STAR QUALITY: THE WORLD OF NOËL COWARD Exhibition Announces Events Leading to Aug 18 Closing

The smash-hit exhibition Star Quality: The World of Noël Coward will close on August 18 after a five-month, twice-extended run. The show focuses on Coward as playwright, composer, director, stage, screen, cabaret performer, and international celebrity, and represents the most comprehensive exhibition on Noël Coward ever assembled, including unique material from the collections of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Since it opened on March 11, 2012, the Exhibition has attracted over 17,000 visitors.

With Star Quality at its heart, the ongoing city-wide Noël Coward Festival has been continuing with sell-out shows at the Library’s own Bruno Walter Auditorium; Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater; Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Dizzy’s; the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences’ Academy Theater; The Paley Center for Media, and countless theaters around the city. Artists taking part have included, Andy Bey, Simon Callow, Kim Cattrall, Eric Comstock, Jim Dale, Victor Garber, Tammy Grimes, RoseMary Harris, Edward Hibbert, Sally Anne Howes, Dana Ivey, Simon Jones, Bucky Pizzarelli, Steve Ross and Billy Stritch.

The Noël Coward Foundation and The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center have announced details of some of the final events in the Festival. For further information visit www.nypl.org/lpaprograms.

On Friday July 20 Theater Talk will present a televised tour of STAR QUALITY: THE WORLD OF Noël Coward, premiering on PBS/Thirteen at 1:00 AM. Coward scholar Barry Day and Geoffrey Johnson, Noël Coward's American representative from 1961-1973, lead Theater Talk co-hosts, Michael Riedel of the "New York Post" and producer Susan Haskins, through this wonderful exhibition at The New York Public Library for The Performing Arts. The program will also air five times on CUNY TV, beginning Saturday, July 22 at 8:30 PM and will be available on Theater Talk's member stations (http://theatertalk.org/?page_id=41) throughout the USA and online at www.theatertalk.org, beginning July 26th, as well as on iTunes.

On Friday August 10th at 6pm, the Performing Arts Library will present a screening of rare, newly reassembled footage from Coward’s 1929 production of BITTER SWEET at His Majesty’s Theatre, London. Introduced by Brad Rosenstein, curator of the Star Quality exhibition, who reconstructed the footage, the film offers a rare and thrilling glimpse of one of Coward’s finest achievements as it was originally staged by The Master himself. Previous screenings in San Francisco and Los Angeles have been sellout hits that left audiences cheering. At the Performing Arts Library’s Bruno Walter Auditorium.

On Monday August 13th at 6pm NOEL & COMPANY present at the Bruno Walter auditorium the world premiere of Noël Coward’s own adaptation of his short story STAR QUALITY written as a homage to the theatre and in particular to temperamental actresses whose behaviour is only forgiven in light of their supreme ‘star quality’. Directed by Noel and Company's artistic director, Keith Merrill. Casting to be announced.

On Wednesday August 15th at 6.30pm NYPL and The Noël Coward Foundation present at the Library For the Performing Arts 40 Lincoln Plaza (in front of the Exhibition entrance) as part of ‘Summer Salon’ PERSPECTIVE COWARD created by Laura Caufield and Directed by Michael Page. An original show using Coward’s music and words to give a glimpse of his life from his uniquely witty perspective.

Full details are on www.noelcowardinnewyork.com and www.nypl.org/lpaprograms.

This Exhibition offers unparalleled access to the Coward Archives and draws on public and private collections in Europe and the US as well as his homes in Switzerland and Jamaica, Star Quality features photographs, posters, programs, scripts, costumes, personal effects, memorabilia, and other objects, many previously unseen, as well as rare audio and video components. It covers all aspects of his life and work including his relationship with Hollywood, his work as a spy during the World War II, his worldwide celebrity status, and an extensive section on his life-long love of New York, which began in 1921. Amongst the items on display will be one of the Oscars® awarded in 1933 for CAVALCADE, his 1971 special Tony Award, the gorgeous Irene Sharaff gown worn by Florence Henderson in THE GIRL WHO CAME TO SUPPER, original costume and set design sketches by Gladys Calthrop, Edward Molyneux, and Cecil Beaton, and of course several notable dressing gowns worn by Coward. The exhibition also features original letters, lyrics and manuscripts as well as some of the remarkable first night gifts given by and to Coward during his extraordinary career which reveal much about the man and the era in which he lived.

Star Quality: The World of Noël Coward is presented by The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and the Noël Coward Foundation in collaboration with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Museum of Performance & Design. It is an expanded version of an exhibition first seen at Ten Chimneys in Wisconsin, and then at London's National Theatre, San Francisco's Museum of Performance & Design, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles.

STAR QUALITY: The World of Noël Coward will run through August 18, 2012, in the Donald and Mary Oenslager Gallery, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. It is presented by The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and the Noël Coward Foundation in collaboration with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Museum of Performance & Design, San Francisco.