CARLI Digital Collections Featured Image: Processional

Scenic designer Mordecai “Max” Gorelik created this backdrop elevation for the Theatre Guild’s production of John Howard Lawson’s Processional: A Jazz Symphony of American Life in Four Acts, a vaudevillian satire set on the outskirts of a large town in the West Virginia coal fields. Gorelik’s background in burlesque informed his design of the nonillusionistic, two-dimensional setting that enhanced the theatricality of Lawson’s script. The production opened at the Garrick Theatre in New York on January 12, 1925, and ran for 90 performances. In addition to launching Gorelik’s Broadway career, the production marked the acting debut of Lee Strasberg in the role of “First Soldier.” Gorelik (1899-1990) is best known for his work with the Group Theatre in the 1930s and for a metaphorical approach to design influenced by the theories of Bertolt Brecht. After leaving Broadway in 1960, he served as a research professor of theater at SIUC until 1972. His papers are held by the Morris Library’s Special Collections Research Center.

The digital collection of more than 800 images showcases Gorelik’s work in all stages of production, from early rough drawings to finished designs. In addition to set and costume renderings for Broadway shows, the collection includes production photographs, color samples and analyses, storyboards for motion pictures such as Days of Glory and None But the Lonely Heart, and diagrams and illustrations from his unpublished manuscript The Scenic Imagination.

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