Thornton Wilder (120 page)

23.
Ibid.

24.
Ibid.

25.
Ibid. TNW referred here to Ellen Wood's 1861 bestseller,
East Lynne,
and to Mary Elizabeth Braddon's sensational
Lady Audley's Secret
, published in serial form in 1862. He may have meant to cite Thomas Hardy's
Tess of the d'Urbervilles
(1891).

26.
TNW, 1948–61 Journal, Entry 749, June 15, 1957, TNW Collection, YCAL.

27.
Ibid.

28.
“American Plays Given in Berlin,”
New York Times
, September 21, 1957.

29.
TNW to Thew Wright, September 29, [1957?], Private Collection.

30.
TNW, “Culture in a Democracy,” in Gallup,
American Characteristics,
68–69.

31.
Ibid., 70. See also Cynthia Ozick, “T. S. Eliot at 101,”
New Yorker
, November 20, 1989, 119.

32.
TNW, “Culture in a Democracy,” in Gallup,
American Characteristics,
72.

33.
Ibid.

34.
Ibid., 73.

35.
Paul Fussell quoted in Horst Frenz, “American Playwrights and the German Psyche,”
South-Central Bulletin
21(February 1961): 1, 6–9.

36.
TNW to Thew Wright, [Fall 1957?], Private Collection.

37.
Horst Frenz, “Thornton Wilder's Visits to Postwar Germany,”
American-German Review
24 (October–November): 8–10.

38.
Frenz, “American Playwrights and the German Psyche.”

39.
ANW,
Thornton Wilder and His Public
, 13.

40.
TNW to Laurence Olivier, December 10, [1960?],
SL
, 575–77.

41.
TNW, 1948–61 Journal, Entry 755, November 24, 1958, TNW Collection, YCAL.

42.
Norman Bel Geddes to TNW, February 10, 1938, TNW Collection, YCAL. Bel Geddes had produced extravagant sets for Max Reinhardt's
The Miracle
in 1924. He was also known for his architectural, industrial, and civic designs, and for his futuristic prototypes for automobiles.

43.
Norman Bel Geddes to TNW, January 6, 1958, TNW Collection, YCAL.

44.
TNW, Treatment for “A Film on the Role of America as Returning to Share What It Received from Europe,” February 1958, TNW Collection, YCAL.

45.
TNW to Norman Bel Geddes, January 19, 1950, copy, Private Collection.

46.
See Edward M. Burns with Joshua A. Gaylord, eds.,
A Tour of the Darkling Plain: The Finnegans Wake Letters of Thornton Wilder and Adaline Glasheen
(Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2001).

47.
TNW to Adaline Glasheen, [October 1962?], Burns with Gaylord,
A Tour of the Darkling Plain,
393.

48.
TNW, “
Finnegans Wake
: The Polyglot Everyman,” TNW Collection, YCAL. This piece and the alternative draft are published in Burns with Gaylord,
A Tour of the Darkling Plain
,
5
95–611.

49.
TNW, “
Finnegans Wake
: The Polyglot Everyman,” alternative draft, TNW Collection, YCAL.

50.
TNW, 1948–61 Journal, Entry 759, November 10, 1959, TNW Collection, YCAL.

51.
Ibid.

52.
TNW to Adaline Glasheen, October 11, 1959, in Burns with Gaylord,
A Tour of the Darkling Plain
, 242–43.

53.
TNW, 1948–61 Journal, Entry 750, November 10, 1959, TNW Collection, YCAL.

54.
TNW to Ludi Clair, December 28, [1958?], Private Collection.

55.
Ibid.

56.
Ibid.

57.
Rorem apparently wanted to set some of Wilder's three-minute playlets to music in 1961, but Wilder asked him to “wait a year” because of the then-current “glut” of operas based on his work. [TNW to Ned Rorem, June 25, (1961), Private Collection]. The
Our Town
opera project, conceived many years after Wilder's death, had its premiere in 2006, with music by Rorem and libretto by J. D. McClatchy. Wilder had granted Bernstein, along with his colleagues Jerome Robbins, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green, permission to create a musical version of
The Skin of Our Teeth
in 1964, but the collaboration fell apart. Bernstein apparently wanted to go in a different direction with an opera of
The Skin of Our Teeth,
but Wilder declined permission for that project.

58.
TNW to Robert H. Thayer, Special Assistant to the Secretary of State and Coordinator of International Educational and Cultural Relations, October 16, 1960, TS copy, TNW Collection, YCAL.

59.
The Theatre Guild American Repertory Company performed
The Skin of Our Teeth
, Tennessee Williams's
The Glass Menagerie
, and William Gibson's
The Miracle Worker.
The tour concluded in October 1961. From July 18 through July 30, 1955, Alan Schneider had directed a production of
The Skin of Our Teeth
starring Hayes, with Mary Martin as Sabina, George Abbott as Mr. Antrobus, and Florence Reed as the fortune-teller.

60.
The actress Nancy Nutter da Silva and the artist and designer Arthur “Pete” Ballard provided vivid eyewitness accounts of the European productions to PEN, October 2010.

61.
TNW to Gertrude Hindemith, April 11, 1960,
SL
, 569–70.

62.
TNW to Catherine Coffin, February 7, 1963,
SL
, 621–23. TNW knew Kilty's work with the Brattle Street Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and admired his play
Dear Liar.
He and Kilty had worked together on the
Ides
script for nearly three weeks in Atlantic City. The adaptation of
The Ides of March
was moderately successful in Berlin in 1962, and in 1963 was approved for production by the Moscow Ministry of Culture. It had performance dates in Warsaw, Turin, Milan, Rome, and Paris, in addition to London, where the reviews were largely negative.

63.
Findley,
Inside Memory,
27–32.

64.
TNW to Edward Albee, November 22, [1953?],
SL
, 516–17.

65.
TNW to Edward Albee, August 17, [1958?],
SL
, 554–55.

66.
TNW to Everett Gibbs, May 22, 1967, Charles Von der Ahe Library, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA.

67.
Ted Mann Interview with Ken Witty, n.d., TNW Collection, YCAL.

68.
Art Carney was also an experienced stage actor. He left
The Honeymooners
in 1957 (he would later rejoin Gleason) to take on dramatic television roles on
Playhouse 90
and
Kraft Television Theater.

69.
Sammy Cahn (1913–93) was nominated for twenty-six Academy Awards for his songs, and won four for Best Song, including “Three Coins in a Fountain” and “Call Me Irresponsible.”

70.
Ted Mann Interview with Ken Witty, n.d., TNW Collection, YCAL.

71.
Ibid. In his
Paris Review
interview in 1957, TNW said that he still regarded the theater “as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.” His growing disappointment with the quality and cost of Broadway productions led to his increased support of off-Broadway theater.TNW's one-act plays are published in Gallup and A. Tappan Wilder,
The Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder,
vol. 1, and in McClatchy,
Thornton Wilder: Collected Plays & Writings on Theater
.

72.
TNW to Cass Canfield, March 13, 1962,
SL
, 595–96.

73.
Ibid.

74.
TNW to Irene Worth, March 18, 1962,
SL
, 597–99. The opera was published by Carl Fisher in 1978, as
The Alcestiad: An Opera in Three Acts
.

75.
Don Irwin, “
Our Town
Costume for a Cabinet Soiree,”
New York Herald Tribune,
May 1, 1962, 1, 10.

76.
TNW to Irene Worth, March 18, 1962,
SL
, 597–99.

77.
TNW to Glenway Wescott, March 30, 1962,
SL
599–601.

78.
TNW to Louise Talma, May 17, 1962,
SL
, 601–4. On January 19, 1957, Isabel Wilder wrote to Janet Wilder Dakin, “Thorny has a dark gray, red-lined Thunderbird! Oh, oh, fabulous!!” Private Collection.

79.
TNW to James Leo Herlihy, July 25, [1969?],
SL
666–69.

80.
TNW to Charlotte Wilder, November 30, [1960?], Private Collection.

81.
TNW to James Leo Herlihy, July 25, [1969?],
SL
, 666–69.

82.
Ibid.

83.
Ibid.

84.
Decennial Census Population of Arizona, Counties, Cities, Places, 1860–2000, U.S. Bureau of Census.

85.
TNW to Isabel Wilder, August 26, 1962, TNW Collection, YCAL.

86.
Ibid.

87.
TNW to Charlotte Tappan Niven, September 8, 1962, TNW Collection, YCAL.

88.
Ibid.

89.
TNW to Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant, September 12, 1962,
SL
, 608–9. For additional information on TNW's sojourn in Douglas, see Tom Miller, “Thornton Wilder's Desert Oasis,”
Smithsonian Magazine,
July 2009, 80: 82–86.

90.
TNW to Eileen and Roland Le Grand, December 10, 1962,
SL
, 610–12.

91.
TNW to Arthur Gelb, “Thornton Wilder, 63, Sums Up Life and Art in New Play Cycle,”
New York Times,
November 5, 1961, 1.

92.
TNW to Tappan Wilder, December 19, 1962, Private Collection.

93.
TNW to Thew Wright, January 11, 1963,
SL
, 617–18.

94.
Ibid.

95.
TNW, Nomination of Edward Albee, [1965?], TNW Collection, YCAL.

96.
TNW to Louise Talma, December 6, 1962, YCAL.

97.
TNW to Charlotte Wilder, November 30, [1960?], Private Collection.

98.
TNW to Tappan Wilder, December 19, 1962, Private Collection.

99.
Tony Luhan died in January 1963.

100.
TNW to Thew Wright, January 11, 1963,
SL
, 617–18.

101.
TNW to Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, January 14, 1963,
SL
, 619–621; TNW to Thew Wright, January 11, 1963,
SL
, 617–18.

102.
TNW to Catherine Coffin, February 7, 1963,
SL
, 621–23.

103.
TNW to Isabel Wilder, March 17, 1963,
SL
, 624–26.

104.
Ibid.

105.
Ibid.

106.
Ibid.

107.
TNW to Harold Freedman, November 18, 1963,
SL
, 626–28.

108.
Isabel Wilder to Vivien Leigh, November 12, 1965, copy, TNW Collection, YCAL.

109.
TNW to ANW, October 22, 1975, TNW Collection, YCAL, uncataloged letters.

 

36: “TAPESTRY” (1963–1970)

1.
TNW to Amy Wertheimer, “May 20 or 27,” 1964, TNW Collection, YCAL.

2.
TNW to Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, January 11, 1964, Private Collection.

3.
TNW to Catharine and ANW, April 21, 1964,
SL
, 630–32.

4.
TNW to Charlotte Niven, December 19, 1963, TNW Collection, YCAL.

5.
TNW to Tappan Wilder, December 19, 1963,
SL
, 628–30.

6.
TNW to Catharine and ANW, April 21, 1964,
SL
, 630–32.

7.
Ibid.

8.
Ibid.

9.
Ibid.

10.
TNW to Charlotte Niven, June 15, 1964, TNW Collection, YCAL; Isabel Wilder to Carol Brandt, June 25 and June 26, 1964, TNW Collection, YCAL. Also see Isabel Wilder to Bill Layton, July 30, 1964, copy, TNW Collection, YCAL.

11.
TNW to Charlotte Niven, March 26, 1965, TNW Collection, YCAL.

12.
Ibid.

13.
TNW to Phyllis McGinley, April 2, 1965,
SL
, 633–35.

14.
TNW to Charlotte Niven, March 26, 1965, TNW Collection, YCAL.

15.
TNW to Amy Wertheimer, May 1, 1965, TNW Collection, YCAL.

16.
TNW to Charlotte Niven, May 1, 1965, TNW Collection, YCAL.