Rex Partington | |
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![]() Rex Partington (1953 publicity photo) | |
Born | March 15, 1924 |
Occupation(s) | Actor, Director, Producer |
Spouse | Cleo Holladay |
Rex Partington (March 15, 1924 - March 17, 2006) was an actor, director and producer. Partington worked in the professional theater in the United States for over fifty years as an actor, production stage manager, director, producer, artistic director and producing director and was active on Broadway as well as professional regional theater. He was instrumental in the establishment of the League of Resident Theatres and played a vital role in the development of regional theater.
A graduate of Syracuse University, Partington's initial focus was acting, appearing in leading roles throughout college and then in regional theater. Several seasons of leading roles at the Memphis Arena Theater and the Barter Theatre as well as regional tours followed and on December 15, 1954 he made his Broadway debut opposite the great actor/singer Dennis King in Lunatics and Lovers. [1]
Following Lunatics and Lovers, Partington began dividing his time between acting and stage management. His work as a stage manager brought him opportunities to work with such theatrical luminaries as Thornton Wilder, Moss Hart, David Merrick, Jed Harris, and Tyrone Guthrie.
After stage managing the original Broadway productions of The Matchmaker , [2] The First Gentlemen, Child of Fortune, and My Fair Lady , [3] Partington had the opportunity to work with Orson Welles, Douglas Campbell and Rod Steiger, as both an actor and stage manager, in Welles' theatrical adaptation of the Herman Melville classic, Moby Dick , entitled Moby Dick—Rehearsed . [4] Though not a critical success, Moby Dick—Rehearsed is, to this day, considered a great theatrical adaptation and an idiomatic example of Theatrical Minimalism.
In December 1962, Partington was contacted by Tyrone Guthrie and asked to join the newly founded Tyrone Guthrie Theatre [5] in Minneapolis, Minnesota as its first production manager. It was in this capacity that Partington served for the next five years. It was an historic time for American theater and it was during this period that the League Of Resident Theaters was established and saw unprecedented growth.
In 1968, Partington left the Guthrie and established his own theatrical company, Heartland Productions. Based out of the newly opened Southwest Minnesota State College in Marshall, Minnesota, Heartland Productions was a professional Equity company whose focus was both theatrical classics as well as new dramatic works. Additionally, the company toured throughout the mid-west bringing live professional theater to rural areas. Heartland Productions enjoyed two successful seasons until underwriting was withdrawn and the company was forced to disband.
In 1970, Partington assumed the artistic leadership of the Cleveland Play House but that was a short-lived, for early in 1971, his friend and colleague Robert Porterfield, founder of the Barter Theatre, asked him to come to Virginia and take over artistic responsibilities for the world-famous Barter. Porterfield's health was failing and following his death in October 1971, Partington was officially named Producing Artistic Director of the Barter Theatre. For the next twenty years, under Partington's leadership, the Barter Theatre continued its legacy as America's oldest professional theater.
In 1992, Partington retired as Producing Artistic Director of the Barter Theatre and he, his wife, actress Cleo Holladay [6] moved to the Mexican Gulf coastal town of Apalachicola, Florida. There, the Partingtons purchased and completely renovated the Dixie Theatre, [7] a theater originally built in 1912. In 1998 the Dixie Theatre opened with professional Equity productions of Sylvia and Driving Miss Daisy. In January 2004, Dixie Partington, Rex Partington's youngest child, took over as Producing Director. It is a 501c3 Not-For-Profit Theater.
Rex Partington was a longstanding member of both The Players Club and The Lambs Club.
Partington was born in Newark, New Jersey on March 15, 1924. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II as a paratrooper in the historic 101st Airborne Division. He saw action in Europe and following the end of the war was assigned to General Eisenhower's Elite Guard. He was married to actress Cleo Holladay on September 26, 1953. They had two children. He died on March 17, 2006, in Panama City, Florida.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to theatre:
The Matchmaker is a 1954 Broadway play by Thornton Wilder, a rewritten version of his 1938 play The Merchant of Yonkers.
A theatre director or stage director is a professional in the theatre field who oversees and orchestrates the mounting of a theatre production such as a play, opera, dance, drama, musical theatre performance, etc. by unifying various endeavors and aspects of production. The director's function is to ensure the quality and completeness of theatre production and to lead the members of the creative team into realizing their artistic vision for it. The director thereby collaborates with a team of creative individuals and other staff to coordinate research and work on all the aspects of the production which includes the Technical and the Performance aspects. The technical aspects include: stagecraft, costume design, theatrical properties (props), lighting design, set design, and sound design for the production. The performance aspects include: acting, dance, orchestra, chants, and stage combat.
Sir Cameron Anthony Mackintosh is a British theatrical producer and theatre owner notable for his association with many commercially successful musicals. At the height of his success in 1990, he was described as being "the most successful, influential and powerful theatrical producer in the world" by the New York Times. He is the producer of shows including Les Misérables, The Phantom of the Opera, Cats, Miss Saigon, Mary Poppins, Oliver!, and Hamilton.
Sir William Tyrone Guthrie was an English theatrical director instrumental in the founding of the Stratford Festival of Canada, the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at his family's ancestral home, Annaghmakerrig, near Newbliss in County Monaghan, Ireland. He is famous for his original approach to Shakespearean and modern drama.
Six Characters in Search of an Author is an Italian play by Luigi Pirandello, written and first performed in 1921. An absurdist metatheatric play about the relationship among authors, their characters, and theatre practitioners, it premiered at the Teatro Valle in Rome to a mixed reception, with shouts from the audience of "Manicomio!" ("Madhouse!") and "Incommensurabile!", a reaction to the play's illogical progression. Reception improved at subsequent performances, especially after Pirandello provided for the play's third edition, published in 1925, a foreword clarifying its structure and ideas.
The Guthrie Theater, founded in 1963, is a center for theater performance, production, education, and professional training in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The concept of the theater was born in 1959 in a series of discussions among Sir Tyrone Guthrie, Oliver Rea and Peter Zeisler. Disenchanted with Broadway, they intended to form a theater with a resident acting company, to perform classic plays in rotating repertory, while maintaining the highest professional standards.
Barter Theatre, in Abingdon, Virginia, opened on June 10, 1933. It is the longest-running professional Equity theatre in the United States.
John Strasberg is the son of Lee and Paula Strasberg of the Actors Studio, and brother of actress Susan Strasberg.
Tatiana Benita Moiseiwitsch was an English theatre designer.
Melvin Richard "Dakin" Matthews is an American actor, playwright, theatre director, and theatrical scholar. Best known as Herb Kelcher in My Two Dads (1987–1989), Hanlin Charleston in Gilmore Girls (2000–2007), Joe Heffernan in The King of Queens (1998-2007), and as Reverend Sikes in Desperate Housewives (2004–2012).
Joe Dowling is an artistic director. He was artistic director for the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. He is known for his work as artistic director of the Abbey Theatre in Ireland and his production involvement can be found in the Abbey Theatre archives. He has also directed plays in other theatres in Ireland as well as theatres in London, New York City, Washington D.C., Montreal, and Alberta. In 1975 he directed "Katie Roche" by Irish playwright Teresa Deevy.
Douglas Campbell, CM was a Canadian-based stage actor. He was born in Glasgow, Scotland.
Noel Willman was an Irish actor and theatre director. Born in Derry, Ireland, Willman died aged 70 in New York City, United States.
The Merchant of Yonkers is a 1938 play by Thornton Wilder.
Mark Lamos is an American theatre and opera director, producer and actor. Under his direction, Hartford Stage won the 1989 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre and he has been nominated for two other Tonys. For more than 15 seasons, he has been artistic director of the Westport Country Playhouse. In May 2023, he announced he will leave the post in January 2024.
The Williamstown Theatre Festival is a resident summer theater on the campus of Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1954 by Williams College news director Ralph Renzi and drama program chairman David C. Bryant. It was awarded a Tony Award in 2002 and the Massachusetts Cultural Council Commonwealth Award in 2011.
Corner Theatre E.T.C. was an experimental theater located in Baltimore, Maryland, existing from 1968 to 1987 as a nonprofit cultural organization.
Esme Church was a British actress and theatre director. In a long career she acted with the Old Vic Company, the Royal Shakespeare Company and on Broadway. She directed plays for the Old Vic, became head of the Old Vic Theatre School and then director of the Bradford Civic Playhouse, with its associated Northern Theatre School.
Michael Fischetti is an American stage actor and film actor. His performance in the theatre play Hughie received strong reviews in New York when it ran on Theater Row, at the South Street Theater in 1982. The New York Times described Mr. Fischetti's performance as "an evocative blend of Bogart and Walter Matthau ." The twin bill of Hughie and Before Breakfast then played in Vienna, Austria.