Lucille Lortel - Lucille Lortel Theatre

Lucille Lortel Theatre

In 1955, eight years after Ms. Lortel started producing at the White Barn, Mr. Schweitzer presented his wife with the Theatre De Lys at 121 Christopher Street in Greenwich Village as a 24th wedding anniversary present. For her first production in her new theatre Ms Lortel reopened her White Barn production of the Marc Blitzstein translation of The Threepenny Opera at the theatre. It ran for seven years. This production was a seminal moment in the history of Off-Broadway, winning the only Tony Awards ever awarded to an Off-Broadway production: a Special Tony Award for Best Off-Broadway show, as well as the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical to Lotte Lenya. In addition, Scott Merrill was nominated for a Best Featured Actor in a Musical Tony.

As Threepenny Opera continued and eventually concluded its historic run, Ms. Lortel produced many other plays, including Jean Genet's The Balcony in 1960, which won the Village Voice's Obie Award for best foreign play, Athol Fugard's The Blood Knot (a production starring James Earl Jones which launched Fugard's 'American career'), Christopher Fry's A Sleep of Prisoners, Sean O'Casey's plays I Knock at the Door, Pictures in the Hallway, and Cock-A-Doodle-Dandy, Charles Morgan's The River Line with Sada Thompson, Beatrice Straight and Peter Cookson, and Tom Cole's Medal of Honor Rag. At the Theater de Lys, Ms Lortel provided a home for such plays as David Mamet's A Life in the Theater, Sam Shepard's Buried Child and Marsha Norman's award winning Getting Out.

On November 16, 1981, during the run of Tommy Tune's production of Caryl Churchill's' Cloud Nine (for which Tune won the Drama Desk Award for best director), the Theatre de Lys was renamed the Lucille Lortel Theatre.

During the 1983-84 season at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, Ms Lortel co-produced Michael Cristofer's The Lady and the Clarinet starring Stockard Channing, followed by Woza Albert!, which received an Obie Award. In 1985 she produced Win Wells' Gertrude Stein and a Companion starring Jan Miner and Marian Seldes in the roles they had originated at the White Barn Theatre. Gertrude Stein and a Companion was recorded and broadcast on both the Bravo US cable and Bravo Canadian television networks. It received the National Education Film and Video Award for historical biographies and a Emmy Award. Other plays presented at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in the 1980s included Not About Heroes, Elisabeth Welch in Time To Start Living, The Acting Company's Orchards and Ten by Tennessee (which were presented by arrangement with Lucille Lortel) and the hit Groucho: A Life in Revue, which went on to play in London's West End. The decade ended with the hit production of Steel Magnolias which ran for 1,126 performances.

In 1992 Ms. Lortel produced Larry Kramer's The Destiny of Me which received the 1993 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play Off-Broadway from the League of Off-Broadway Theatres and Producers. Also that season the Lucille Lortel Theatre was home to the Circle Repertory Company's production of The Fiery Furnace starring Julie Harris in her Off-Broadway debut. The Theatre housed Ms Lortel's production of Jane Anderson's The Baby Dance, as well as Terrence McNally's Lips Together, Teeth Apart, and two plays starring Uta Hagen: Nicholas Wright's Mrs. Klein (also produced by Ms Lortel) and Donald Margulies' Collected Stories.

On October 26, 1998 Ms Lortel unveiled the Playwrights' Sidewalk at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in order to create a permanent tribute to playwrights whose work has been performed Off-Broadway. As part of the Lucille Lortel Awards ceremony each year, one playwright will be inducted into the sidewalk, having their name engraved into one of the solid bronze stars imbedded in concrete in front of the Theatre. It remains, as was her hope, “New York’s only permanent monument to the great Playwrights whose work has been performed at the Lucille Lortel Theatre and other Off-Broadway Theatres”.

Ms Lortel's wish was that the Lucille Lortel Theatre would continue long after her death. To that end, in 1999 Ms. Lortel granted the Lucille Lortel Theatre to the Lucille Lortel Theatre Foundation, establishing a new booking policy of Not-For-Profit productions only. Since then, the theatre has been host to numerous productions, benefit performances, readings and meetings.