Little, Stuart W. 1921–2008

(Stuart West Little)

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born December 19, 1921, in Hartford, CT; died of congestive heart failure, July 27, 2008, in Canaan, CT. Theater historian, biographer, reporter, columnist, editor, and author. Little's appreciation for the theater drove his career as a theater historian, columnist, and author, but prevented him from entering the critical arena, he claimed, because he wanted people to like him. Little worked as a television writer for the National Broadcasting Company in the mid-1950s. He wrote about theater news for the New York Herald Tribune from 1958 to 1966. When the paper shut down its press in 1966, he turned to the Saturday Review, writing a books column until 1972. Throughout these years he was also a freelance writer and tireless supporter of New York theater. He directed the Theater Development Fund and edited its newsletter from the mid-1980s until 2001. He also wrote books that reflected his knowledge of the theater world and the people who kept it turning in its star-studded orbit. In The Playmakers: An Inside Look at Broadway's Golden Age (1970), which he wrote with producer Arthur Cantor, Little described the life of the traditional Broadway play, from the planning and financing to mounting the typically extravagant production and managing the show from opening night to closing curtain. He wrote of the producers, directors, actors, and playwrights who made the shows possible, and of the all-important critics who could derail a show with a single brutal review. He also voiced a concern that Broadway was yielding its influence as an entertainment venue to the rising stars of film and television. While the lights of the Great White Way seemed to be fading, however, a promising new enterprise was springing up around it. In Off Broadway: The Prophetic Theater (1972), Little looked at the collection of little theaters that spread out from Midtown Manhattan. The smaller theaters were able to mount smaller shows, limited engagements, less famous (and less expensive) players, with lower budgets (and ticket prices). They offered a wide variety of innovative productions and a promising future for theater in New York City. In Enter Joseph Papp: In Search of a New Theater (1974), Little shadowed the activities of one of the most successful off-Broadway entrepreneurs: the founder and producer of the New York Shakespeare Festival. Little also published After the Fact: Conflict and Consensus; A Report on the First American Congress of Theater (1975) and a memoir, Home in Fenwick: Memoir of a Place (2008).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

BOOKS

Little, Stuart W., Home in Fenwick: Memoir of a Place, iUniverse (Lincoln, NE), 2008.

PERIODICALS

Chicago Tribune, August 4, 2008, sec. 2, p. 4.

New York Times, August 3, 2008, p. A23.