Lucille Lortel: The Queen of Off Broadway

Since 1986 confirmed New York theatergoers have been aware of the Lucille Lortel Awards, which are presented annually to honor the best play and the best musical of the Off Broadway season. But who, these theatergoers may well ask, was Lucille Lortel? Why do these awards and an Off Broadway theater bear her name? Lortel was born in 1900, descended from Eastern European Jews who emigrated to the United States in the late 19th century. Her immediate family lived on Manhattan's Lower East Side, then moved uptown to the Bronx. There she was exposed to theater, vaudeville, and dancing lessons, fell in love with the movies, decided to pursue an acting career, was accepted by the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and soon appeared on Broadway. But before too long, Lortel found that acting was not the career through which she could best express her talents and needs. By then she had married a man of some wealth, which enabled her to become a producer and a theater owner, first of the White Barn in Westport, CT, and later Off Broadway of the Theatre de Lys. There, combining her intuitive knowledge of theater, her taste for the off-beat, her charm and her risk-taking fearlessness, she became a leader of a burgeoning Off Broadway movement during the 1950s and '60s and one of the few women of her generation to be a significant player in New York City theater. That alone could perhaps explain her title of Queen of Off Broadway. But perhaps there's a simpler reason. To the theater where now her name shines, Lucille Lortel once brought a musical revival of resounding importance and record-breaking popularity: Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera. "Mack the Knife," anyone?

Born in New York in 1900, Lortel was to move from her career as a Broadway actress to a career as an Off-Broadway theater producer, leading the Off-Broadway movement of the 1950s and 60s. Relying on the archives kept by the Lucille Lortel Foundation, this biography of Lortel describes her career, recounting her role in such theater milestones as the revival of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's which ran for many years.
Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Written under the auspices of The Lucille Lortel Foundation, this book is the first biography of the grande dame of avant garde theater. Lucille Lortel became a leader of a burgeoning Off Broadway movement during the 1950s and '60s and one of the few women of her generation to be a significant player in New York City theater.