Margaret Webster presided over many firsts in the American theater. She was the first woman to direct Shakespearean plays on Broadway, she was one of the founders of the American Repertory Theatre, she was active in the beginning of the Off-Broadway movement, and she wrote an assortment of articles, speeches, memoirs, and autobiographies. This reference provides an overview of her life and a detailed record of her many accomplishments in 20th-century American theater. The volume begins with a biographical essay that discusses her life and career. A chronology then highlights the most significant events in her career. The sections that follow list her many productions for the stage and opera, and provide detailed information about them. A discography is also included, followed by lists of Webster's awards and honors, and a description of the various archives that hold information about her. An extensive annotated bibliography concludes the work.

A renowned and beloved international actress, first successful on the London stage, Jessica Tandy captured Broadway as Blanche DuBois in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire in 1947, making that role forever hers. After a series of major theatrical triumphs and moderate film successes, many with her husband, Hume Cronyn, she won an Oscar for Best Actress at the age of 80 for her performance as Daisy Werthan in Driving Miss Daisy in 1989. This comprehensive reference guide to Tandy's distinguished career features a biographical sketch followed by a chronology of highlights in her life and chapters documenting her careers in theatre, film, television, and on recordings. Her many awards and honors are listed in a separate chapter. An annotated bibliography selects major book, newspaper, and magazine features and interviews; and reviews are also noted with appropriate productions in the previous chapters. Memorable Broadway roles are illustrated with scenes from Streetcar, The Fourposter (with Hume Cronyn, 1951), Five Finger Exercise (1959), A Delicate Balance (with Cronyn, 1966), The Gin Game (1977), Rose (1981), and Foxfire (with Cronyn, 1982).

This reference book has entries for some 300 women in American theater, ranging from actors, directors, choreographers, playwrights, and designers, to critics, agents, and managers, and should provide focus for future scholars of women's studies and theater. . . . . The volume will prove valuable to scholars and the curious. "Library Journal"

The current and thoughtful treatment of this book will be valuable for academic and large public libraries, especially those that support research in women's studies, theater, American studies, and biography. "Booklist"

From Mrs. Lewis Hallam, the first known professional actress in America to outstanding women of the present era, this biographical dictionary alphabetically examines some 300 notable women who had distinguished careers in the American theatre. Not simply a list of names and activities, the volume--to the extent possible--narrates and evaluates the women's lives and accomplishments providing not only relevant biographical information and bibliographical materials but also describing the women's professional contributions. In representing the careers of theatre artists from actors, directors, and designers, to choreographers, managers, playwrights, educators, critics, variety performers, and agents, this first reference of its kind devoted exclusively to women also serves as a unique survey of the history of American theatre. "Notable Women in the American Theatre" documents the widespread activities of women in the American theatre. As many of them functioned in more than one capacity, one of the two appendixes lists names in the various professional categories.

Each entry describes the pertinent facts of biography and contains a descriptive narrative relating to the individual's career with a special notation of her distinguished role in the American theatre. A bibliography of the featured woman, including sources to be found in books, magazines, and newspapers, is also part of the alphabetical entry. To aid readers and researchers, 2 separate appendixes contain listings by place of birth and by profession and collate the interrelatedness of the careers of many of the women. Compiled primarily as a reference for college and university libraries, the volume would be a useful supplement to courses in women's studies, American studies, drama courses taught in English and theatre departments, courses in the history of the theatre, American history, and biography.

"In Milly Barranger, Margaret Webster has found the perfect biographer. In Margaret Webster, Milly Barranger has found her perfect subject. She brings to vivid life a fascinating and important theater figure whose public and private lives were of equal interest. In this carefully researched book, Webster's colleagues, lovers, and friends shine as brightly as she did. I wish she were here to read it."
-Marian Seldes
""Margaret Webster" is a highly welcome addition to our knowledge of the first important female director in American theater. Remembered now especially for her staging of Othello with Paul Robeson, Uta Hagen, and Jose Ferrer, Margaret Webster was probably the best-known, in-demand, and admired director of Shakespeare in America in the 1940s and 1950s. Fascinating throughout, the book's discussions of working with Robeson, and of HUAC, which targeted her just as her career was reaching a peak, make for especially engrossing reading."
-Oscar Brockett

"Margaret Webster: A Life in the Theater" is an engrossing backstage account of the life of pioneering director Margaret Webster (1905-72).
This is the first book-length biography of Webster, a groundbreaking stage and opera director whose career challenged not only stage tradition but also mainstream attitudes toward professional women.
Often credited with first having brought Shakespeare to Broadway, and renowned for her bold casting of an African American (Paul Robeson) in the role of Othello, Webster was a creative force in modern American and British theater.
Her story reveals the independent-minded artist undeterred by stage tradition and unmindful of rules about a woman's place in the professionaltheater. In addition to providing fascinating glimpses into Webster's personal and family life, "Margaret Webster: A Life in the Theater" also offers a who's-who list of the biggest names in New York and London theater of the time, as well as Hollywood: John Gielgud, Noel Coward, George Bernard Shaw, Uta Hagen, Sybil Thorndike, Eva LeGallienne, and John Barrymore, among others, all of whom crossed paths with Webster. Capping Webster's amazing story is her investigation by Senator Joseph McCarthy and HUAC, which left her unable to work for a year, and from which she never fully recovered.