Ellen Stewart

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Ellen Stewart.jpg

Ellen Stewart (born November 7, 1919 - January 13, 2011 in New York City , New York ) was an American theater director and theater producer and the founder of the La MaMa Experimental Theater Club . In the 1950s she worked as a fashion designer at Saks Fifth Avenue , Bergdorf Goodman , Lord & Taylor , and Henri Bendel .

La MaMa Annex 66 East 4th Street

Life

Ellen Stewart was born in either Chicago , Illinois or Alexandria , Louisiana on November 7, 1919 . This inaccuracy is due to Stewart's reluctance to reveal details of her early life. One observer writes about this: "Your story is somewhat difficult to grasp - it does in fact have a legendary quality - since it mentions different versions of the same stories on different occasions." Stewart says her father was a Louisiana tailor and her mother a teacher, and that they divorced while they were still teenagers.

La Mama Theater by David Shankbone

Around 1939 she was perhaps the second wife of Larry Lebanus Hovell (born August 10, 1910 , † October 1963 ), a waiter in Chicago from Alexandria, Louisiana; but it is not certain that they married. They had a child, a son: Larry Lebanus Hovell, II (born November 23, 1940 , † October 25, 1998 ).

Career

In 1950 Stewart moved to New York City , where she worked as a tailor in the bras and corset department at Saks Fifth Avenue , and later as a seamstress under the tutelage of Edith Lances, the department manager of the department store's custom corset department. Stewart continued to work as a fashion designer in the 1960s and 1970s, including for the manufacturer Victor Bijou, for whom she designed "sporty dresses and throws for the beach".

In 1961, Stewart founded Café La MaMa with Paul Foster and others, which became one of the most successful small off-off Broadway theater companies - the La MaMa Experimental Theater Club . Over the next few decades she became famous worldwide, writing and directing a large number of plays, exclusively based on music and dance, with artists from all over the world.

In 1992, Stewart was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame .

In 2007 she was awarded the Praemium Imperiale in the category "Film / Theater" and the Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz Prize , which is awarded annually by the Polish Institute of the International Theater Institute for "Outstanding Achievements in Promoting Polish Theater Culture".

In 2005, Tom O'Horgan presented Stewart with the Stewardship Award from the New York Innovative Theater Awards . She received this "in recognition of her significant contributions to the off-off Broadway community" .

death

Ellen Stewart died on January 13, 2011 at the age of 91. She had been suffering from heart problems for a long time and passed away in Beth Israel Hospital in New York City after a long illness. The memorial service for her was held on January 17, 2011 at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Dan Bacalzo: Ellen Stewart, La MaMa ETC Founder of, this at 91 , Theater Mania. January 13, 2011. 
  2. ↑ Ellen Stewart biodata at The Villager website ( Memento of the original from December 30, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.thevillager.com
  3. ↑ Jessie Carney Smith, Notable Black American Women (Gale Research 2006), page 618
  4. ^ Sally Banes, Greenwich Village, 1963 (Duke University Press, 1993), page 49
  5. ↑ The Villager , op. Cit ( Memento of the original dated December 30, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.thevillager.com
  6. ^ New York Times obituary for Stewart's son, Larry Lebanus Hovell II
  7. ^ Joan Cook, "Figure Faults Hidden by Masterly Corsetiere," The New York Times , July 6, 1960
  8. ^ Bernadine Morris, "Ellen Stewart's Two Scenes," The New York Times , February 13, 1968
  9. ^ New York Times obituary for Ellen Stewart
  10. ^ La MaMa, "Ellen Stewart . Retrieved March 9, 2014.
  11. ^ Ellen Stewart Wins Prestigious Praemium Imperiale Arts Award
  12. ↑ Praemium Imperiale - Ellen Stewart ( Memento of the original from January 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.praemiumimperiale.org
  13. ↑ http://www2.polskieradio.pl/eo/dokument.aspx?iid=80682
  14. ↑ 2005 Innovative Theater Awards Recipients
  15. ^ A Standing Ovation for Ellen Stewart by Shay Gines, Innovative Theater Foundation, January 19, 2011
personal data
SURNAME Stewart, Ellen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American theater director and producer
DATE OF BIRTH November 7, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH United States
DATE OF DEATH January 13, 2011
Place of death New York City , New York