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Margaret Webster's Henry VIII: The Survival of ‘Scenic Shakespeare’ in America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2009

Linda McJ. Micheli
Linda McJ. Micheli
Affiliation:
Linda Micheli is theAssistant Professor of English, at Bentley College, Massachusetts.
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Extract

On 6 November 1946, in New York City, three enterprising women of the theatre – Margaret Webster, Cheryl Crawford, and Eva La Gallienne – launched a noble experiment with a lavish production of Shakespeare's Henry VIII. Their goal was to found a national repertory company, modelled on the European national theatres, to be a home for the classics and a training ground for a new breed of classically trained American actors – ‘an American Old Vic’. Webster and her partners had been trained in such a tradition, and their dream of an American national theatre had been given additional impetus by the Old Vic's successful visit to New York in 1945. Despite the good wishes of the theatrical community, an able band of established actors (such as Walter Hampden, Victor Jory, and the founders themselves), and generally sympathetic critical notices, the fledgling American Repertory Theatre (ART) foundered financially after one season, and the dream was abandoned (though it has recently been revived by Peter Sellars and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.).

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 11 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1986 , pp. 213 - 222
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 1986

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References

Notes

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