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Jane Strahan Stanton, an accomplished theatrical director and for 16 winter seasons the artistic director at The Hampton Theatre Company in Quogue, died at on December 31. She was 96 and, in recent years, was living with her family in Mendocino, California.
Ms. Stanton directed such well-received productions as “Crimes of the Heart,” “The Dining Room,” and “The Little Foxes” at Hampton Theatre Company. She was also one of the founders of The River Rep Theatre Company at the historic Ivoryton Playhouse in Connecticut, which had fallen on difficult times in 1987. Its fortunes were revived by the enthusiastic audiences the River Rep’s productions attracted. As artistic director for 18 years, she directed more than 84 critically acclaimed productions, both dramatic and musical. Among the acclaimed Equity productions she directed were “Mornings at Seven,” “Blithe Spirit,” and “The Royal Family.”
Ms. Stanton’s work was seen off Broadway and on regional theatre stages where she directed many well-received productions for adult audiences, including a number of original plays. She formed New World Productions in 1982, for which she directed 14 plays at The Wonderhorse Theatre. She co-produced the original off Broadway musical production “Oh Me, Oh My, Oh Youmans” at The New Vic Theatre, and “Knitters in the Sun” at the Lucille Lortel Theatre.
She was also a children’s theatre pioneer who brought the joy of live productions to many during her 65-year career. She founded and was the director of several children’s and community theater groups, including The Heights Players in Brooklyn, and was the author of more than 16 imaginative plays for children, performed on many other theatrical stages on the East Coast, with music composed by Andrea Stryker-Rodda and Lewis Hardee. Among her better known plays are “The Prince with Blue Hair” and adaptations of “Aladdin,” “Cinderella” and “Sleeping Beauty.”
Before retiring at age 85, she directed several shows each year for The Tar River Players in Tarboro, North Carolina.
Born in New York in 1919 to Robert Hardy Strahan and Harriet Dudley Mosher, Ms. Stanton earned a bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College in 1940, and studied for a master’s degree at Johns Hopkins University. A working mother of three long before it became common, she won the Vogue Magazine Prix de Paris, which led to jobs in New York as a fashion copywriter at Vogue and later at Aldens.
She was married for 36 years to Robert Francis Stanton Jr., an advertising executive from whom she was later divorced.
She is survived by her children, Alexander Stanton of Greenwich, Judy O’Karma of California, Anne Stanton Malone of San Francisco; daughter-in-law Wendy Stanton; sons-in-law Christopher O’Karma and Rik Malone; and five grandchildren, John, Andrew, Matthew, Spencer and Stella Jane.
on Feb 1, 2016