Coronet Theatre to Be Renamed
in Honor Of Eugene O’Neill

After a tense day of diplomatic negotiations, during which it was touch and go, and an eleventh hour meeting last Tuesday, it has finally been decided that the Coronet Theatre at 230 West Forty-ninth Street will be renamed the Eugene O’Neill. Lester Osterman, who recently purchased the thirty-four-year old Coronet and who took legal possession last Friday, will officially re-christen the theatre during Thanksgiving week, with the blessings of Mrs. Carlotta Monterey O’Neill, the dramatist’s widow.

Mr. Osterman, who has long considered O’Neill America’s foremost dramatist, began consulting with designers early last week about renovating the roof sign, the marquee and the lettering over the entrance, and commissioned a portrait of O’Neill to be etched in glass and embedded in the theatre’s concrete outer wall. He also sent word of his plan on Monday to Mrs. O’Neill. He was totally unprepared for her reaction. On Tuesday morning she sent back word that she could not endorse the plan, that O’Neill would not have wanted a commercial Broadway house named for him, that he had declined, several times, to have theatres named for him during his lifetime, and that he felt his name, if it was to live, must live through his plays alone.

“My husband was not interested in real estate,” she said later that morning, when pressed by this column for a further explanation of her opposition, adding that she assumed that Mr. Osterman, like many theatre owners, would operate his new acquisition on a strictly commercial basis, with no interest in the artistic merit of the plays he booked.

“Putting up a few new signs saying ‘O’Neill’ on an old, commercial theatre, is not an honor to my husband,” she said. “He hated Broadway and its lack of artistic understanding.”

Mrs. O’Neill, however, was unaware, at that time, that the Phoenix production of O’Neill’s “The Great God Brown” was to be Mr. Osterman’s first tenant, and that Mr. Osterman was himself a producer, who acquired the Coronet primarily as a showcase for his own offerings, which, this season, will include William Inge’s “A Loss of Roses” and Lillian Hellman’s new play.

Eloquent Plea

Mrs. O’Neill’s rejection of the re-christening plan threw Mr. Osterman into a quandary. He did not want to displease the widow of the man he wished to honor, yet the machinery had been set into motion and he had to make a quick decision. He persuaded Mrs. O’Neill to meet with him Tuesday night and, after listening to his eloquent plea, she conceded that she had been too hasty in rejecting his offer. ‘“You may have my blessing” she told him.

Mr. Osterman, a soft-spoken, mild-mannered man of 44, whose mother was a child actress, and who is a partner in a banking and brokerage concern, began his theatrical activities a few years ago as a hobby. Producing has since become his main interest, and he feels strongly that American playwrights are not given their proper due.

“People tend to forget that the playwright is the lifeblood of the theatre,” he said, revealing that he would now go ahead with his plan as quickly as possible. “I’ve been disgusted for a long time about the fact that we have no theatre in New York named for an important playwright, while we have many named for actors and producers.”

The changes involved in renaming the theatre, which can not be effected in time for the opening, on Oct. 6, of “The Great God Brown” (which will have a limited run), will be ready by the time “A Loss of Roses” moves in on Nov. 26. Mr. Osterman plans to hold a dedication ceremony a few days before that date, to which he will invite the Governor, the Mayor and other public officials and cultural leaders.