Edith Lutyens & Norman Bel Geddes Design Enhancement Fund Overview

Edith Lutyens and Norman Bel Geddes created their namesake foundation to support the design and production costs of New York City-based non-profit theatre companies. The Edith Lutyens and Norman Bel Geddes Design Enhancement Fund provides grants for the artistic needs of a production and allows a designer to more fully realize their artistic vision for a production. 

Design can impact the artists and audiences involved in a production in many ways, from formal and technological innovations to augmenting the audience's experience in the theatre. Applicants may request support for design elements including (but not limited to) sets, lights, sound, costumes, video, puppetry, props, or multimedia design elements.

Check Back in 2026 for Updates!

 About the Foundation

The Edith Lutyens and Norman Bel Geddes Design Enhancement Fund was created from the estate of noted designers Edith Lutyens and her husband, Norman Bel Geddes. Edith was one of two girls born in Belgium into an Edwardian era family and it is to her English father that she credits much of her indelible sense of character. Her many accomplishments throughout her life, including representing Belgium in the National Field Hockey team and competing in the 1928 Olympics in fencing, helped to prepare her for a life of challenges and success.

Arriving alone in New York City during the height of the war it was not long before she entered the theater world with her own costume production house and soon was producing for Broadway and Ballet Society; working with such luminaries as George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein; producing the costumes for FireBird with Marc Chagall; Orson Welles on Around the World in 80 Days; South Pacific and so many others. And in 1947 Edith Lutyens produced Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Telephone/The Medium for Broadway. It was during this time that she met and later married Norman Bel Geddes and, in her own words, considered this the happiest time of her life. Together they traveled, collaborated on multiple projects, and remained inseparable until Norman’s death in 1958.

Edith then worked for several years to preserve the Bel Geddes legacy by arranging for all his papers to be archived at The Harry Ransom Center in Austin Texas. This was a major accomplishment and it is to Edith’s credit that Norman’s work is accurately represented today. To further that goal, in 2004 Edith conceived and created the Edith Lutyens & Norman Bel Geddes Foundation with the directive to assist those in the theater world who were most often overlooked; those, like her, who toiled “back of the curtain” as it were; the lighting people, the sound people, the technicians, and of course the costumer. 

A.R.T./New York has been the Foundation's partner in that mission since its inception. The goal of the Foundation is totally consistent with the important work of A.R.T./New York, by supporting design innovation and securing a future for a vital and essential theater in New York City. 

Accessibility

A.R.T./New York is committed to making our grantmaking and funding programs accessible to disabled theatre-makers, artists, and administrators. Our Application Guide and Tips & Tricks/FAQ documents are available in large print. Office hours and virtual information sessions offer automatic captioning through Zoom and Google. Additional accommodations, including ASL interpretation, live captioning, audio description, etc., are available upon request. Please submit requests to Ash Hicks at[email protected]at least five business days in advance. 

Narrative questions can be submitted in writing or by submitting an audio or video file of a company member answering the questions. If you need additional support in applying to any of A.R.T./New York's grant programs, please contact Erica Wray Barnes [email protected].

Header Image: Previous Design Enhancement Fund Grantees. Theatres Represented: Anonymous Ensemble, HERE Arts Center, Houses on the Moon, Immediate Medium, Red Snapper Productions, The Juggernaut Theatre, The Movement Company, The Play Company (PlayCo)