Sir Noël Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, best appreciated for his wit, flamboyance, and what TIME magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise". He composed hundreds of songs, in addition to well over a dozen musical theatre works, often singing or performing them on stage, in films and on the gramophone.

Coward won an Academy Honorary Award for his naval film drama, In Which We Serve, and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

Notable Broadway works include The Vortex (Henry Miller’s Theatre), Fallen Angels (49th Street Theatre), Hay Fever (Maxine Elliott’s Theatre), Private Lives (Times Square Theatre), Design for Living (Ethel Barrymore Theatre), Present Laughter (Plymouth Theatre), and Blithe Spirit (Booth Theatre).

The former Albery Theatre (originally the New Theatre) in London was renamed the Noël Coward Theatre in his honor.