The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts' TOFT (Theatre on Film and Tape) room is also named for her. Miss Lortel also endowed a playwriting fellowship in her name at Brown University. Her donations to many institutions and organizations included the Lucille Lortel Fund for New Drama at Yale University the first play to be sponsored by this fund was August Wilson's Fences, which later won the Pulitzer Prize. In 1986, the League of Off-Broadway Theatres and Producers established the annual Lucille Lortel Awards for Outstanding Achievement Off-Broadway. She received numerous awards, including 5 Tony nominations, an Emmy award, honorary doctorates from the University of Bridgeport, Fairfield University, and the CUNY (City University of New York) Graduate School, where the Lucille Lortel Distinguished Professorial Chair in Theatre was the first theatrical chair named for a woman. Because of her belief in the play, Miss Lortel also produced it at the Library of Congress, co-produced it in London and took it to Moscow in 1989. A Walk in the Woods by Lee Blessing was her last Broadway production. Among the highlights of her productions are the Off-Broadway premiere of Athol Fugard's The Blood Knot, Sean O'Casey's Cock-a-Doodle Dandy, I Knock at the Door and Pictures in the Hallway, Jean Genet's The Balcony, Lee Blessing's A Walk in the Woods, Mbongeni Ngema's Woza Albert! and Sarafina!, Win Wells' Gertrude Stein and a Companion, Jane Anderson's The Baby Dance, and Larry Kramer's The Destiny of Me. In a career spanning more than 50 years, Lucille Lortel produced more than 500 shows on Broadway, Off-Broadway, at the Library of Congress, at her White Barn Theatre and at other venues. In 1998, Miss Lortel created the Playwrights' Sidewalk, a walk of fame for playwrights, outside the Lucille Lortel Theatre. For 20 seasons, she presented works selected on the basis of innovation and originality. It was also at her Theatre de Lys, which was renamed the Lucille Lortel Theatre in 1981, that she initiated the ANTA (American National Theatre and Academy) Matinee Series in 1956. In 1955, Miss Lortel's husband purchased the Theatre de Lys in Greenwich Village for her, where her revival of The Threepenny Opera by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht ran for almost 7 years. James' Episcopal Church in New York City in 1951. Her first Off-Broadway production was A Sleep of Prisoners by Christopher Fry at the St. Here she introduced experimental, less-commercial works, including the American premieres of plays by writers such as Sean O'Casey, Edward Albee, Jean Genet, Eugene Ionesco, Samuel Beckett, Yukio Mishima, and Paul Zindel. In 1947, on the grounds of her home in Westport, Connecticut, she began the White Barn Theatre, a summer theater which continues to the present day. Shortly after marrying the wealthy industrialist Louis Schweitzer in 1931, she retired from performing. A graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, she had her first notable role in the Theatre Guild's production of George Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra, starring Helen Hayes in 1925. Producer, theater owner, actress and benefactor, Lucille Lortel, was born Lucille Wadler in New York City on December 16, 1900. Her affiliations with Circle in the Square, Circle Repertory Company, Goodspeed Opera House, Yale Repertory Theatre, and other companies are documented in the organization files. Over the years Lortel also worked closely with several non-profit theaters as a donor and mentor. Many of these productions are represented in the collection by correspondence, programs, photographs and clippings. Lortel's productions at the White Barn and the ANTA Matinee Series at the Theatre de Lys brought works by Jean Genet, Sean O'Casey, Athol Fugard, and others to a wider audience. Lortel is credited with fostering the Off-Broadway movement and providing a forum for avant-garde and experimental work at her Theatre de Lys. Lucille Lortel's life spanned the twentieth century, so in addition to providing details of her family and personal life her papers encompass many aspects of the theatrical history of her era. The papers of Lucille Lortel relate the details of her life and career from teen years to her death in 1999, and include correspondence, production files, scripts, programs, production photographs, personal and family photographs, organization files, clippings, memorabilia, and scrapbooks. Restrictions apply Portions of this collection have been digitized and are available online. Lucille Lortel Papers, *T-Mss 2001-006, Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Repository Billy Rose Theatre Division Access to materials Request an in-person research appointment. Creator Lortel, Lucille Call number *T-Mss 2001-006 Physical description 49.61 linear feet 37 vols.
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