The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts > Exhibitions

... to illuminate the scene: Ellen Terry, Edith Craig, Edward Gordon Craig and John Gielgud

From June 25, 2004 through August 20, 2004
Donald and Mary Oenslager Gallery
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, 40 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023-7498 (directions)

Four members of a British family redefined Anglo-American theater for the audience and profession. Ellen Terry, starring in the plays of Shakespeare and Shaw, epitomized the international appeal of English theater in the late 19th century. Her son, Edward Gordon Craig, was a revolutionary theorist, designer, and director of theater who also found the time to edit, design, and print books and magazines. Edith Craig, her daughter, first known as a designer and costumer, ran a theater company that produced suffragist and feminist plays, primarily by women. Terry’s great-nephew, Sir John Gielgud, presented and starred in both classics and innovative new plays of the British theater, and he created memorable characters in over fifty years of film.

This exhibition, presented in conjunction with public programming celebrating the centennial of Gielgud’s birth (April 14, 2004), is based on rare artifacts, photographs, designs, and correspondence from the research divisions of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Press Release