Lemuel Ayers
Lemuel Ayers (January 22, 1915, New York City, New York - August 14, 1955, New York City was an American costume designer, scenic designer, lighting designer, and producer who had a prolific career on Broadway from 1939 until his death from cancer in 1955 at the age of 40. He designed sets for a total of 30 Broadway plays and musicals during his career, including both the original 1943 production and 1951 revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Pulitzer Prize winning musical Oklahoma!. Ayers also designed both costumes and sets for several productions, including St. Louis Woman (1946), My Darlin' Aida (1952), Kismet (1953), and The Pajama Game (1954). He served as lighting designer and scenic designer for one production, Harold Arlen's Bloomer Girl (1944), and he designed the entire productions of Song of Norway (1944) and Arthur Schwartz's Inside U.S.A. (1948). He won three Tony Awards in 1949, for the original production of Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate (1948), for which he designed both costumes and sets and worked as producer. He also directed portions of the 1945 musical film Ziegfeld Follies for MGM for which he also served as art director. He also worked as art director for the musical film Meet Me in St. Louis with Judy Garland and directed portions of the musical film Kiss Me Kate (1953).
Biography
Born in New York City, Ayers earned a degree in drama from the University of Iowa and a degree in architecture from Princeton University. He made his Broadway debut as the scenic designer for producer and director Leonard Sillman's 1939 revival of R. C. Sherriff's Journey's End starring Colin Keith-Johnston as Stanhope. That same year he designed sets for a revival of Sidney Howard's They Knew What They Wanted with June Walker as Amy and Douglass Montgomery as Joe.
Ayers remained productively engaged on Broadway for the next sixteen years. He designed sets for the Broadway productions of Robert Wallsten and Mignon G. Eberhart's Eight O'Clock Tuesday (1941), Max Catto's They Walk Alone (1941), James Edward Grant's Plan M (1942), Norma Mitchell and John Harris's Autumn Hill (1942), S. N. Behrman's The Pirate (1942), Norman Armstrong's Lifeline (1942), John Patrick's The Willow and I (1942), Florence Ryerson's Harriet (1943), Rodgers and Hammerstein's landmark production ofOklahoma! (1943, and the 1951 revival), Ernest Pascal's Peepshow (1944), and Tennessee Williams's Camino Real (1953). He designed both sets and costumes for the Broadway productions of Shakespeare's As You Like It (1941), Shakespeare's Macbeth (1942), Patrick Hamilton's Angel Street (1943), Harold Arlen's St. Louis Woman (1946), Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac (1946), Cole Porter's Out of This World (1950), My Darlin' Aida (1952), Kismet (1953), and The Pajama Game (1954).
Ayers was married to Shirley Osborn. They had two children together, Jonathan Ayers and Sarah Ayers.
After his death from cancer on August 14, 1955 at New York Hospital, his widow and several friends set up the Lemuel Ayers Cancer Research Fund in lieu of a memorial.
His widow said she hoped the fund, which was to be administered by the New York Hospital, would "help prevent other tragic wastes of life and talent by incurable types of cancer."
Here is an anecdote from a book about James Dean.
In August, as summer reached its peak and the city turned into a drab desert of concrete, another opportunity shimmered on the horizon like an oasis, and with that strange combination of luck and guile that had propelled him through life thus far, Dean was quick to reach for it.
He was offered a job as a deckhand aboard a yacht chartered by Lemuel Ayers, a friend of Rogers Brackett. A charming and talented Princeton graduate, Ayers was a well known set designer and had co-produced Cole Porter's Kiss Me Kate. He was then preparing a new play for Broadway, See the Jaguar, by N. Richard Nash.
Although Ayers was part of the homosexual circle that swirled around Brackett and his friends, the producer lived with his wife and two children in an old Victorian house near Nyack, New York. Brackett and Dean sometimes spent weekends there, where Jimmy enjoyed himself entertaining Ayers's young children, Sarah and Jonathan.
Although Brackett had already suggested Dean for a part in Ayers's new play, the producer felt he lacked experience. But the job as deckhand was open.
Dean joined the crew and the sloop sailed for Martha's Vineyard. Aboard were Ayers, his wife, Shirley, and several guests. The trip lasted almost two weeks; the first day out the weather was bad and the sea turned rough. When the sloop reached New London, several people, including Alec Wilder, decided to get off and return by train. But Dean stayed, enjoying himself, quickly learning about lines and spars, sheets and shrouds---a farm boy turned deckhand. A young Gatsby in the making.
By the time the sloop returned to port, Ayers had been impressed enough by Dean to reconsider his earlier decision. He promised that when See the Jaguar was cast, Dean would be given a reading. Whether he got the part would depend on how well he did.
Amanda S. Stevenson 
