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William and Jean Eckart were a husband-and-wife team of theatre designers in the 1950s and 1960s. They designed sets, costumes, and lighting for many productions, including Mame , Here's Love , Damn Yankees , Once Upon a Mattress , The Fig Leaves Are Falling , and The Golden Apple .
William Eckart was born October 21, 1920, in New Iberia, Louisiana and died on January 24, 2000, in Dallas, Texas, aged 79. His wife Jean was born on August 18, 1921, in Glencoe, Illinois and died on September 6, 1993, aged 72.
The couple received three Tony Award nominations: for Best Scenic Design of a Musical for Fiorello! and Best Musical (as producers) for Once Upon a Mattress in 1960 and for Best Scenic Design for Mame in 1966.
The couple taught at Southern Methodist University after their Broadway careers ended. [1]
In 2006, a book entitled The Performing Set: The Broadway Designs of William and Jean Eckart by Andrew Harris was published. It includes sketches from every show the Eckarts designed. [1]
Mary Rodgers was an American composer, screenwriter, and author. She wrote the novel Freaky Friday, which served as the basis of a 1976 film starring Jodie Foster, for which she wrote the screenplay, as well as three other versions. Her best-known musicals were Once Upon a Mattress and The Mad Show, and she contributed songs to Marlo Thomas' successful children's album Free to Be... You and Me.
Gerald Sheldon Herman was an American composer and lyricist, known for his work in Broadway theatre.
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Catherine Rosalind Russell was an American actress, model, comedian, screenwriter, and singer, known for her role as fast-talking newspaper reporter Hildy Johnson in the Howard Hawks screwball comedy His Girl Friday (1940), opposite Cary Grant, as well as for her portrayals of Mame Dennis in the 1956 stage and 1958 film adaptations of Auntie Mame, and Rose in Gypsy (1962). A noted comedienne, she won all five Golden Globes for which she was nominated. Russell won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical in 1953 for her portrayal of Ruth in the Broadway show Wonderful Town. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress four times during her career before being awarded a Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1973.
Mame is a musical with a book by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee and music and lyrics by Jerry Herman. Originally titled My Best Girl, it is based on the 1955 novel Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis and the 1956 Broadway play of the same name by Lawrence and Lee. A period piece set in New York City and spanning the Great Depression and World War II, it focuses on eccentric bohemian Mame Dennis, whose famous motto is "Life is a banquet and most poor sons of bitches are starving to death." Her fabulous life with her wealthy friends is interrupted when the young son of her late brother arrives to live with her. They cope with the Depression in a series of adventures.
Edward Everett Tanner III, known by the pseudonym Patrick Dennis, was an American author. His novel Auntie Mame: An irreverent escapade (1955) was one of the bestselling American books of the 20th century. In chronological vignettes, the narrator — also named Patrick — recalls his adventures growing up under the wing of his madcap aunt, Mame Dennis. Tanner wrote a sequel, titled Around the World with Auntie Mame, in 1958. He based the character of Mame Dennis on his father's sister, Marion Tanner. Tanner also wrote several novels under the pseudonym Virginia Rowans.
Once Upon a Mattress is a musical comedy with music by Mary Rodgers, lyrics by Marshall Barer, and book by Jay Thompson, Dean Fuller, and Marshall Barer. It opened off-Broadway in May 1959, and then moved to Broadway. The play was written as a humorous adaptation of the 1835 Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale "The Princess and the Pea".
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The Zulu and the Zayda is a musical play by Howard Da Silva and Felix Leon, with music and lyrics by Harold Rome, and directed by Dore Schary. It was based on a story by Dan Jacobson. Described as a comedy with music, the play has two acts and 18 scenes.
John Lee Beatty is an American scenic designer who has created set designs for more than 115 Broadway shows and has designed for other productions. He won two Tony Awards, for Talley's Folly (1980) and The Nance (2013), was nominated for 13 more, and he won five Drama Desk Awards and was nominated for 10 others.
The Fig Leaves Are Falling is a musical with a book and lyrics by Allan Sherman and music by Albert Hague. It was inspired by Sherman's 1966 divorce following 21 years of marriage.
| William Eckart | |
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| Jean Eckart | |
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