Lee Simonson

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Simonson, Lee (1888–1967), designer. The New York–born scenic artist, who studied at Harvard under George Pierce Baker, did his earliest commercial set designs for the Washington Square Players. After serving in World War I he became one of the founders of the Theatre Guild and did many of the group's most noteworthy sets. Simonson also usually lit his own sets and often created the costumes for the same productions. Among his memorable achievements were his designs for Liliom (1921), He Who Gets Slapped (1922), R. U. R. (1922), Peer Gynt (1923), The Adding Machine (1923), The Road to Rome (1927), Marco Millions (1928), Dynamo (1929), Hotel Universe (1930), Elizabeth the Queen (1930), End of Summer (1936), Idiot's Delight (1936), and Joan of Lorraine (1946). His associate, Theresa Helburn, wrote, “He could perform miracles with light and he has produced some of the most interesting experimental sets seen on the American stage.” His creations ranged from the expressionistic settings for The Adding Machine and the realistic Dynamo to the virtually bare stage for Joan of Lorraine. He also wrote The Stage Is Set (1932) and The Art of Scenic Design (1950). Autobiography: Part of a Lifetime, 1943.

Simonson, Lee (1888–1967), American designer, whose first work for the stage was done in connection with the Washington Square Players. He later became one of the founders and directors of the Theatre Guild, for which many of his finest sets were done, among them those for Leo Tolstoy's The Power of Darkness, Strindberg's The Dance of Death (both 1920), Molnár's Liliom (1921), and Ibsen's Peer Gynt (1923). His sets for Elmer Rice's The Adding Machine (also 1923) were Expressionistic. He also designed the sets for the first productions of two plays by O'Neill, Marco Millions (1928) and Dynamo (1929)—the latter a constructivist set based on the interior of a power house. He was responsible for Robert Sherwood's Idiot's Delight (1936) and Maxwell Anderson's The Masque of Kings (1937), and did the settings for the world premières of Shaw's Heartbreak House (1920), Back to Methuselah (1922), and The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles (1935). For other managements he designed mainly for new American plays, among them Sherwood's The Road to Rome (1927), O'Neill's Days without End (1934), and Maxwell Anderson's Joan of Lorraine (1946).