"Star Quality: I don't know what it is, but I've got it," said Noël Coward with his inimitable style, cigarette in hand and twinkle in his eye. The Museum of Performance & Design (MPD) is proud to celebrate this extraordinary figure in its next exhibition, Star Quality: The World of Noël Coward.
For many Coward is known purely as a playwright, creating such classics as Private Lives, Blithe Spirit, Hay Fever, and Design for Living, or as the composer of such timeless songs as "Mad About the Boy," "I'll See You Again," and "Mad Dogs and Englishmen." Star Quality is the first exhibition to show the full extent of his prodigious talents as a director of plays and movies, actor, cabaret artist, wartime patriot, painter, and patron of charitable causes, as well as his knack for celebrity and his gift for sustaining warm and enduring friendships.
With unparalleled access to the Coward Archives and drawing on public and private collections in Europe and the U.S., the exhibition brings together dozens of rare photographs, drawings, paintings, original manuscripts, letters to and from a range of luminaries, sheet music, posters, playbills, set and costume designs, personal memorabilia, audio and video clips, and original costumes, including several of the silk dressing gowns that became Coward's trademark.
Photo courtesy Norman Parkinson Archive, London www.normanparkinson.com
