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Del Hughes

American stage manager

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 4, 2026
Entity authorityQ110316786
Source-derived summary

Del Hughes (September 4, 1909 – May 18, 1985) was an American stage manager and director working primarily on Broadway and in television (The Brighter Day, All My Children). Hughes stage managed nearly thirty Broadway productions, some of which he also starred in himself. The Stage Managers' Association has named an award after Del Hughes' legacy on Broadway: "The Del Hughes Award for the Lifetime Achievement in the Art of Stage Management".

Early life

Hughes was born Delbert Charles Hughes to Albert J. Hughes and Lena J. Meilstrup in Detroit, Michigan on September 4, 1909. His father worked as a shipping clerk. He married Julia Johnston on September 3, 1937. They remained married until her death in 1979. Del Hughes never remarried.

Career

Hughes made his Broadway performance debut in 1933 as Captain Tim in Tobacco Road. He made his stage management debut as a replacement in 1941 for the same play.

Editorial summary

“Del Hughes” enters the record as american stage manager. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Hughes, American and stage can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1909, 1985, 1937, 1979—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1909-01-01. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Hughes, American and stage.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Del Hughes” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Hughes, American and stage provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q110316786. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1909, 1985, 1937 and 1979.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Del Hughes”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Del Hughes primary sources, Del Hughes archive and Hughes research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Del Hughes”?
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  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Del Hughes” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.