Lucille Lortel at the White Barn Theatre, ca. 1950s - Lucille Lortel, Humphrey Doulens, Dorothy and Lillian Gish at the White Barn Theatre (Westport,Conn.) from NYPL Digital Collections
Exterior of the White Barn Theatre (1940s) - Photograph of The White Barn Theatre with Lucille Lortel on Steps, likely taken between 1948-1949 from NYPL Digital Collections
White Barn Theatre Interior (1947): Photographs of No Casting Today (Revue) by William Provost and Alex Kahn, White Barn Theatre (Westport, Conn.) from NYPL Digital Collections
Exterior of the White Barn Theatre (1940s) - Photograph of the exterior of the White Barn Theatre, taken between 1948-1950 from NYPL Digital Collections
Exterior of the White Barn Theatre, ca. 1955 - Photograph of White Barn Theatre from NYPL Digital Collections
Born Lucille Wadler in New York City on December 16, 1900, Lucille Lortel studied acting and theatre at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and with Arnold Korff in Europe. She made her Broadway debut in 1925 in the Theatre Guild's production of Caesar and Cleopatra with Helen Hayes. In 1926 she appeared in Michael Kallesser's One Man's Woman at the 48th Street Theatre. She was also seen in Belasco's The Dove with Judith Anderson, and as Poppy in the touring company of The Shanghai Gesture with Florence Reed. She played the lead in The Man Who Laughed Last with Sessue Hayakawa, both on stage and in the screen version that was one of the first talking films. She also played leading roles in movie shorts and on the radio. Ms. Lortel married industrialist Louis Schweitzer in 1931, becoming a reluctant socialite wife.
After spending over 15 years looking for a way to express herself in the Theatre that was acceptable to her husband, in 1947 Lucille Lortel founded the White Barn Theatre in an old horse barn on her and her husband's estate in Westport CT. In short order, Ms. Lortel set the mission of the Theatre to presenting works of an unusual and experimental nature, developing the talents of new playwrights, composers, actors, directors and designers, and allowing established artists to open themselves up to new directions in pieces they might not have been able to do in commercial theatre. She premiered plays (many of which enjoyed successful transfers) such as: George Wolf and Lawrence Bearson's Ivory Tower with Eva Marie Saint (1947); Sean O'Casey's Red Roses for Me (1948); Eugene Ionesco's The Chairs (1957); Archibald MacLeish's This Music Crept by Me Upon the Waters (1959); Edward Albee's Fam and Yam (1960); Samuel Beckett's Embers (1960); Murray Schisgal's The Typists (1961); Adrienne Kennedy's The Owl Answers (1965); Norman Rosten's Come Slowly Eden (1966); Paul Zindel's The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1966); Terrence McNally's Next (1967); Nathan Teitel's The Initiation with Armand Assante and Lori March (1969); Paul Hunter's How Do You Live with Love (1975); Barbara Wersba's The Dream Watcher starring Eva Le Gallienne (1975); June Havoc's Nuts for the Underman (1977); David Allen's Cheapside starring Cherry Jones, which Ms. Lortel later co-produced at the Half Moon Theatre in London; Douglas Scott's Mountain (1988); and Margaret Sanger's Unfinished Business, starring Eileen Heckart (1989). Ireland's famed Dublin Players also performed for several seasons at the White Barn with Milo O'Shea. Continue reading from Lortel Theatre
Lucille Lortel's Elixir of Youth: Enthusiasm (1988, Feb 27). The New York Times (Proquest)
Lucille Lortel, Patron Who Made Innovative Off Broadway a Star, Is Dead at 98 (1999, Apr 06). The New York Times (Proquest)
Long Live the Queen: Lucille Lortel, Queen of Off-Broadway (2004, Sept). American Theatre (EBSCO)
White Barn and Playhouse Join Hands (2006, Jan 04). Westport News (Proquest)
Preserving a Theater Legacy in Westport (2006, Feb 05). The New York Times (Proquest)
Theater Giant Lucille Lortel's Local Legacy (2016, Apr 08). Westport News (EBSCO NewsBank)
