Lena Ashwell was a British actress and acting manager, known as the first to organize large-scale entertainment for troops at the front, which she did during World War I.
Background
Born Lena Margaret Pocock on the 28th of September, 1872 in River Tyne, United Kingdom, she was the daughter of Commander Pocock and the sister of Roger Pocock, founder of the Legion of Frontiersmen. She grew up in Canada, and studied music in both Lausanne and at the Royal Academy of Music in London.
Education
Lena Ashwell attended the Royal Academy of Music.
Career
Lena Ashwell's voice however was insufficient for performance and she took up acting instead. She went on to appear in a number of Shakespeare productions, in Quo Vadis (1900), and as the lead in Mrs Dane's Defence (1900) and Leah Kleschna (1905). Playfair and Ashwell finally divorced in 1908.
In 1906, Ashwell starred in The Shulamite, a melodrama about a South African woman in an unhappy marriage who falls in love with a visiting Englishman. The show ran for 45 performances at the Savoy Theatre between 12 May and 26 June 1906. Ashwell took the play to the USA, where it ran for just 25 performances at the Lyric Theatre on Broadway.
Beginning in 1906, Ashwell took up theatre management, initially at the Savoy Theatre, then in 1907 she established her own theatre known as the Kingsway. During the First World War she was an enthusiastic supporter of British war aims : in 1915, she began to organize companies of actors, singers and entertainers to travel to France and perform. By the end of the war there were 25 of them, travelling in small groups around France.
Lena Ashwell also organized all-male concert parties to perform shows near to the front line. In her writings about this experience she emphasized that ordinary soldiers had been enthusiastic about high culture - in particular, Shakespeare plays.