Exhibit opens showcasing ‘Trial & Error’ star’s talent for drawing as well as drama.
Halfway through his freshman year, John Lithgow set his sights on a summer residency at the artist colony in Skowhegan, Maine. Hoping to give his son’s application an edge, John’s father arranged a private interview with the painter Ben Shahn, a formidable presence at the mecca for aspiring artists. Brusque and opinionated, Shahn peppered a wide-eyed, young Lithgow with questions: “If you want to be an artist,” he growled, “what the hell are you doing at Harvard?”
John Lithgow entered Harvard in 1963, intent on becoming a painter. As Shahn well knew, Harvard was then no place to receive formal training in the arts, either visual or dramatic. But the absence of an academic program in theater made for a thriving scene of extracurricular creativity. Almost immediately, Lithgow fell in with the theater crowd. He auditioned for and landed a major role on the mainstage of the Loeb Drama Center—the only freshman to be cast in the show. The next fall, during a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Utopia, Limited, a forty-second ovation changed his mind for good. He would become a professional actor.
![John Lithgow in Utopia Limited John Lithgow in Utopia Limited](https://sites.harvard.edu/houghton-library/files/2017/04/ms_thr_546_1472-150x150.jpg)
“The dreams of an artist die hard,” Lithgow admits. Still he continues to paint and draw. One of his canvases even makes a brief appearance in the film Love is Strange, in which Lithgow plays a struggling gay artist.
![LOVE IS STRANGE - 2014 FILM STILL - John Lithgow as Ben - Photo Credit: Jeong Park/Sony Pictures Classics](https://sites.harvard.edu/houghton-library/files/2017/04/love-is-strange-john-lithgow-150x150.jpg)
Ever since his early years on Broadway, the actor has presented his fellow cast members and crew with an inscribed caricature on opening night or at the end of filming. A selection of these drawings, curated by Dale Stinchcomb of the Harvard Theatre Collection, is now on display through July 29 September 7 on the ground floor of Houghton Library. The exhibit spans Lithgow’s decades-long career, featuring artwork from undergraduate productions to his most recent role in the NBC mockumentary Trial & Error, including unforgettable performances in M. Butterfly, the hit sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun, and Netflix’s The Crown.
![Trial & Error cast drawing by John Lithgow Trial & Error cast drawing by John Lithgow](https://sites.harvard.edu/houghton-library/files/2017/04/2016mt-55_trial_and_error-150x150.jpg)
More on Lithgow’s Harvard years—”the most active and creative” of his life—in an upcoming post.
Dale Stinchcomb, Curatorial Assistant in the Harvard Theatre Collection, contributed this post.