Lewisohn, Alice and Irene

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Lewisohn, Alice and Irene

American sisters who built the landmark Neighborhood Playhouse.

Lewisohn, Alice (1883–1972). Born in 1883; died in 1972; daughter of Leonard Lewisohn (a businessman) and Rosalie (Jacobs) Lewisohn; married Herbert E. Crowley, around 1925.

Lewisohn, Irene (1892–1944). Born on September 5, 1892, in New York City; died in April 1944 in New York; fifth daughter and youngest of ten children of Leonard Lewisohn (a businessman) and Rosalie (Jacobs) Lewisohn; attended the Finch School in New York; never married; no children.

Born into a wealthy and cultured Jewish family but orphaned when they were young, Irene Lewisohn and her older sister Alice inherited enough money to determine their own course in life. From an early age, Irene was drawn to the theater, particularly dance, and after finishing her formal education at the Finch School in New York, embarked on a course of independent study with various performing artists. With the encouragement of Alice, Irene also became involved in the Henry Street Settlement in New York City's Lower East Side, which had been one of her father's favorite charities. Together, the sisters taught acting and dancing, and organized amateur productions, among them a 1907 performance of the "Festival Dancers" in the settlement house gymnasium. In 1912, using both adults and children, the sisters formed the "Neighborhood Players," staging their first play for the public at a hall in the Bowery. The following year, to commemorate the settlement's 20th anniversary, the Lewisohns directed an elaborate pageant, showcasing the various ethnic music, dances, and costumes of their diverse neighborhood cast. Now thoroughly committed to all of the work being done at Henry Street, the sisters gave the settlement house an 80-acre farm, Echo Hill, located outside of the city, to be used as a holiday center for the children of the neighborhood.

In 1914, to further advance their theatrical visions, Irene and Alice purchased a lot on Grand Street and built the Neighborhood Theater, which they donated to the settlement. Opening in 1915, the theater slowly emerged as an independent entity and, by 1920, had replaced its amateur casts with a resident professional company. As one of the first "little theaters" in the country, it served as a center for experimental and avantgarde theater, producing plays by John Galsworthy, George Bernard Shaw, Eugene O'Neill, James Joyce, Sholem Asch, and Leonid Andreyev. Notable among the early productions was The Little Clay Cart (1924), a Hindu play, and The Dybbuk (1925), a classic Yiddish folk play which was greatly enhanced by the set designs of Aline Bernstein . Beginning in 1923, the theater also produced the annual Grand Street Follies, a topical revue which was geared to the Lower East Side audience.

Irene and Alice Lewisohn remained a central financial and artistic force in the Playhouse. In addition to donating over a half-million dollars to the theater, they also directed productions, solicited new talent, and even performed (Alice taking acting roles, and Irene dancing). They were also pivotal in selecting some of the theater's more esoteric Asiatic and Middle Eastern productions, having become interested in these theater and dance forms during two world tours: one in 1910, and another in 1922–23.

Even while it flourished during the 1920s, the Playhouse experienced financial difficulties, the result of disappointing annual drives for subscribers and Alice's marriage to Herbert E. Crowley around 1925, after which she was less involved with the venture. The Playhouse closed in 1927, the building reverting back to the settlement house. Seeking other outlets for her creative energies, in 1928 Irene Lewisohn joined Rita Morgenthau in founding the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater, of which she remained co-director for many years. In addition, she produced a series of "orchestral dramas" or "musical masques," dances or pantomimes performed to the accompaniment of a full symphony orchestra. The first of these performances was presented at the Manhattan Opera House in May 1928. Another, which Lewisohn directed in 1930, with dancer Martha Graham , was performed in New York City and again at the dedication of Severance Hall in Cleveland. Yet another, commissioned by the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation, was performed in Washington, D.C., in 1931. With the onset of the Depression, however, Lewisohn's flights of artistic fancy seemed out of place, and she moved on to more practical endeavors.

In the course of her world travels, Irene Lewisohn had amassed an extensive collection of costumes, and in 1937, with Aline Bernstein, she founded the Museum of Costume Art (later the Costume Institute), in order to make the collection available to designers and to the public. After her death, the Costume Institute would become part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Apart from her personal artistic projects, Irene also gave freely of her time and money to outside causes. During the Spanish Civil War, she founded the Spanish Child Welfare Association and, during World War II, was active in the American Theater Group's Stage Door Canteen and the Club for Merchant Seamen. But her main love was always the theater, and those who knew her spoke of her dedication and artistic vision. Critic and playwright Stark Young said that "her response and friendship, asking nothing for itself, was of marvelous benefit to the artist." Irene Lewisohn died of lung cancer in 1944, at age 51. Her sister Alice survived her by 28 years and, in 1959, published a memoir, The Neighborhood Theater.