eCREATIVE
Playwright Langston Hughes (left) with Lucille
Lortel (second from right) and other guests
Opera singer Placido Domingo and actress
Sophia Loren with Lucille Lortel
Actress Luise Rainer (left) and producer
Rod Serling at the White Barn Theatre
property, that is also home to a pond,
woodlands, and extensive acres of
wetlands.
.
In November, 2015, the Norwalk Zoning
Commission voted to give Mr. Fieber
permission to demolish what is a
Connecticut and National Theatre
Treasure, and build 15 homes on this
pristine natural preserve. It will be lost
forever if the $5.2 million the developer
is asking for cannot be raised to buy the
property.
Waldo Mayo, 25, Lucille Lortel’s greatnephew, and an actor now living in New
York City, spent summers and holidays
up at the White Barn with his aunt.
When he realized the property was not
developed and laying fallow, he
committed to acquiring it to bring back
the production of new plays there,
recreating the museum that Lucille
organized for educational purposes, and
making the site a destination in the town
for visitors and theatre lovers.
Hearing that I was a close friend to his
great aunt for more than thirty years,
Waldo asked me to join the Board of The
Lucille Lortel and Waldo Mayo White
Barn Foundation, Inc., a newly organized
501c3 nonprofit organization he founded
to buy the property and start the theatre
again. Showgirls, a musical that I coauthored with Earl Wilson, Jr., and