White Barn Theatre
Encyclopedia
The White Barn Theatre was a small theater founded by actress, producer and theater impresario Lucille Lortel
on the property of her estate in Norwalk, Connecticut
that premiered numerous plays from major playwrights and plays that went on to successful Broadway and Off-Broadway runs.
Lortel founded The theater in 1947 on her 18.4 acres (74,462.2 m²) estate at the corner of Cranbury Road and Newtown Avenue. The estate straddled both Norwalk and Westport, with about 15.5 acres (62,726.3 m²) in Norwalk and 2.5 acres (10,117.2 m²) in Westport, and the theater was sometimes called an institution in Westport, which has more ties to the theater than Norwalk. Lortel donated much of her memorabilia to the Westport Public Library.
With the theater, created from an old horse barn on the estate, Lortel aimed to present unusual and experimental plays, promote new playwrights, composers, actors, directors and designers, and help established artists develop new directions in ways they might not have been able to do in commercial theater.
Stage works that started at the 148-seat theater (some of which went on to commercial success elsewhere):
Transfers to Off-Broadway from the White Barn Theatre include:
Transfers to Broadway:
Writing in The New York Times
in connection with a gala event at the theater, Alvin Klein, said that the gala August 25, 1996 museum exhibition opening, allied stage performances and reception was "the night of the year [...] memories are made of this!"
At another gala event a year later (August 31, 1997) in celebration of a half century of the theater and Lortel's career as a producer, Klien wrote in the Times, "[O]ver the years, Ms. Lortel — now in her 90's — has often been quoted as saying she won't take on another White Barn season. After Sunday's celebration she could be overheard inviting two well-known performers to 'put something together and come up to The Barn next summer.'"
The Dublin Players of Ireland performed for several seasons at the White Barn with Milo O'Shea
.
On September 26, 1992 the White Barn Theatre Museum was set up by expanding and renovating a former small storage area attached to the theater.
In 2005, the state granted $450,000 to the Norwalk Land Conservation Trust Inc. to help preserve the parcel, which contains a pond, open fields, extensive wetlands and woodland. Stony Brook, a Class A stream, runs directly through the property and feeds a nearby aquifer.
The property was sold in 2006 for $4.8 million to 78 Cranberry Road LLC according to Westport Now Magazine.
In 2008, the property was purchased by the Connecticut Friends School
in nearby Wilton
. The school plans to build an expanded school building campus on the property.
Lucille Lortel
Lucille Lortel was an American actress and theater producer who is remembered as the namesake of an off-Broadway playhouse and theatrical award....
on the property of her estate in Norwalk, Connecticut
Norwalk, Connecticut
Norwalk is a city in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the population of the city is 85,603, making Norwalk sixth in population in Connecticut, and third in Fairfield County...
that premiered numerous plays from major playwrights and plays that went on to successful Broadway and Off-Broadway runs.
Lortel founded The theater in 1947 on her 18.4 acres (74,462.2 m²) estate at the corner of Cranbury Road and Newtown Avenue. The estate straddled both Norwalk and Westport, with about 15.5 acres (62,726.3 m²) in Norwalk and 2.5 acres (10,117.2 m²) in Westport, and the theater was sometimes called an institution in Westport, which has more ties to the theater than Norwalk. Lortel donated much of her memorabilia to the Westport Public Library.
With the theater, created from an old horse barn on the estate, Lortel aimed to present unusual and experimental plays, promote new playwrights, composers, actors, directors and designers, and help established artists develop new directions in ways they might not have been able to do in commercial theater.
Stage works that started at the 148-seat theater (some of which went on to commercial success elsewhere):
- George WolfGeorge WolfGeorge Wolf was the seventh Governor of Pennsylvania from 1829 to 1835.Wolf was born in Allen Township, Pennsylvania. He studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1799 and commenced practice in Easton, Pennsylvania. He served as postmaster of Easton in 1802 and 1803...
and Lawrence Bearson's Ivory Tower with Eva Marie SaintEva Marie SaintEva Marie Saint is an American actress who has starred in films, on Broadway, and on television in a career spanning seven decades. She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the drama film On the Waterfront , and later starred in the thriller film North by...
(1947); - Sean O'CaseySeán O'CaseySeán O'Casey was an Irish dramatist and memoirist. A committed socialist, he was the first Irish playwright of note to write about the Dublin working classes.- Early life:...
's Red Roses for Me (1948); - Hugo WeisgallHugo WeisgallHugo David Weisgall was an American composer and conductor, known chiefly for his opera and vocal music compositions...
's The StrongerThe Stronger (opera)The Stronger is an opera in one act by composer Hugo Weisgall. The English language libretto by Richard Henry Hart is based on August Strindberg's play of the same name...
(1952); - Eugene IonescoEugène IonescoEugène Ionesco was a Romanian and French playwright and dramatist, and one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd...
's The Chairs (1957); - Archibald MacLeishArchibald MacLeishArchibald MacLeish was an American poet, writer, and the Librarian of Congress. He is associated with the Modernist school of poetry. He received three Pulitzer Prizes for his work.-Early years:...
's This Music Crept by Me Upon the Waters (1959); - Edward AlbeeEdward AlbeeEdward Franklin Albee III is an American playwright who is best known for The Zoo Story , The Sandbox , Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? , and a rewrite of the screenplay for the unsuccessful musical version of Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's . His works are considered well-crafted, often...
's Fam and Yam (1960); - Samuel BeckettSamuel BeckettSamuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
's Embers (1960); - Murray SchisgalMurray SchisgalMurray Schisgal is an American playwright and screenwriter.Native New Yorker Schisgal won his first recognition for the 1963 off-Broadway double-bill The Typists and The Tiger, which won him the Drama Desk Award. His 1965 Broadway debut, Luv, earned him Tony Award nominations for Best Play and...
's The Typists (1961); - Adrienne KennedyAdrienne KennedyAdrienne Kennedy is an African-American playwright and was a key figure in the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. She is best known for her first major play Funnyhouse of a Negro....
's The Owl Answers (1965); - Norman RostenNorman RostenNorman Rosten was an American poet, playwright, and novelist.-Life:He grew up in Hurleyville, New York and was graduated from Brooklyn College and New York University, and the University of Michigan, where he met Arthur Miller...
's Come Slowly Eden (1966); - Paul ZindelPaul ZindelPaul Zindel Jr. was an American playwright, author, and educator.-Early years:Zindel was born in Tottenville, Staten Island, New York to Paul Zindel,Sr., a policeman, and Beatrice Frank, a nurse; his sister, Betty Hagen, was a year and a half older than he. Paul Zindel, Sr...
's The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1966); - Terrence McNallyTerrence McNallyTerrence McNally is an American playwright who has received four Tony Awards, an Emmy, two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant, the Lucille Lortel Award, the Hull-Warriner Award, and a citation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has been a member of the Council of the...
's Next (1967); - Nathan Teitel's The Initiation with Armand Assante and Lori March (1969);
- Paul HunterPaul HunterPaul Alan Hunter was an English professional snooker player. His media profile developed swiftly and he became known as the "Beckham of the Baize" because of his good looks and flamboyant style....
's How Do You Live with Love (1975); - Barbara Wersba's The Dream Watcher starring Eva Le Gallienne (1975);
- June HavocJune HavocJune Havoc was a Canadian-born American actress, dancer, writer, and theater director. Havoc was a child Vaudeville performer under the tutelage of her mother. She later acted on Broadway and in Hollywood and stage directed . She last appeared on television in 1990 on General Hospital...
's Nuts for the Underman (1977); - David AllenDavid Allen (playwright)David Allen is an Australian playwright. He is notable for his play Cheapside, which has been shown at the Warehouse Theatre and the White Barn Theatre....
's Cheapside, starring Cherry Jones, which Lortel later co-produced at the Half Moon Theatre in London; - Douglas ScottDouglas ScottDouglas Scott is an author of thriller fiction, mostly published during the 1980s.Scott's subject periods run from the theatres of the Second World War to post war Europe...
's Mountain (1988); - Margaret SangerMargaret SangerMargaret Higgins Sanger was an American sex educator, nurse, and birth control activist. Sanger coined the term birth control, opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, and established Planned Parenthood...
's Unfinished Business, starring Eileen Heckart (1989)
Transfers to Off-Broadway from the White Barn Theatre include:
- Fatima Dike's Glasshouse,
- Casey Kurtti's Catholic School Girls,
- Diane Kagan's Marvelous Grey
- Hugh WhitemoreHugh WhitemoreHugh Whitemore is an English playwright and screenwriter.Whitemore studied for the stage at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where he is now a Member of the Council. He began his writing career in British television with both original teleplays and adaptations of classic works by Charles...
's The Best of Friends
Transfers to Broadway:
- Cy ColemanCy ColemanCy Coleman was an American composer, songwriter, and jazz pianist.-Life and career:He was born Seymour Kaufman on June 14, 1929, in New York City to Eastern European Jewish parents, and was raised in the Bronx. His mother, Ida was an apartment landlady and his father was a brickmason...
and A.E. Hotchner's Welcome to the Club, which premiered at the White Barn under the title Let 'Em Rot - Lanford WilsonLanford WilsonLanford Wilson was an American playwright who helped to advance the Off-Off-Broadway theater movement. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1980, was elected in 2001 to the Theater Hall of Fame, and in 2004 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters...
's Redwood Curtain, which was subsequently presented on television as a "Hallmark Hall of Fame Presentation"
Writing in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
in connection with a gala event at the theater, Alvin Klein, said that the gala August 25, 1996 museum exhibition opening, allied stage performances and reception was "the night of the year [...] memories are made of this!"
At another gala event a year later (August 31, 1997) in celebration of a half century of the theater and Lortel's career as a producer, Klien wrote in the Times, "[O]ver the years, Ms. Lortel — now in her 90's — has often been quoted as saying she won't take on another White Barn season. After Sunday's celebration she could be overheard inviting two well-known performers to 'put something together and come up to The Barn next summer.'"
The Dublin Players of Ireland performed for several seasons at the White Barn with Milo O'Shea
Milo O'Shea
-Early life:He was born and raised in Dublin and educated by the Christian Brothers at Synge Street, along with his friend Donal Donnelly.He was discovered in the 1950s by Harry Dillon, who ran the "37 Theatre Club" on the top floor of his shop The Swiss Gem Company, 51 Lower O'Connell Street...
.
On September 26, 1992 the White Barn Theatre Museum was set up by expanding and renovating a former small storage area attached to the theater.
The property after Lortel's death
Lortel bequeathed the property to her theater foundation, which later proposed putting a housing development and possibly a school on the site, something opposed by members of the Save Cranbury Association.In 2005, the state granted $450,000 to the Norwalk Land Conservation Trust Inc. to help preserve the parcel, which contains a pond, open fields, extensive wetlands and woodland. Stony Brook, a Class A stream, runs directly through the property and feeds a nearby aquifer.
The property was sold in 2006 for $4.8 million to 78 Cranberry Road LLC according to Westport Now Magazine.
In 2008, the property was purchased by the Connecticut Friends School
Connecticut Friends School
Connecticut Friends School is a K-8 elementary and middle school located in Wilton, Connecticut run by the Religious Society of Friends. Founded in 1998, the school's enrollment consists of approximately 60 students....
in nearby Wilton
Wilton, Connecticut
Wilton is a town nestled in the Norwalk River Valley in southwestern Connecticut in the United States. It is located in Fairfield County. As of the 2010 census, the town population was 18,062. In 2007, it was voted as one of CNN Money's "Best Places to Live" in the United States.Located along...
. The school plans to build an expanded school building campus on the property.