Yale School of Drama Forms Frederick Loewe Scholarships

YALE SCHOOL OF DRAMA has established two new scholarships with a $100,000 gift from The Frederick Loewe Foundation: the Frederick Loewe Musical Theatre Scholarship, which will be awarded to a playwriting student who demonstrates particular interest in musical theatre composition; and the Frederick Loewe Directing Scholarship in honor of Floria V. Lasky.

"We are deeply grateful to the Frederick Loewe Foundation for its generous support of professional theatre training at Yale School of Drama in the names of two of the American theatre's most accomplished artists and advocates, and for its commitment to the creation of new work," said Dean James Bundy.

"The Frederick Loewe Foundation is delighted for the opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to the advancement of the American theatre, especially the American musical theatre, which is one of the Foundation's main priorities," said Foundation President Emily Altman. "It is particularly pleasing to make this announcement on the day that a new production of Lerner and Loewe's beloved musical Gigi opens on Broadway."

FREDERICK LOEWE (1901 - 1988) composed the scores for some of the American theatre's most memorable musicals, including My Fair Lady, Camelot, Brigadoon, Paint Your Wagon, and Gigi. Among his most famous songs, written with lyricist-partner Alan Jay Lerner, are ''Almost Like Being in Love,'' ''I Could Have Danced All Night'' and ''Thank Heaven for Little Girls.''

A musical prodigy by age four, Loewe was born in Berlin to Austrian parents. Steeped in the Viennese operetta tradition-his father, a renowned operetta tenor, originated the role of Prince Danilo in The Merry Widow -Loewe studied in Berlin with famous pianist-composers Ferruccio Busoni and Eugen d'Albert. At 13, he was the youngest piano soloist ever to play with the Berlin Philharmonic. The sheet music for Katrina, a popular song Loewe wrote when he was 15, eventually sold over one million copies. In 1924, after touring the United States with his father, he chose to stay on, hoping to make a career as a concert pianist and write for Broadway.

Instead, for the next decade, Loewe worked at a variety of odd jobs, including cattle punching, gold prospecting and prize fighting, and playing piano in German clubs in New York's Yorkville neighborhood and in movie theatres accompanying silent films. During the 1930's, he contributed music to a number of Broadway revues and shows, none of which met with much success. In 1942, Loewe approached Alan Lerner at the Lambs Club in New York to talk about collaborating on a musical-and thus began one of Broadway's most extraordinary and productive partnerships.

In 1947, Lerner and Loewe had their first Broadway hit, Brigadoon, followed in 1951 by a second, more moderate, success with Paint Your Wagon which included such songs as "They Call the Wind Maria," "I Talk to the Trees," and "Wandrin' Star." In 1956, My Fair Lady, with Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews, opened on Broadway. Often called the "perfect musical," the show ran for 2,717 performances and the cast album sold more than five million copies. Their 1958 film musical, Gigi, won nine Academy awards, and in 1960 came their last great success, Camelot, starring Richard Burton and Julie Andrews. In 1974, Lerner lured Loewe out of retirement to work on their last venture together: a commercially unsuccessful film version of Antoine de St Exupéry's The Little Prince. The winner of numerous Tony, Academy and Golden Globe awards, Loewe died in Palm Springs, California in 1988.

FLORIA V. LASKY (1923 - 1997) was one of the country's legendary entertainment lawyers. She represented a extraordinary range of creative talent, including Frederick Loewe, Jerome Robbins, Elia Kazan, Joshua Logan, Tennessee Williams, Jule Styne, Carson McCullers, David Merrick, Mary Martin, Burl Ives, Gypsy Rose Lee, Leland Hayward, Berry Gordy, Regina Resnik, Natasha Katz, and Jeanine Tesori, as well as institutions like The Theatre Guild, The Actors Studio, and The Circle in the Square. An exceptional negotiator, Lasky was instrumental in bringing to Broadway such classics as Oklahoma!, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof, Carousel, and Peter Pan.

The daughter of Polish immigrants, Floria Lasky (she was named after Puccini's Tosca) was born in the Bronx in 1923, started Hunter College at age 14 and graduated first in her class from New York University Law School where she was Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review. Beguiling, demanding, generous and glamorous-her pulled-back dark hair, almond-shaped blue eyes, high cheekbones lending her a sense of drama-she is remembered for her brilliance, for the strength of her character and for the fierce loyalty with which she represented her clients.