Messel, Oliver Hilary Sambourne

Messel, Oliver Hilary Sambourne (1905–78), English artist and stage designer, who first attracted attention with his masks and costumes for Cochran's revues in the late 1920s. In 1932 he was given the task of converting the stage and auditorium of the Lyceum Theatre into a cathedral for a revival of Vollmöller's The Miracle directed by Reinhardt, and three years later he designed the settings for Ivor Novello's musical Glamorous Night. One of his most memorable settings was that for Anouilh's Ring round the Moon (1950), translated by Christopher Fry, and he provided the sets for two of Fry's own plays, The Lady's not for Burning (1949) and The Dark is Light Enough (1954). He also designed the setting for the production of the latter play in New York, where his work was later seen in Fay and Michael Kanin's Rashomon (1959), based on Ryunosuke Akutagawa's Japanese stories, and Anouilh's Traveller without Luggage (1964). He was active also in opera, ballet, and film, and was responsible for the interior decoration of Sekers's private theatre in Whitehaven, and of the Billy Rose Theatre (now the Nederlander Theatre) in New York.