Influential Weston/Westport resident who founded The Westport Country Playhouse, as well as the American Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford.
Lawrence Langner and Armina Marshall (both of the Theatre Guild), Celeste Holm (who returned to the production as Ado Annie for the anniversary performance) and Richard Rodgers (music) at the 2000th performance of Oklahoma! (NYPL Digital Collections)
Katherine Hepburn and Lawrence Langner standing between plaque honoring Langner in lobby of the American Shakespeare Festival (NYPL Digital Collections)
Lawrence Langner, Richard Rodgers, Agnes de Mille, and Oscar Hammerstein in rehearsal for the stage production Allegro (NYPL Digital Collections)
Oscar Hammerstein II, Agnes De Mille, Armina Marshall, Richard Rodgers, Theresa Helburn and Lawrence Langner (Theatre Guild and creative team), celebrating the 4th anniversary of Oklahoma! on Broadway (NYPL Digital Collections)
Lawrence Langer Biography. World Authors, 1990-1995. (Bio Reference Bank)
Lawrence Langner (1890 – 1962) was a playwright, author, and producer who also pursued a career as a patent attorney. Born near Swansea, South Wales and working most of his life in the United States, he started his career as one of the founders of the Washington Square Players troupe in 1914. In 1919 he founded the Theatre Guild, where he supervised over 200 productions. He was also founder and Chairman of the American Shakespeare Festival, and with his wife, Armina Marshall, he created and operated the Westport Country Playhouse. Besides theatre, Lawrence Langner wrote several books, including an autobiography, titled Magic Curtain. He was awarded the 1958 Tony Award for best play production (together with his wife and partners, Theresa Helburn and Dore Schary) for Sunrise at Campobello. Continue reading from Concord Theatricals
This is the story of one small theatre in southern Connecticut, a theatre that was created [more than] seventy-five years ago, in a nineteenth-century cow barn. Why would such a little theatre - and, up to now, just a summer theatre - be worth a book? And why would so many people in Westport and the neighboring townships have spent so much of their time, energy and money in preserving such a little theatre?
One reason is its past, which is a virtual mirror of the story of American theatre in the twentieth century. The Playhouse's founder, Lawrence Langner, was a seminal figure in that story because of his long involvement with the Theatre Guild and all that the Guild did to change the face of American theatre between the 1920s and the 1950s. For the first time, it provided a showcase for great plays - old and new, American and European - and it brought an astonishing array of writing, directing, designing and acting talent to its productions on Broadway. Ironically, however, it was Lawrence Langner's frustration with the Theatre Guild that caused him to create a summer theatre of his own - a theatre in which he and his wife, Armina, could make all the decisions themselves, and in which they would no longer be beholden to the opinions and prejudices of a committee of peers, however distinguished that committee might be. So, in 1931, the Westport Country Playhouse came into being. Continue reading from An American Theatre by Somerset-Ward, 8.
Westport Country Playhouse (The Westport Library)
The Theatre Guild (The Westport Library)
Lawrence Langner's Broadway Credits (Playbill)
Broadway Comes to Westport (Connecticut History)
Lawrence Langner Collection at Yale (Yale)
An American Theater: The Story Of Westport Country Playhouse (Variety)
