Moiseiwitsch, Tanya, 1914-

Tanya Moiseiwitsch (1914- ), costume designer.

Epithet: theatrical designer

Tanya Moiseiwitsch, born in London (UK) in 1914, d. 2003. Theatrical set and costume designer; helped design the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis and was a co-founder of the Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada.

Tanya Moiseiwitsch was born in London (UK) in 1914 to Daisy Kennedy, an Australian concert violinist, and Benno Moiseiwitsch, a Ukrainian classical pianist. She was the founding designer of the Stratford Festival (Canada) and collaborated with Sir Tyrone Guthrie on productions and even theatre design, beginning in 1945. Moiseiwitsch designed costumes and sets for hundreds of productions in England, including work at the Old Vic Company, Stratford-on-Avon, and at Covent Garden. She and Guthrie, along with Alec Guinness and Irene Worth, founded the Stratford Festival, in Canada, designing a platform stage in a huge tent for the first performances there in 1953.

In Minnesota, she is credited with the design of the first thrust stage at the Guthrie Theatre in 1963, working jointly with Sir Tyrone Guthrie and architect Ralph Rapson. Her work on the landmark 1967 production The House of Atreus, directed by Tyrone Guthrie, was breath-taking. Her use of masks and robes brought extraordinary depth to the play, which was taken to Broadway, and revived in the 1968 season in Minneapolis at the Guthrie Theater. She was responsible for the designs of six productions at the Guthrie Theater: Hamlet (1963), The Miser (1963), The Three Sisters (1963), House of Atreus (1967, 1968), Uncle Vanya (1969) (for which she also designed the sets) and The Government Inspector (1973), the last directed by Michael Langham.

Moiseiwitsch shuttled between Canada, at the Stratford Festival, the United States, at the Guthrie Theater, and England, where she designed costumes and sets at the National Theatre and Stratford-on-Avon, among other venues. She died in London in 2003, and was posthumously awarded an honorary Officer of the Order of Canada for her "enormous impact on theatre arts in the 20th century".