 The theater was used for assemblies , plays , concerts , and lectures . It was also home to the Beechwood Players , an adult performing arts group which had its origins in 1919 . The Players put on several plays a year , summer and winter , six plays a year and three @-@ night runs . They had started with three one @-@ act plays but had graduated to full @-@ length dramas . From its first years , Broadway actors used the theater when not otherwise engaged . Among them were Sylvia Sidney , Laurette Taylor , Lynn Fontanne , James Dean , Judson Laire , and Parker Fennelly . Lecturers and performers in the Beechwood Theater included Sarah Bernhardt , Robert Frost , John Masefield , Vachel Lindsay , Eleanor Roosevelt , H. G. Wells , Stephen Vincent Benét , and a King of Siam . Other notable appearances at the theater included Charles Coburn and Isadora Duncan . Audiences have included Franklin D. Roosevelt , John D. Rockefeller Jr . , Henry Ford and the last King of Poland . 
