Jean Dalrymple was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 theater producer, manager, publicist, author and playwright who was instrumental in the founding of New York City Center

New York City Center

New York City Center is a 2,750-seat Moorish Revival theater located at 131 West 55th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues in Manhattan, New York City. It is one block south of Carnegie Hall...

 and is best known for her productions there.

Biography

Born in Morristown, New Jersey

Morristown, New Jersey

Morristown is a town in Morris County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the town population was 18,411. It is the county seat of Morris County. Morristown became characterized as "the military capital of the American Revolution" because of its strategic role in the...

, Dalrymple, as a teenager, worked as a stenographer on Wall Street and then had a vaudeville act on the Keith-Albee-Orpheum

Keith-Albee-Orpheum

The Keith-Albee-Orpheum Corporation was the owner of a chain of vaudeville and motion picture theatres. It was formed by the merger of the holdings of Benjamin Franklin Keith and Edward Franklin Albee II and Martin Beck's Orpheum Circuit, Inc..-History:...

 circuit with Dan Jarrett. She began working as a press agent for the theater producer John L. Golden, and wrote a play, Salt Water.

In 1932 she married Ward Morehouse

Ward Morehouse

Ward Morehouse was an American theater critic, newspaper columnist, playwright, and author.-Biography:...

, the New York Sun

New York Sun

The New York Sun was a weekday daily newspaper published in New York City from 2002 to 2008. When it debuted on April 16, 2002, adopting the name, motto, and masthead of an otherwise unrelated earlier New York paper, The Sun , it became the first general-interest broadsheet newspaper to be started...

theater critic. That marriage ended in divorce. She later married Major General Philip De Witt Ginder

Philip De Witt Ginder

Philip De Witt Ginder was an American career soldier who rose to the rank of Major General during the Korean War. He was born in Plainfield, New Jersey and graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1927....

. She had no children.

Dalrymple served on the Board of City Center, and in the 1980s, was president of the Light Opera of Manhattan

Light Opera of Manhattan

Light Opera of Manhattan, known as LOOM, was an Off-Broadway repertory theatre company that produced light operas, including the works of Gilbert and Sullivan and European and American operettas, 52 weeks per year, in New York City between 1968 and 1989....

. At City Center, she produced such works as Our Town

Our Town

Our Town is a three-act play by American playwright Thornton Wilder. It is a character story about an average town's citizens in the early twentieth century as depicted through their everyday lives...

; Porgy and Bess

Porgy and Bess

Porgy and Bess is an opera, first performed in 1935, with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. It was based on DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy and subsequent play of the same title, which he co-wrote with his wife Dorothy Heyward...

; Othello

Othello

The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...

starring Paul Robeson

Paul Robeson

Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...

 and Jose Ferrer

José Ferrer

José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón , best known as José Ferrer, was a Puerto Rican actor, as well as a theater and film director...

; A Streetcar Named Desire

A Streetcar Named Desire (play)

A Streetcar Named Desire is a 1947 play written by American playwright Tennessee Williams for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948. The play opened on Broadway on December 3, 1947, and closed on December 17, 1949, in the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. The Broadway production was...

starring Uta Hagen

Uta Hagen

Uta Thyra Hagen was a German-born American actress and drama teacher. She originated the role of Martha in the 1963 Broadway premiere of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee...

 and Anthony Quinn

Anthony Quinn

Antonio Rodolfo Quinn-Oaxaca , more commonly known as Anthony Quinn, was a Mexican American actor, as well as a painter and writer...

; Pal Joey

Pal Joey

Pal Joey is a 1940 epistolary novel by John O'Hara, which became the basis of the 1940 stage musical comedy and 1957 motion picture of the same name, with music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Lorenz Hart....

with Bob Fosse

Bob Fosse

Robert Louis “Bob” Fosse was an American actor, dancer, musical theater choreographer, director, screenwriter, film editor and film director. He won an unprecedented eight Tony Awards for choreography, as well as one for direction...

; King Lear

King Lear

King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The title character descends into madness after foolishly disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological...

with Orson Welles

Orson Welles

George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...

 and many others.

Dalrymple's written works include a 1963 autobiography, September Child; the story of Jean Dalrymple; Careers and Opportunities in the Theatre (1969); and The Quiet Room : a play in three acts (1958).

Dalrymple died in 1998 at her apartment on West 55th Street

55th Street (Manhattan)

55th Street is a two-mile-long, one-way street traveling east to west across Midtown Manhattan.-Sutton Place South:*The route officially begins at Sutton Place South which is on a hill overlooking FDR Drive....

, across the street from City Center Theater, aged 96, following a battle with cancer

Cancer

Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...

. She is buried at West Point Cemetery

West Point Cemetery

West Point Cemetery is a historic cemetery on the grounds of the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York. It overlooks the Hudson River, and served as a burial ground for American Revolutionary War soldiers and early West Point inhabitants long before 1817 when it was officially...

 next to her second husband.

Further reading

• From The Last Row: A personal account of the first twenty-five years of the New York City Center of Music and Drama by Jean Dalrymple. James T. White and Company Publ., Clifton, New Jersey (1975)

External links

• Biography at American Theatre Wing.Org
• IBDb profile
• IMDb profile
• http://www.allbusiness.com/services/amusement-recreation-services/4586913-1.htmlObituary: Jean Dalrymple, 96, Who Founded City Center. Kevin Lewis, Friday November 20, 1998 (reprint from Back Stage
  Back Stage
  Back Stage is an entertainment-industry brand aimed at people working in film and the performing arts, with a special focus on casting, job opportunities, and career advice.Back Stage publishes a weekly tabloid-sized trade magazine in the U.S...
  
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