Donald R. Seawell, Founder of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Dies at 103

Donald R. Seawell, founder and chairman emeritus of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, died on September 30. He was 103.

A native of North Carolina and a graduate of the University of North Carolina, Seawell studied law and came to Washington, D.C., as an early staff member of the Securities and Exchange Commission. He joined the War Department and the Department of Justice at the outbreak of World War II, serving as Director of the Anti-Subversion Division of the Justice Department and Executive Secretary of the Combined American and British Intelligence Organizations.

In 1943, he entered the armed services and served on the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF). As part of SHAEF, he reported to General Eisenhower and participated in planning for D-Day, working with the British on diversionary tactics. After V-E day, he transferred to the Judge Advocate General’s Department to argue veterans’ reemployment rights before the United States Supreme Court. He later began a private practice in New York.

As head of his firm’s corporate and international divisions, Seawell became increasingly involved in theater, representing clients including Ruth Draper, Noël Coward, Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, Tallulah Bankhead, Howard Lindsay, and Russel Crouse, among others. He began producing or coproducing a number of productions on Broadway and in London, including Thurber Carnival, Noël Coward’s Sail Away, The Affair, The Beast in Me, Slow Dance on the Killing Ground, and dozens more Lunt-Fontanne hits, as well as other shows, television projects, and motion-picture productions.

In 1962, he directed and presented the Royal Shakespeare Company production of The Hollow Crown on Broadway and on tour. In 1964, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth, he brought RSC’s King Lear and The Comedy of Errors to the New York State Theatre.

In 1966, Seawell became president and CEO of The Denver Post after working with Helen G. Bonfils (the paper's principal owner) on a number of Broadway shows and other ventures. He soon became a full-time Denver resident, and by December 1974, ground was broken on his not-for-profit Denver Center for the Performing Arts (DCPA).

While chairman of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Seawell oversaw the pre-Broadway debut of Disney’s The Little Mermaid, the national tour launches of Disney’s The Lion King and Sunset Boulevard, and the world-premiere productions of Quilters, The Laramie Project, and the 10-part epic production of Tantalus. In 1998, he accepted the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre on behalf of the DCPA Theatre Company.

Seawell was an Honorary Governor of the Royal Shakespeare Company and was an early and vigorous proponent for the creation of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). He testified before Congress on behalf of funding for the NEA and for its sister agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and served on the NEA’s theater panel.

In 2002, Seawell received the Honorary Award of Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (O.B.E.) from Queen Elizabeth. He was also honored by the city of Denver in 2004 with a Mayor’s Award, and in 2006, he was inducted into Broadway’s Theater Hall of Fame.

Seawell, stepped down as full-time chairman of the DCPA in 2007 to be succeeded by Daniel L. Ritchie, though he continued to actively serve as chairman emeritus of the Helen G. Bonfils Foundation, the DCPA, and American National Theatre and Academy until his death.

In 1941, Seawell married actor Eugenia Rawls, who died in 2000. He is survived by their children Brockman Seawell and Brook Ashley, a granddaughter Brett Wilbur, and three great-grandchildren.