Scope and Content Note
The papers of Eva Le Gallienne (1899-1991) span the years 1823-1997, with the bulk of the material covering the period 1916-1983. They document the life and work of an actress, director, and producer whose professional career lasted seventy years and who influenced twentieth century American theater through her acting, directing, establishing and promoting repertory theater, training young actors, and translating plays by writers such as Henrik Ibsen and Anton Chekov. The papers are in English and Danish and are arranged into the following series: Diaries , Family Papers , Correspondence , Professional File , Speeches and Writings Miscellany , Addition, and Oversize .
The Diaries provide a personal record of Le Gallienne's activities and thoughts from a young actress in her teens to a woman in her eighties.
The Family Papers series contains documents relating to members of Le Gallienne's family, most significantly her mother, Julie Nørregaard Le Gallienne, a Danish journalist, and her father, Richard Le Gallienne, a poet and novelist. Included among her mother's papers is correspondence from her daughter from 1908 through 1942, a valuable source of information on Le Gallienne's various activities. Particularly useful are letters from the 1920s which describe her successes on Broadway in Liliom andThe Swan and her founding of the Civic Repertory Theatre. The letters also describe her feelings about Eleonora Duse and Sarah Bernhardt, including her first meeting with Duse and her reactions to the death of Bernhardt in 1923 and the death of Duse in 1924. Papers relating to Julie Nørregaard Le Gallienne also contain copies of fashion and decorating columns she wrote in the 1890s for English newspapers as well as columns written in Danish under the pen name Eva for the Danish paper Politiken. Richard Le Gallienne's papers include handwritten poems and his letters to his wife written during their courtship and the frequent and lengthy separations during their marriage.
The Correspondence series is primarily personal but also includes fan mail and letters pertaining to Eva Le Gallienne's career. Prominent individuals in this series include former companions Marion Gunnar Evenson, Josephine Hutchinson, and Margaret Webster, all three of whom were involved with Le Gallienne professionally as well as personally. There are also letters from actress Nazimova in which she discusses returning to the stage to work with Le Gallienne as part of the Civic Repertory Theatre.
The Professional File consists of working material and files from Le Gallienne's lengthy career including production scripts, many with annotations on staging, programs and playbills, and press clippings covering seventy-five years. There are also records from her work with repertory companies, primarily her Civic Repertory Theatre through which Le Gallienne endeavored to bring the classics to more people at popular prices. From 1926 to 1934, at the Fourteenth Street Theatre in New York, Le Gallienne staged thirty-four productions, directed thirty-two of them, and acted in most. She also trained apprentice actors. The most frequently performed plays in the repertory were Alice in Wonderland, which she adapted with Florida Friebus, Camille, The Cherry Orchard, The Cradle Song, and Peter Pan. Although material in this series reflects the primary importance of her stage work, there are also files pertaining to lecture tours, motion pictures, radio, sound recordings, and television.
The Speeches and Writings series includes Le Gallienne's writings and lectures on her experiences on the stage, her hopes for the theater in America, two autobiographies, a biography of Eleonora Duse, and a children's book. There is also a large group of her English translations of plays by Chekov and Ibsen and the stories of Hans Christian Andersen and Carl Ewald. Le Gallienne's versions of plays by Ibsen were published in several editions, and the drafts of prefaces in which she analyzed the plays and characters are included in these files.
In the Miscellany are appointment books and biographical material which identify the chronology of events and activities in Le Gallienne's life. Several academic papers discuss Le Gallienne's career. In addition there are files compiled by Helen Sheehy, who used Le Gallienne's papers in writing Eva Le Gallienne: A Biography.
Items in the Addition series complement the material found in the previous series and consist of additional diaries, family papers, correspondence, professional papers, speeches and writings, and miscellany. Among the family papers in the Addition are letters to Le Gallienne from her mother, Julie Nørregaard Le Gallienne, and her half-sister, Hesper Le Gallienne Hutchinson. Those from her sister describe conditions in England during World War II and the work she did with her husband to run clubs for American servicemen there. Among the correspondence are letters from actress Constance Collier, who was a mentor to young Eva Le Gallienne when she first became an actress, and her patron, Mary Louise Curtis Bok Zimbalist. Included in a grouping of LeGallienne's honors and awards is a special Tony Award she received in 1964.