Arnold Olaf Sundgaard (October 31, 1909 – October 22, 2006) was an American playwright,
librettist
A libretto (Italian for "booklet") is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major litu ...
, and lyricist. He was also a writer of short stories and children's books as well as a college professor specializing in drama and theatrics. Sundgaard was best known for his role in the production of six Broadway plays.
Background
Sundgaard was born in
Saint Paul, Minnesota
Saint Paul (abbreviated St. Paul) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital of the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Ramsey County, Minnesota, Ramsey County. Situated on high bluffs overlooking a bend in the Mississip ...
, and was of Norwegian descent.
He attended
Johnson Senior High School in Saint Paul,
where he played football with
Warren E. Burger
Warren Earl Burger (September 17, 1907 – June 25, 1995) was an American attorney and jurist who served as the 15th chief justice of the United States from 1969 to 1986. Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Burger graduated from the William Mitchell ...
.
He then attended the
University of Wisconsin
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...
, graduating with a bachelor's degree in English in 1935; he also studied at the
Yale Drama School
The David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University is a graduate professional school of Yale University, located in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1924 as the Department of Drama in the School of Fine Arts, the school provides training in ...
. He taught drama at a number of schools, including
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
,
Bennington College
Bennington College is a private liberal arts college in Bennington, Vermont. Founded in 1932 as a women's college, it became co-educational in 1969. It claims to be the first college to include visual and performing arts as an equal partner in ...
, and the
University of Texas
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
. Sundgaaard was awarded a
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...
in the field of music research in 1951.
Career
![Spirochete-Poster-1938](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Spirochete-Poster-1938.jpg)
Sundgaard worked with the
Federal Theatre Project
The Federal Theatre Project (FTP; 1935–1939) was a theatre program established during the Great Depression in the United States, Great Depression as part of the New Deal to fund live artistic performances and entertainment programs in the United ...
early in his career. In 1938, the FTP produced, as part of the
Living Newspaper
Living Newspaper is a term for a theatrical form presenting factual information on current events to a popular audience. Historically, Living Newspapers have also urged social action (both implicitly and explicitly) and reacted against naturali ...
series, his play ''Spirochete: A History'', about the spread of
syphilis
Syphilis () is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium ''Treponema pallidum'' subspecies ''pallidum''. The signs and symptoms of syphilis vary depending in which of the four stages it presents (primary, secondary, latent, an ...
.
The play, the writing of which had been encouraged by
Susan Glaspell
Susan Keating Glaspell (July 1, 1876 – July 28, 1948) was an American playwright, novelist, journalist and actress. With her husband George Cram Cook, she founded the Provincetown Players, the first modern American theatre company.
First known ...
, was a hit in
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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at its premiere, but met with tremendous protest upon its transfer to
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
.
![Everywhere-I-Roam-Lloyd-Emery-Jagger](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Everywhere-I-Roam-Lloyd-Emery-Jagger.jpg)
His first play for Broadway was a collaboration with
Marc Connelly
Marcus Cook Connelly (December 13, 1890 – December 21, 1980) was an American playwright, director, producer, performer, and lyricist. He was a key member of the Algonquin Round Table, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1930.
Biogra ...
; titled ''Everywhere I Roam'', it lasted 13 performances in 1938 and 1939.
T. Edward Hambleton (1953-2005) produced his plays ''The First Crocus'' in 1942 and ''The Great Campaign'' in 1947; each lasted five performances only.
''Of Love Remembered'' appeared in 1967, directed by
Burgess Meredith
Oliver Burgess Meredith (November 16, 1907 – September 9, 1997) was an American actor and filmmaker whose career encompassed theater, film, and television.
Active for more than six decades, Meredith has been called "a virtuosic actor" and "on ...
and starring
Ingrid Thulin
Ingrid Lilian Thulin (; 27 January 1926 – 7 January 2004) was a Swedish actress and director who collaborated with filmmaker Ingmar Bergman. She was often cast as harrowing and desperate characters, and earned acclaim from both Swedish a ...
.
Sundgaard wrote the libretti for close to a dozen operas and musicals by composers such as
Alec Wilder
Alexander Lafayette Chew Wilder (February 16, 1907 – December 24, 1980) was an American composer.
Biography
Wilder was born in Rochester, New York, United States, to a prominent family; the Wilder Building downtown (at the "Four Corners") ...
,
Douglas Moore
Douglas Stuart Moore (August 10, 1893 – July 25, 1969) was an American composer, songwriter, organist, pianist, conductor, educator, actor, and author. A composer who mainly wrote works with an American subject, his music is generally charact ...
, and
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill (March 2, 1900April 3, 1950) was a German-born American composer active from the 1920s in his native country, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fru ...
. With Moore he wrote the opera ''
Giants in the Earth'', after the
novel
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...
by
Ole Edvart Rølvaag
Ole Edvart Rølvaag (; Rølvåg in modern Norwegian, Rolvaag in English orthography) (April 22, 1876 – November 5, 1931) was a Norwegian-American novelist and professor who became well known for his writings regarding the Norwegian American imm ...
; it won the
Pulitzer Prize for Music
The Pulitzer Prize for Music is one of seven Pulitzer Prizes awarded annually in Letters, Drama, and Music. It was first given in 1943. Joseph Pulitzer arranged for a music scholarship to be awarded each year, and this was eventually converted i ...
in 1951. In 1952, he wrote ''The Lowland Sea'' with Wilder.
In 1948, he and Weill collaborated on the folk opera ''
Down in the Valley'', and in 1944 he and
Leonard Louis Levinson (1904–1974), wrote the book for ''Rhapsody'', a collaboration with
Fritz Kreisler
Friedrich "Fritz" Kreisler (February 2, 1875 – January 29, 1962) was an Austrian-born American violinist and composer. One of the most noted violin masters of his day, and regarded as one of the greatest violinists of all time, he was known ...
and
John Latouche. Another opera with Moore, ''
Gallantry
Gallantry may refer to:
* military courage or bravery
* Chivalry
* Warrior ethos
* Knightly Piety Knightly Piety refers to a specific strand of Christian belief espoused by knights during the Middle Ages. The term comes from ''Ritterfrömmigkei ...
'', a parody of television
soap opera
A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored ...
s, was premiered by the Columbia University School of Music in 1958. With
Victor Ziskin he wrote the short-lived ''The Young Abe Lincoln'', which played briefly on Broadway in 1961.
Sundgaard was also a lyricist, writing words to several songs by Wilder. "How Lovely is Christmas" was recorded by
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby Jr. (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) was an American singer, musician and actor. The first multimedia star, he was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century worldwide. He was a ...
;
"Where Do You Go?" was recorded by
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert Sinatra (; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Nicknamed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Chairman of the Board" and later called "Ol' Blue Eyes", Sinatra was one of the most popular ...
and released on his 1959 album ''
No One Cares
''No One Cares'' is a 1959 album by Frank Sinatra. It is generally seen as a "sequel" to Sinatra's 1957 album ''Where Are You? (Frank Sinatra album), Where Are You?'' (also arranged by Gordon Jenkins), and was similar in theme and concept to ''Fr ...
''.
Besides theatrical work, Sundgaard wrote nonfiction for ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' and ''
Atlantic Monthly
''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science.
It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
'', among other publications.
With
Eric Carle
Eric Carle (June 25, 1929 – May 23, 2021) was an American author, designer and illustrator of children's books. His picture book ''The Very Hungry Caterpillar'', first published in 1969, has been translated into more than 66 languages and sold ...
, he also wrote children's books, such as ''The Lamb and the Butterfly'' of 1988; his ''The Bear who Loved Puccini'', published in 1992, was illustrated by
Dominic Catalano.
Personal life
Sundgaard counted among his friends
Studs Terkel
Louis "Studs" Terkel (May 16, 1912 – October 31, 2008) was an American writer, historian, actor, and broadcaster. He received the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1985 for '' The Good War'' and is best remembered for his oral his ...
and
Gregory Peck
Eldred Gregory Peck (April 5, 1916 – June 12, 2003) was an American actor and one of the most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1970s. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Peck the 12th-greatest male star of Classic Hollywood ...
. His first marriage, to Margaret Christiansen, ended in divorce; his second marriage, to Marge Kane, ended at her death in 1998.
He died at his home in
Dallas
Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...
, Texas, and was survived by a son and two daughters; another son predeceased him, in 1985.
References
External links
*
*
Arnold Sundgaard Collectionat the
Harry Ransom Center
The Harry Ransom Center (until 1983 the Humanities Research Center) is an archive, library and museum at the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in the collection of literary and cultural artifacts from the Americas and Europe for the pur ...
Sungaard Papers 1925-1988
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sundgaard, Arnold
1909 births
2006 deaths
20th-century American dramatists and playwrights
American opera librettists
American lyricists
American children's writers
American male dramatists and playwrights
Writers from Saint Paul, Minnesota
American people of Norwegian descent
University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Letters and Science alumni
Columbia University faculty
Bennington College faculty
University of Texas faculty
American musical theatre librettists
Songwriters from Minnesota
20th-century American male writers