Lucille Lortel, The Queen of Off Broadway Kindle Edition

Since 1986, confirmed New York theatergoers have been aware of the Lucille Lortel Awards, which are presented annually to honor the best play and 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 theatre bear her name? Lucille 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 theatre, vaudeville, and dancing lessons, fell in love with the movies, decided to purse an acting career, was accepted by the American Academy 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 theatre owner, first of the White Barn in Westport, CT, and later Off-Broadway of the Theatre de Lys. There, combining her intuitive knowledge of theatre, her taste for the off-beat, her charm and her risk-taking fearlessness, she became a leader of a burgeoning Off-Broadway movement during during the 1950s and '60s and one of the few women of her generation to be a significant player in New York City theatre. That alone could perhaps explain her title of Queen of Off Broadway. But perhaps there's a simpler reason. To the theatre where now her name shines, Lucille Lortel presented a musical revival of resounding importance and record-breaking popularity. Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's THE THREEPENNY OPERA. "Mack the Knife," anyone? Read more