected to the Eastern Cooperative League, the University of Louisville School of Social Work, and the Federal Negro Theatre. In 1942, she performed all the roles in an NBC radio serial titled Brownstone Front, written by her husband. She also co-authored the romantic comedy Romey and Julie in 1936, alongside Robert Dunmore, James Norris, and Margaret Bonds, and published Recreation in Cooperatives in 1943. In 1978, she and her husband participated in interviews with two scholars who were researching her mother Charlotte for their dissertations. Chorpenning died on July 3, 1980, in Monroe, Florida.