Lucille Lortel, a legendary figure in the American theatre, where she is fondly known as “The Queen of Off-Broadway,” died on April 4, 1999. Producer of literally hundreds of plays on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and in London, she was also artistic director of the ANTA Matinee Series for its entire 20-year history. Landmark productions include Marc Blitztein’s translations of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera (Tony Award 1956), Brecht on Brecht, and Woza Albert! At her own theater she produced Jean Genet’s The Balcony and five consecutive Tony Award nominees: Lanford Wilson’s Angels Fall; William A. Hoffman’s As Is; Athol Fugardi’s Blood Knot (having produced the American premiere Off-Broadway in 1964); Mbongeni Ngeman’s Sarafina!; and Lee Blessing’s A Walk in the Woods which she also co-produced in London starring Sir Alec Guiness and Edward Herman, before taking the Broadway company of Sam Waterson and Robert Prosky to Moscow (where she is now known as “the Queen of Gorky Street”). She was the founder and artistic director of the White Barn Theatre in Westport, Connecticut, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1997. She also produced ten distinguished productions at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

Ms. Lortel was the recipient of virtually every theatrical honor, including the first Margo Jones Award, the first Lee Strasberg Lifetime Achievement in Theater Award, and induction into the Theater Hall of Fame. She is the namesake of the first theatrical chair to be named after a women (the Lucille Lortel Distinguished Professional Chair in Theater at the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York). Her life is detailed in Sam McCready’s Lucille Lortel; a Bio-Bibliography (Greenwood Press, 1993), and a permanent tribute to her is on display in the Lucille Lortel Room in the Theater on Film and Tape archive at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The Lucille Lortel Room is the home and viewing facility for TOFT’s collection of more than 2,000 tapes of Broadway, Off-Broadway, and regional theater productions, including Nicholas Wright’s Mrs. Klein, which Ms. Lortel produced in her theater, starring Uta Hagen; Alan Zweibel’s Bunny Bunny, starring Gilda Radner in a sort of romantic comedy; Douglas Carger Bean’s As Bees in Honey Drown; and Donald Margulies’ Collected Stories.

The crowning achievement of her final season at the Lucille Lortel Theatre was the dedication of the Playwrights’ Sidewalk on Monday, October 26, 1998, permanently enshrining an international roster of playwrights whose works have been produced Off-Broadway. Ms. Lortel’s 100th birthday was celebrated at her theater on December 18, 2000, with a concert staging of the Marc Blitztein translation of Brecht/Weill’s The Threepenny Opera.