Craig, Edward Gordon (1872-1966), was an influential British stage designer and director. Craig believed that stage settings should not be realistic. His productions emphasized simplicity, stressing lighting and the movement of the actors. He often designed monumental structures to suggest mood and ideas and also relied on movable screens that changed shape for each scene.
Craig was involved in few actual theater productions over his long career, but his theoretical writings had a major impact on stagecraft during the 1900’s. From 1908 to 1929 Craig edited the international review The Mask, which became a forum for his ideas. His writings were also published in Towards a New Theatre (1913) and the collections of essays On the Art of the Theatre (1911) and Scene (1923). Craig also wrote a memoir, Index to the Story of My Days (1957).
Edward Henry Gordon Craig was born on Jan. 16, 1872, in the county of Hertfordshire. His mother was the noted English actress Ellen Terry. Craig began his theatrical career as an actor in 1889 but abandoned acting in 1897 to become a stage designer. He settled permanently in France in 1931. Craig died on July 29, 1966.
