Biography
Mary Elizabeth "Emmy" (Jonas) Gifford (1910-1997) was an artist, costumer, and theatrical set designer. She was one of the founders of the Omaha Junior Theater in 1948. The theater continues today as the Omaha Theater Company (commonly called The Rose Theater), and from 1977 until 1993, it bore her name as the Emmy Gifford Children's Theater. Emmy Gifford painted the murals for the (then new) Omaha Community Playhouse in 1959. The Museum of Nebraska Art holds "36 works by Emmy Gifford including detailed journals of her travels with husband Hal and her family and meticulously executed paper dolls that document the fashions of her time." (https://mona.unk.edu/collection/gifford.shtml)
Sister of Carl Jonas. Wife of Harold "Hal" Gifford, Jr.
A more detailed biography is available from the Museum of Nebraska Art (MONA): https://mona.unk.edu/collection/gifford.shtml
Found in 2 Collections and/or Records:
Collection — Multiple Containers
Identifier: MSS-0023
Scope and Contents
The Carl Jonas Papers hold the works of Omaha, Nebraska, novelist Carl S. Jonas. The manuscript portion of the collection includes typed novels and works-in-progress with hand-written corrections, including two versions of a novel entitled The X Family, an incomplete draft of The Deer and the Antelope Play, and three incomplete, untitled novels.New material added 2015-10-29: The papers of Carl Jonas include manuscripts of his...
Dates:
1928-1976
Collection
Identifier: MSS-0010
Scope and Contents
The Omaha Theater Company Records contain materials from 1949 to the present, documenting the history of the organization, its administration, and its productions. The organization changed names during the covered period, starting as the Omaha Junior Theater in 1948, becoming the Emmy Gifford Children's Theater in 1977, and becoming the Omaha Theater Company for Young People in 1993, eventually shortening the name to the Omaha Theater Company. The group performed in the Center Theater...
Dates:
1949 - 2014