Art of Giving

Honoring a Father’s Wishes

‘Go west, young man,’ is just what Richard Diggs ’30, YC ’26 did after graduating from the School of

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01 Louella Parsons (seated third from left) and Richard Diggs ’30, YC ’26 (standing second from left) at a rehearsal of Hollywood Hotel in 1952. Photo by CBS via Getty Images. Drama. His education in playwriting landed him a job at the prestigious Paramount Pictures in Los Angeles. “It was a new frontier,” recalled Dr. Mary Corner Berkley, Richard’s niece, “Hollywood executives were eager to hire someone with theatrical training.”

When Richard Diggs walked through the famous Paramount gate, he was entering the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema. On the Paramount lot he would have rubbed elbows with stars like Mae West, Marlene Dietrich, Claudette Colbert, William Powell, and the Marx Brothers, along with the directors Cecil B. DeMille, Ernst Lubitsch, and Josef von Sternberg.

Among his many Paramount projects, Diggs was the assistant producer on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, starring Fredric March and Miriam Hopkins. It earned March an Oscar for Best Actor in 1932. When the film was rereleased in 1935, Richard helped edit the picture to satisfy the morally strict Hollywood Production Code introduced in 1934.

Art of Giving

After Paramount, Richard began producing radio shows for Louella Parsons, the noted gossip columnist whose daily feature appeared in more than 400 newspapers and was read by over 20 million people. The show, called Hollywood Hotel, proved just as popular as Parsons’ column. It introduced the idea of “sneak previews” in which celebrity guests would read parts from their upcoming films.

During World War II, the U.S. Army stationed troops in Alaska and Richard was enlisted to establish a radio station on base. He produced radio programming to provide troops with news and entertainment, which helped morale during the long, harsh Alaskan winters. After the war, Richard continued working in radio.

Richard’s Hollywood connections led to a successful second career in California real estate, until he retired to Scottsdale, Arizona, with his wife, Virginia, who had been the assistant to movie mogul Darryl Zanuck. In January 1994, Richard Diggs died at the age of 91 after a battle with cancer.

Richard’s son Nicholas wanted to fulfill his father’s wish to make a significant contribution to Yale. In 2020, he began making gifts to the Drama School including a scholarship in his father’s name and emergency support for students during the early months of the pandemic.

Sadly, this past year, Nicholas passed away from complications due to COVID-19 at the age of 74. In an act of extraordinary generosity, Nicholas left his entire estate to the David Geffen School of Drama to support the School’s programming and a new state of the art facility where a space will be named in honor of Richard Diggs.

“Nicholas was so proud of his father who was a trailblazer in the early years of entertainment,” said Deborah S. Berman, Director of Development and Alumni Affairs. “He said that Richard always attributed his success to his time at Yale. With this gift, both father and son have left an enduring legacy at the School.”

An Opportunity for Inspiration

In 2021, the Raymond N. Plank Philanthropy Fund established endowments for the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale and Yale School of Music to provide opportunities for artist residencies at Ucross. Set in the foothills of Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains on a 20,000-acre working cattle ranch, Ucross is one of the country’s preeminent artist residency programs, offering uninterrupted time to work, studio space, living accommodations, and the inspirational camaraderie of fellow creators. The Drama School’s first recipients are playwrights Genne Murphy ’18 (Faculty) and Majkin Holmquist ’18 (Faculty), who attended in March. “Ucross is an incredibly supportive place,” shared Murphy after returning home from the fellowship, “There was a great cross-section of artists working in different disciplines and in different stages of their careers. This experience gave me perspective about what I can do to cultivate a life which provides more room for 02

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02 Majkin Holmquist ’18

03 Genne Murphy ’18

04 Eric M. Glover (Faculty)

Art of Giving

writing.” Holmquist also found inspiration from those around her, “The other artists were wonderful, and I had incredible conversations for the entire two weeks. And it was a special treat to be there with Genne. We were able to discuss our work in depth because of the space and time this opportunity provided. Ultimately, I was able to finish revisions on one play and write half a draft of a brand-new piece.” Professor Adjunct of Dramaturgy Eric M. Glover will attend in the fall of 2022.

Playwright Peter Shaffer’s Foundation to Support New Play Commissions

The School of Drama has received a threeyear gift from the Sir Peter Shaffer Charitable Foundation that will support new works commissioned by Yale Repertory Theatre’s Binger Center for New Theatre. The Center has commissioned more than 40 plays and underwritten the productions of more than 30 new plays at Yale Rep and theaters across the country since its inception in 2008.

Shaffer, who wrote the Tony Award-winning Equus and Amadeus, believed in the dramatic power and significance of plays of scale. Accordingly, the grant will commission one playwright per year, for three years, to develop plays with more than four characters.

In addition to Equus, the story of a psychiatrist trying to help the troubled stable boy who blinds six horses, and Amadeus, a drama about the rivalry between Mozart and the composer Antonio Salieri, Shaffer authored the plays Five Finger Exercise (1958), The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1964), Black Comedy (1965), and Lettice and Lovage (1986), among others.

“Peter’s wish was that this playwriting grant be awarded to writers creating plays of large scope and character,” said Alan Schwartz LAW ’56, a long-time friend of Peter’s and Trustee of the Shaffer Foundation. “This reflects his own development as an artist and his passion for the expansion of the dramatic experience. We make this gift with

the firm belief that Yale Repertory Theatre will use it to further enhance that experience.”

Schwartz acknowledged the efforts of

Gordon Rogoff YC ’52 (Faculty Emeritus)

as instrumental in the Foundation’s decision to award this gift to Yale. “Gordon’s enthusiasm for this grant encouraged me to put the Drama School and Yale Repertory Theatre at the top of the list of grantees,” he stated.

“Peter held firmly to a lifetime’s commitment to the stage,” said Rogoff, “and for that alone, I continue to hold him high in my heart as a major twentieth-century dramatist.”05

“Peter’s wish was that this playwriting grant be awarded to writers creating plays of large scope and character.”

05 Sir Peter Shaffer