Cover of Joan's Book: the autobiography of Joan Littlewood
Born
Joan Maud Littlewood
(1914-10-06)6 October 1914
Stockwell, London, England
Died
20 September 2002(2002-09-20) (aged 87)[1]
London, England
Occupation
Theatre director
Years active
1930–1975
Spouse
Ewan MacColl
(m. 1934; div. 1950)
Partner(s)
Gerry Raffles Philippe de Rothschild
Joan Maud Littlewood (6 October 1914 – 20 September 2002) was an English theatre director who trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and is best known for her work in developing the Theatre Workshop. She has been called "The Mother of Modern Theatre".[2] Her production of Oh, What a Lovely War! in 1963 was one of her more influential pieces.
Littlewood and her company lived and slept in the Theatre Royal while it was restored. Productions of The Alchemist and Richard II, the latter starring Harry H. Corbett in the title role, established the reputation of the company.[3]
She also conceived and developed the concept of the Fun Palace in collaboration with architect Cedric Price,[4] an experimental model of a participatory social environment that, although never realized, has become an important influence in the architecture of the 20th and 21st centuries.[citation needed]
Miss Littlewood, a musical written about Littlewood by Sam Kenyon, was performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2018.[5]
^Barker, Clive (May 2003). "Closing Joan's Book: Some Personal Footnotes". New Theatre Quarterly. 19 (2). Cambridge University Press: 99–107. doi:10.1017/S0266464X03000022. ISBN 978-0-521-53589-2. S2CID 194973320.
^"Obituary: Theatre's defiant genius". BBC News. 21 September 2002. Retrieved 16 February 2009.
^Cite error: The named reference Stevens was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Duffy, Stella. "Fun palaces: Joan Littlewood's dream for culture gets second chance". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 April 2016.
^"Miss Littlewood: About the Play". rsc.org.uk. Retrieved 25 September 2017.
Joan Maud Littlewood (6 October 1914 – 20 September 2002) was an English theatre director who trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and is best...
Theatre Workshop is a theatre group whose long-serving director was JoanLittlewood. Many actors of the 1950s and 1960s received their training and first...
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of the Theatre Workshop company, famously associated with director JoanLittlewood, whose statue is outside the theatre (see image at left). The theatre...
his first wife, JoanLittlewood. MI5 caused some of MacColl's songs to be rejected by the BBC, and prevented the employment of Littlewood as a BBC children's...
Miss Littlewood is a stage musical with music, lyrics and book by Sam Kenyon. It is based on the life of theatre director JoanLittlewood and the formation...
Oliver! (1960). With Oliver! and his work alongside theatre director JoanLittlewood at Theatre Royal, Stratford East, he played an instrumental role in...
actors that was developed in the 20th century by practitioners such as JoanLittlewood, Viola Spolin, Paul Sills, Clive Barker, Keith Johnstone, Jerzy Grotowski...
parks and schools. Theater director JoanLittlewood and architect Cedric Price put the idea forward. JoanLittlewood and the architect Cedric Price came...
cricketer Jessica Littlewood, Canadian politician JoanLittlewood (1914–2002), British actress and theatre director John Edensor Littlewood (1885–1977), British...
Dublin. It was well received; however, it was the 1956 production at JoanLittlewood's Theatre Workshop in Stratford, London, that gained Behan a wider reputation...
in collaboration with his companion, the British theatre director JoanLittlewood) describe a partnership of great passion but also enormous tempestuousness...
Jacques Copeau, Edward Gordon Craig, Bertolt Brecht, Antonin Artaud, JoanLittlewood, Peter Brook, Jerzy Grotowski, Augusto Boal, Eugenio Barba, Dario Fo...
of Into the Woods. Burt starred as theatre director JoanLittlewood in a new musical Miss Littlewood for the Royal Shakespeare Company in summer 2018. Her...
socialised with her husband's colleagues from the theatre, including JoanLittlewood, Peter O'Toole, John Hurt and Richard Harris. Whilst at a London health...
Theatre Workshop in 1962 and appeared in numerous plays directed by JoanLittlewood including Oh, What a Lovely War! in London, Paris and New York. In...
Theatre, headed by George Devine and Theatre Workshop organised by JoanLittlewood were particularly prominent in bringing these plays to public attention...
group. Barlow decided to take up acting professionally and joined the JoanLittlewood Theatre Group. During the 1950s she did rep in Liverpool, Nottingham...
classic formulations of improvisation in the theatre originated with JoanLittlewood and Keith Johnstone in the UK and Viola Spolin in the US; see Johnstone...
she later recalled. At the age of sixteen, Whitelaw met the director JoanLittlewood at the BBC in Manchester, and was invited to join her Theatre Workshop...
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