Diane Lane Honors Elizabeth Swados With New Grant For Female Arts Educators

Last month the theatre community mourned the death of pioneering writer, composer and director Elizabeth Swados, who died at age 64 from complications following surgery for esophageal cancer.

Her best-known work, the 1978 Broadway musical RUNAWAYS, will be given a concert staging this summer as part of artistic director Jeanine Tesori's City Center Encores! Off-Center series.

The year before RUNAWAYS moved from The Public Theater to Broadway, Swados composed music for a pair of Lincoln Center Theatre Productions, THE CHERRY ORCHARD and AGAMEMNON. In the cast of both was a 12-year-old actor named Diane Lane. The two had previous met when 6-year-old Lane was in the company of a La MaMa production of MEDEA, for which Swados composed Obie Award winning music.

Lane was also one of the young talents who wrote additional material for RUNAWAYS. The next year she was making her screen debut in a leading role opposite Sir Laurence Olivier in A LITTLE ROMANCE and she was Oscar-nominated in 2002 for UNFAITHFUL.

The film star, who returned to the New York stage last year in THE MYSTERY OF LOVE AND SEX, is now honoring Elizabeth Swados by funding a grant for female arts educators. The grant is being created in partnership with the Ziegfeld Club and will award $5,000 to an influential woman educator in New York.

"Elizabeth had a force of growth about her that was inspiring to everyone around her," Lane explained to the New York Times. "I wanted to honor that and nurture that in individuals or groups that would never otherwise be acknowledged."

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Photo of Diane Lane (left): Walter McBride