Margaret Webster: A Life in the Theater

Chronology

Chronology 1905 Born March 15 in New York City at 260 West Fifty-ninth Street, only child of British actors Benjamin Nottingham Webster III and Mary Louise (May) Whitty. In June, the family returns to London from the United States and lives at 31 Bedford Street in the Strand. 1911 Enrolls in the Burlington School for Girls and makes amateur acting debut at Albert Hall in a Pageant of the Stage. 1914 Enrolls in Bradley Wood House, a Christian Science school in Devonshire. 1917 Attends Queen Anne’s School in Reading. 1922 Appears in The Shoe, written and directed by Edith Craig, with Ellen Terry and May Whitty, Palace Theatre. 1923 Graduates from Queen Anne’s and begins formal training for the stage at the Etlinger Dramatic School. 1924 Makes professional debut as a chorus member in Euripides’ The Trojan Women with Sybil Thorndike and Lewis T. Casson, New Theatre . 1925 Plays a gentlewoman in John Barrymore’s Hamlet, Haymarket Theatre , appears in the Chorus of Euripides’ Hippolytus, Regent Theatre , and understudies Sybil Thorndike in a tour of Shaw’s Saint Joan. 1926 Appears in Shakespeare’s Henry VIII with Sybil Thorndike, Lewis T. Casson, and Laurence Olivier, Empire Theatre, tours with the Charles Macdona Players in plays by George Bernard Shaw, and plays the Gentlewoman in Macbeth, Prince’s Theatre. 1927 Tours with J. B. Fagan’s Oxford Players. 1928 Joins the Ben Greet Players, touring plays by Shakespeare in outdoor productions, and appears opposite John Gielgud in The Lady from Alfaqueque, Court Theatre. 1929 Plays Fanny Willoughby in James M. Barrie’s Quality Street with Hilda Trevelyan, Haymarket Theatre; plays Chorus Leader in Euripides’ Medea, Wyndham’s Theatre; joins the Old Vic Company , playing Lady Capulet in Romeo and Juliet, Nerissa in The Mer- chant of Venice, Toinette in Moliére’s The Imaginary Invalid, the duchess of York in Richard II, and Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. 1930 At the Old Vic plays Audrey in As You Like It and Megaera in Shaw’s Androcles and the Lion; at the Old Vic and Queen’s Theatre plays Lady Macduff in Macbeth and the Second Player in Hamlet; at the Savoy Theatre plays Judith Anderson in Shaw’s The Devil’s Disciple with Martin Harvey. 1931 Appears in Gilbert Wake‹eld’s Etienne with Emlyn Williams, St. James’s Theatre, tours in Williams’s A Murder Has Been Arranged and with Maurice Evans in After All; elected council member of British Equity. 1932 Plays Mary Preston in Musical Chairs with John Gielgud, Criterion Theatre, countess of Derby in Gordon Daviot’s Richard of Bordeaux with John Gielgud and Gwen Ffrangcon Davies, New Theatre, and Lady Macbeth in Macbeth with Alastair Sim, Anthony Quayle, and George Devine, Old Vic and Sadler’s Wells Theatre. 1933 Appears in Richard of Bordeaux with John Gielgud and Gwen Ffrangcon Davies, 463 performances, New Theatre. 1934 Appears in Emlyn Williams’s Spring 1600, Shaftesbury Theatre, Lesley Storm’s Dark Horizon, Daly’s Theatre, and H. T. Wood’s Royal Baggage, Little Theatre; makes directing debut with Shakespeare ’s Henry VIII for the British National Federation of Women’s Institutes, Kent; plays Mary Beaton in Queen of Scots, New Theatre. 1935 Directs Martha Steinitz’s Tarakin, Kingsway Theatre, Walter Hudd’s Snow in Winter, Whitehall Theatre, Philip Stuart’s Love of Women, Phoenix Theatre and Arts Theatre, and Sarah Millin’s No Longer Mourn, Gate Theatre; appears with Paul Robeson and Coral Brown in Peter Garland’s Basalik, Arts Theatre; plays Abigail Hill in Norman Ginsbury’s Viceroy Sarah, Phoenix Theatre, and tours in Viceroy Sarah; appointed actor-delegate to the London Theatre Council; attends the Moscow Theatre Festival; writes article on the working conditions in the Soviet Union for British Equity. 1936 Directs Henrik Ibsen’s The Lady from the Sea, The Playhouse, Louis Verneuil’s Heads I Win, Embassy Theatre, Sewell Stokes’s The Four Partners and Daisy Fisher’s A Ship Comes Home, Q Theatre, Phillip Leaver’s The Three Set Out, Hull Repertory Theatre, and F. C. Davison and John Mitchell’s Family Hold Back, Aldwych Theatre; adapts and plays Nurse Lisa in Ferenc Molnár’s Girl Unknown, New Theatre ; plays Anna Steele in Elsie T. Schauf›er’s Parnell, New Theatre . xiv  Chronology 1937 Makes Broadway directing debut with Maurice Evans in Richard II, St. James Theatre; also directs Gladys Hurlbut’s Lovers’ Meeting...