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Susan Rand Brown can barely contain her excitement when she talks about the Provincetown Players’ centennial celebration this month.

“The impact this group had on American theater is huge; it’s much bigger than most people realize,” said Brown, a member of the event’s programming committee. “Their works gave voice to modern American drama with new ideas about everything from feminism to politics to the arts.”

Four short plays — two of which were produced by the Provincetown Players in summer 1915 — will be presented at the Provincetown Theater on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays through July 18 (excluding July 4). On July 11, the plays will be followed by a humanities panel moderated by Brown and including Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner.

Provincetown was already an artsy community in 1915, when a group of a dozen or so writers and artists from New York’s Greenwich Village headed for the tip of Cape Cod on vacation. On that July 15, two plays — “Constancy” by Neith Boyce and “Suppressed Desires” by Susan Glaspell and her husband, George Cram Cook — were performed on the veranda of a rented seaside cottage.

News of and interest in the plays spread. As a result, they were presented later that summer in a makeshift theater created in a fish house on Lewis Wharf, according to Jeffery Kennedy, president of the Eugene O’Neill Society and author of the essay “A History of the Provincetown Playhouse.”

O’Neill, a rising young playwright at the time, was so enthralled by the developing arts scene in Provincetown that he went there in 1916 to see it for himself and hoping to have the Provincetown Players present his work. Within four years, O’Neill won his first Pulitzer Prize; some 16 years later, Glaspell earned hers.

The Provincetown Players lasted only two summers on the Cape. In fall 1916, the experimental theater group set up shop year-round in Greenwich Village. It disbanded after eight years.

“Other groups sprung from them and the impact was, and continues to be, huge,” said Margaret Van Sant, a Provincetown Theater board member who is organizing the event.

“It’s not a stretch to say that we’re all here because of the Provincetown Players,” added Van Sant, who is directing one of the plays. “They changed American theater. They were Americans speaking about American issues, political issues, and issues of the day. Broadway was just doing European imports, so these people — radicals, feminists, journalists, writers — got together to write their own plays.”

In addition, Brown said, “Broadway was also doing melodramatic blockbusters, including ‘The Count of Monte Cristo,’ in which Eugene O’Neill’s father, James O’Neill, had a starring role. Eugene was the bohemian, idealist artist, and he hated that.”

“Then and Now: A Centennial Celebration of the Provincetown Players” will provide an opportunity to see how four of the company’s original works have held up over the years, according to Van Sant.

“I think what you’ll find is that they really do,” she said. “If you look at ‘The Sniper,’ it’s a really strong antiwar play that Eugene O’Neill wrote in 1915.”

“The Sniper,” “Constancy,” “Suppressed Desires,” and Glaspell’s “Trifles” will all be performed. “The Sniper” is being produced by CTEK Arts, “Suppressed Desires” by Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, “Trifles” by the Payomet Performing Arts Center, and “Constancy” by the Provincetown Theater.

“It is fitting to have all of these theater companies come together to celebrate this theatrical milestone,” said Van Sant, who is directing “The Sniper.”

Brown said she expects the humanities panel to be a lively affair. “I am hoping that one of the takeaways will be how important live theater and noncommercial theater is to our intellectual and spiritual growth,” she said. “We want to give voice, encouragement, and a stage to lesser known or unknown plays, and we are trying to reach people who want to come and see more provocative and innovative drama.”

In addition to the panel discussion, there will be a brunch on July 11 to honor the Eugene O’Neill and Susan Glaspell societies. It will be followed by a discussion led by Robert M. Dowling, author of “Eugene O’Neill: A Life in Four Acts,” who will sign copies of the biography.

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Centennial celebration puts spotlight on Provincetown Players