Players Foundation for Theatre Education

08/14/2026

Eva Le Gallienne — A Crown for The Swan

This rhinestone tiara and matching earrings were worn by Eva Le Gallienne in The Swan, the elegant romantic comedy by Ferenc Molnár that became one of her signature roles.

Designed for the stage rather than the salon, rhinestones like these were engineered to blaze beneath footlights. Notice the repeating circular motifs in the tiara — architectural and balanced — echoed in the floral cascade of the drop earrings. Stage jewels are constructed not for intimacy, but for distance: to read from the back of the house, to catch the light, to crown a presence.
The photograph preserved alongside the jewels shows Le Gallienne in costume for The Swan, wearing what appear to be these very pieces — poised, regal, luminous.

Le Gallienne (1899–1991), founder of the Civic Repertory Theatre, devoted her life to serious repertory and artistic integrity. Yet she understood something essential: glamour is not frivolous. It is theatrical language. Costume completes character. Light completes illusion.

The jewels were given to the Foundation by Anna Kaufman Schneider on November 21, 1991. Schneider — daughter of Player George S. Kaufman — befriended Le Gallienne when she starred in the 1975 revival of The Royal Family, Kaufman’s celebrated comedy of theatrical dynasties. It is a fitting circle: a daughter preserving her father’s legacy, honoring a grande dame of the American stage.
Stage diamonds may be paste — but their magic is real.

08/06/2026

A Renaissance Comedy in the Palm of Your Hand

Sometimes a very small book opens a very large window.
In the Foundation’s library we recently rediscovered a tiny Renaissance printing of La Lena by Lodovico Ariosto.

Ariosto is best known for his epic Orlando Furioso. But in the courts of Renaissance Italy he was also writing lively stage comedies.

Why does this matter?

Because works like La Lena, first performed around 1528, helped revive the structure of Roman comedy for Renaissance audiences. That rediscovery of classical comic form would echo across European theatre—shaping dramatists from Molière to Shakespeare.

Our copy is just under six inches tall and printed on rag paper more than four centuries ago. The opening portrait page appears to double as the title page — a format found in several Renaissance printings of the play — meaning the little volume survives complete.

The text itself ends simply with the words:
IL FINE

The detective work behind this discovery owes much to the careful eye of our intern Linus Redmond, who compared the volume with other Renaissance printings and traced the typographic clues hidden in its pages.

Sometimes theatre history fits in the palm of your hand.

07/31/2026

10 July 1845 — Edwin Booth, Age Twelve

10 July 1845. “Edwin Booth.”

Written across the top of this fragile copybook.

Edwin Booth was twelve years old.
This is his childhood copybook — preserved against all odds. In the mid-19th century, copybooks were foundational tools of education. Children practiced not just handwriting, but vocabulary, civics, arithmetic, and moral instruction.
“Grammarian.”
“Commandments must be obeyed.”
“Governments are maintained by rewards.”
The copybooks are evidence of a small hand learning discipline, proportion, and control.

Edwin’s formal schooling was brief and irregular. He began traveling with his father around 1846-1847. It is possible — even likely — that instruction came at home, perhaps under the watchful eye of his classically trained father, Junius Brutus Booth.
Here we see the formation — not yet Hamlet, not yet founder of The Players — but a boy shaping letters that would one day shape language itself.

That these pages survive is nothing short of miraculous.

07/23/2026

A Portrait Comes Home

For years, this portrait of Edwin Booth hung quietly in the office of André Bishop, Producing Artistic Director at Lincoln Center Theater — a small but telling reminder of the enduring presence Booth still holds in the American theatre.

Recently, following André’s retirement, the piece found its way to The Players Foundation through the generosity of Julia Judge, longtime Artistic Administrator at Lincoln Center Theater and now a member of The Players herself. It is exactly the sort of thoughtful “homecoming” that means so much to the Foundation: objects connected to Booth, theatrical history, and the culture of 19th-century performance returning to a place where they can be preserved, studied, and admired.

We do not yet know the full story of the portrait itself. Based on its style, it appears to be a late 19th- or early 20th-century reproduction of an earlier engraved likeness — likely derived from one of the widely circulated images that helped establish Booth as America’s great tragedian. The caption beneath the portrait reads simply:
“Edwin Booth, America’s Leading Tragedian.”

And perhaps that is enough.

What feels most meaningful is that someone in contemporary theatre — one of the great artistic leaders of our own era — chose to keep Booth nearby. Quietly...Daily...In the office. A thread connecting generations of American theatre artists across more than a century.

The Players Foundation is deeply grateful for gifts like this, which continue to bring Booth’s legacy — and the broader story of American theatre — back into conversation.

07/16/2026

"The World's Most Beautiful Production"

A bold claim.

Then again, Chu Chin Chow wasn't aiming for modesty.
This spectacular poster—recently brought to light during collections work at The Players—advertises one of the greatest theatrical sensations of the early twentieth century. First staged in London in 1916, Chu Chin Chow became the longest-running musical in history up to that time, playing more than 2,200 performances and dazzling audiences with lavish scenery, sumptuous costumes, and a cast that seemed to stretch forever.
The poster promises 14 scenes and 300 people. Why stop at a chorus line when you can have an army?

Inspired by Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, the production belonged to a theatrical tradition that presented an imagined and romanticized "Orient" to Western audiences. The rich colors, exotic settings, and dramatic imagery seen here reflect an era when Orientalism was a powerful force in art, literature, and popular entertainment. Today, the poster is both a striking work of theatre advertising and a fascinating artifact of changing cultural tastes.
This giant survivor recently emerged during the Foundation's ongoing collections cataloging project and was documented by Foundation Board members Jim Eckerle and Pamela Singleton. As thousands of books, photographs, posters, artifacts, and archival materials are systematically inventoried and preserved, remarkable pieces like this continue to surface—adding new chapters to the story of American theatre.

Preservation is often equal parts scholarship and discovery. Sometimes the next great find isn't a famous artifact everyone already knows—it is a six-foot-tall theatrical poster that emerges during the careful work of documenting a collection for future generations.

07/11/2026

https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/donation-form/oak-drop-leaf-table?fbclid=IwY2xjawS_Q2hleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFYZFpKZHRaQXdROUgwbkM2c3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHmHwAeN1RjhkJCSAS9NXUHoQPiXUuwbQlGsnuLXwEnvhTM0ltfe5RORwVUFA_aem_d7x7VkxRPQwXrqFt8hYpvA

Sponsor the Conservation of an Oak Drop-Leaf TableDate: c. 1675–1700This handsome oak drop-leaf table has witnessed more than three centuries of history.…

07/09/2026

https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/donation-form/jacobian-carved-coffer?fbclid=IwY2xjawS8i8lleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFKOUV0RHZmZkd5R1g1WVBmc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHv8_9aIBcARxvUC_rVeM8GBn-Th-3bj3H1x810yvOemZAc5ExpHoxlAU6oRY_aem_8bQwc7naMWaL4GSsz7l36w

This remarkable carved coffer is among the oldest furnishings in the Booth Room. Crafted during the Jacobean period, it was already centuries old when Edwin…

07/08/2026

https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/donation-form/mahogany-chest-of-drawers?fbclid=IwY2xjawS7GNtleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETF6bU5jWTkwYWtOS1poakZFc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHi2iJGE9w5Q4iP7F5DVsRE91vsrbGUpqZ1UpXu3v5-T7qIF1JYiYcPNUewel_aem_d4NADYa30K5aHJ3F9hlK6g

Sponsor the Conservation of a Mahogany Chest of DrawersDate: c. 1760–1770This elegant mahogany chest of drawers is believed to date from the third quarter of…

07/08/2026

Charlotte Cushman as Meg Merrilies

These extraordinary photographs capture Charlotte Cushman in one of her most powerful later-career roles: Meg Merrilies, the prophetic gypsy woman from Guy Mannering by Sir Walter Scott.
Though little known today, Meg Merrilies was a towering figure of 19th-century stage drama — a fierce outsider, seer, and guardian of hidden truths. Cushman’s portrayal was famous for its physical intensity and emotional extremes. Bent, wild, staff in hand, eyes blazing, she abandoned convention in favor of raw theatrical power.

And remarkably, that staff survives.

Located in the Booth Room at The Players is the very walking stick used by Cushman in her portrayal of Meg Merrilies. A small label attached to the staff reads:

“594. Staff, used by Charlotte Cushman in the character of Meg Merrilies. The gift of Dennis R. Alward.”

The cabinet cards were produced by the renowned New York studio of Napoleon Sarony (Sarony & Co., 680 Broadway), among the most important theatrical photographers of the era. The handwritten inscriptions on the versos — naming Cushman and noting associations — reflect early ownership and personal engagement with the images.

Together, these photographs and this humble branch transform abstraction into presence. They allow us not only to see Cushman as Meg Merrilies — but to stand, literally, in the presence of her tools.

We are proud that these works come from The Players Foundation collection, which includes many authentic period theatrical photographs and artifacts — original objects and images made in the lifetimes of the artists themselves, not later reproductions.
Preserving these rare glimpses of transformation allows us to share how great actors once astonished audiences — and ensures their artistry continues to inspire future generations.

07/02/2026

Thomas Nast, Far From Home

One of the most moving moments from May's Up Close & Personal came from a small framed sketch few visitors to The Players have likely ever seen.

Late in life, Thomas Nast accepted a diplomatic post in Ecuador. Isolated from New York and suffering in difficult conditions, he filled scraps of paper with rough sketches, fragments of text, and dark humor.

In one note addressed to “Dear Players,” Nast longs for “a sip out of the Players Loving Cup, and a cool sniff from Gramercy Park.”
Soon afterward, during a yellow fever outbreak, Nast died in Ecuador in 1902.

The sketches feel startlingly immediate: part doodle, part diary, part farewell from one of America’s great image-makers.