(1893-1958)
Born Norman Melancton Geddes in Adrian, Michigan, Norman Bel Geddes studied art in Cleveland and Chicago before beginning his distinguished career in design at the Los Angeles Little Theatre in 1916. Profoundly influenced by European modernist scene designers, including Adolphe Appia and Edward Gordon Craig, Geddes abandoned the proscenium for some of his productions and brought current trends in art into his productions, as his art deco designs for musicals demonstrate. Brought to New York to design for the Metropolitan Opera under the aegis of Otto Kahn, Geddes collaborated with Max Reinhardt on The Miracle (1924), for which he converted the Century Theatre into the interior of a medieval gothic cathedral. Even more ambitious was his unrealized design for The Divine Comedy, which called for a performance area 100 feet wide and over 70 feet high.
Geddes demonstrated originality and versatility in his designs for such 1920s Broadway productions as Erminie (1920), The Truth about Blayds (1922), The Rivals (1922), The School for Scandal (1923), Lady, Be Good! (1924), Jeanne d'Arc (1925), Ziegfeld Follies (1925), Julius Caesar (1927), The Five O'Clock Girl (1927), The Patriot (1928), and Fifty Million Frenchmen (1929). His later notable productions include Hamlet (1931), Dead End* (1935), The Eternal Road* (1937), and Seven Lively Arts (1944). He was also an industrial designer, designed a few theatres, pioneered the use of lenses in lighting instruments, and was the father of actress Barbara Bel Geddes.*
See also scenery.
The Historical Dictionary of the American Theater. James Fisher.