Le Gallienne, Eva

Le Gallienne, Eva (1899–1991), American actress and director, daughter of the poet Richard Le Gallienne, who as well as playing many of the classical roles made great efforts to increase the audience for serious drama. Born in London, she appeared there in several small parts before going to New York in 1915, where her great success as Julie in Molnár's Liliom (1921) was followed by five years of starring roles on Broadway. In 1926 she founded the Civic Repertory Theatre to present important foreign plays at low admission prices, directing and appearing in many of its productions, playing such roles as Masha in Chekhov's Three Sisters and the White Queen in her own adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Before the enterprise collapsed in the depression of 1933, Le Gallienne had mounted 37 productions, including plays by Shakespeare, Rostand, Tolstoy, Molière, Goldoni, Giraudoux, and especially Ibsen: she also toured the USA in 1934–5 in her own versions of his A Doll's House, Hedda Gabler, and The Master Builder. With Cheryl Crawford and Margaret Webster she founded the American Repertory Theatre, active 1946–8, playing Queen Katharine in Henry VIII, the initial production, and Ella Rentheim in Ibsen's John Gabriel Borkman. From 1961 to 1966 she directed and acted with the National Repertory Theatre, touring productions of classic plays coast to coast and receiving great critical acclaim for her performances in Maxwell Anderson's Elizabeth the Queen and Euripides' Trojan Women. She appeared in New York in 1968 in Ionesco's Exit the King, and two years later was at the American Shakespeare Theatre in All's Well that Ends Well. She starred on Broadway in a revival of Kaufman and Edna Ferber's The Royal Family in 1976, and played the White Queen again in 1983.