Broadway producer Cheryl Crawford (1902-1986) declared in her
1977 autobiography, "The theatre has been my life." Crawford was
notoriously circumspect about her private life, and only now, with
Milly S. Barranger's insightful biography, is her full story
revealed.
A major Broadway producer in an era when women producers were
exceedingly rare, Crawford found unprecedented success with the
plays of Tennessee Williams, including "The Rose Tattoo "and "Sweet
Bird of Youth," but her enduring legend is as a musical producer,
having brought Kurt Weill's "One Touch of Venus, "Lerner and
Loewe's "Brigadoon "and "Paint Your Wagon" to the stage. Her
commercial success, though, was balanced with the founding of
studios that would enable actors to explore their art outside the
strictures of commercial theater. She cofounded the Group Theatre
with Harold Clurman and Lee Strasberg, the American Repertory
Theatre with Margaret Webster and Eva Le Gallienne, and the Actors
Studio with Elia Kazan and Robert Lewis, but her idealism was
constantly frustrated by unfulfilled artistic promises from her
male counterparts and by the chronic shortage of funding for the
nonprofit enterprises.
As Barranger traces Crawford's career as an independent
producer, she tells the parallel story of American theater in the
mid-twentieth century, making "A Gambler's Instinct "both an
enjoyable and informative biography of a remarkable woman and an
important addition to the literature of the modern theater.
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