Milly S. Barranger

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Biography

Milly S.Barranger was an author, educator, and producer and lived in New York City where she wrote books about women and the modern American theater. She passed away on Aug. 21, 2023.

She was Dean Emerita of the College of Fellows of the American Theatre. She had served on boards of the Paul Green Foundation, the National Theatre Conference, The College of Fellows of the American Theatre, and the League of Professional Theatre Women. She had also served as Past President of the National Theatre Conference and the American Theatre Association. She held the title of Distinguished Professor Emerita of Dramatic Art from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she served concurrently as chairwoman of the Department of Dramatic Art and producing director of PlayMakers Repertory Company, a member of the League of Resident Theatres. She received the 2009 Outstanding Teacher of Theatre in Higher Education Award from the Association of Theatre in Higher Education and the New England Theatre Conference 2010 Special Award for Outstanding Achievement in the American Theatre. In 2015, the National Partners of the American Theatre bestowed upon her the honorary title of Emeritus Partner of American Theatre and she received the 2015 Distinguished Scholar's Medallion during the annual Tennessee Williams Tribute, Columbus, Mississippi.

Recent books include Audrey Wood and the Playwrights; A Gambler's Instinct: The Story of Broadway Producer Cheryl Crawford ; Margaret Webster: A Life in the Theater; Unfriendly Witnesses: Gender, Theater, and Film in the McCarthy Era; Theatre: A Way of Seeing (seven editions); and Understanding Plays (three editions). She was coeditor of The Group Theatre: Passion, Politics, and Performance in the Depression Era by Helen Krich Chinoy; and coeditor of Notable Women in the American Theatre: A Biographical Dictionary; and she had compiled reference works on Margaret Webster and Jessica Tandy.

She had lectured at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts on Broadway producer Cheryl Crawford and on stage director Margaret Webster and the 1943 Broadway production of Othello with Paul Robeson, Uta Hagen, and José Ferrer.

For further information, contact Liz Woodman thru this site.

Selected Works

Modern Stage History

The Group Theatre: Passion, Politics, and Performance in the Depression Era

Theatre historian Helen Krich Chinoy's unfinished manuscript on the Group Theatre (1931-1941)--three decades in the writing--has been edited by Don B. Wilmeth and Milly S. Barranger. It is a pioneering study of the Group's collective vision for a new kind of theatre and a new approach to an acting process called "the Method."

Audrey Wood and the Playwrights

The story of Audrey Wood is told through her interactions with her clients, now household names, whose works she steered onto Broadway stages. Among them were A Streetcar Named Desire, Tea and Sympathy, The Member of the Wedding, Bus Stop, and many more.

Biography

A Gambler’s Instinct: The Story of Broadway Producer Cheryl Crawford

When women producers were rare at mid-twentieth century, Cheryl Crawford pioneered as an independent producer on Broadway.

Margaret Webster: A Life in the Theater

Stage and opera director, Margaret Webster, challenged stage tradition and mainstream attitudes toward professional women at mid-twentieth century.

Nonfiction

Unfriendly Witnesses: Gender, Theater, and Film in the McCarthy Era

Unfriendly Witnesses adds to our understanding of the impact of McCarthyism on women directors, playwrights, and actors at mid-twentieth century.

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