Samuel Shepard Rogers III was an American actor, playwright, author, director and screenwriter whose career spanned half a century. He won 10 Obie Awards for writing and directing, the most by any writer or director. He wrote 58 plays as well as several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs. Shepard received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of pilot Chuck Yeager in the 1983 film The Right Stuff. He received the PEN/Laura Pels Theater Award as a master American dramatist in 2009. New York magazine described Shepard as "the greatest American playwright of his generation."
The Open Theater was an experimental theatre group in New York City, active from 1963 to 1973.
Joseph Chaikin was an American theatre director, actor, playwright, and pedagogue.
Robert Woodruff is an American theater director.
Elizabeth Swados was an American writer, composer, musician, choreographer, and theatre director. Swados received Tony Award nominations for Best Musical, Best Direction of a Musical, Best Book of a Musical, Best Original Score, and Best Choreography. She was nominated for Drama Desk Awards for Outstanding Director of a Musical, Outstanding Lyrics, and Outstanding Music, and won an Obie Award for her direction of Runaways in 1978. In 1980, the Hobart and William Smith Colleges awarded her an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters.
The Great Jones Repertory Company is the Repertory Company of La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in the East Village of Manhattan, New York City.
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club is an Off-Off-Broadway theater founded in 1961 by African-American theatre director, producer, and fashion designer Ellen Stewart. Located in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, the theater began in the basement boutique where Stewart sold her fashion designs. Stewart turned the space into a theater at night, focusing on the work of young playwrights.
Marguerite Duffy, known professionally as Megan Terry, was an American playwright, screenwriter, and theatre artist.
Corner Theatre E.T.C. was an experimental theater located in Baltimore, Maryland, existing from 1968 to 1987 as a nonprofit cultural organization.
A Red Orchid Theatre is an Equity theatre company located in the Old Town district of Chicago, founded in 1993 by Michael Shannon, Guy Van Swearingen IV, and Lawrence Grimm. Kirsten Fitzgerald, a long-time ensemble member, has helmed the company as Artistic Director since 2008.
Theatre Genesis was an off-off-Broadway theater founded in 1964 by Ralph Cook. Located in the historic St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery in the East Village of Manhattan, it produced the work of new American playwrights, including Lanford Wilson, Tony Barsha, Murray Mednick, Leonard Melfi, Walter Hadler, and Sam Shepard. Theatre Genesis is often credited as one of the original off-off-Broadway theaters, along with Joe Cino's Caffe Cino, Ellen Stewart's La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, and Judson Poets Theatre.
Ain Gordon is an American playwright, theatrical director and actor based in New York City. His work frequently deals with the interstices of history, focusing on people and events which are often overlooked or marginalized in history. His style combines elements of traditional playwrighting with aspects of performance art.
Jean-Claude van Itallie was a Belgian-born American playwright, performer, and theatre workshop teacher. He is best known for his 1966 anti-Vietnam War play America Hurrah;The Serpent, an ensemble play he wrote with Joseph Chaikin's Open Theatre; his theatrical adaptation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead; and his translations of Anton Chekhov's plays.
Spiderwoman Theater is an Indigenous women's performance troupe that blends traditional art forms with Western theater. Named after Spider Grandmother from Hopi mythology, it is the longest running Indigenous theatre company in the United States.
Barbara Vann was an American theatre director and actor, best known for co-founding the Off-Off-Broadway company the Medicine Show Theater Ensemble, one of the longest continually running experimental theater companies in New York City. She was also a founding member of The Open Theater, an early, New York City-based experimental theater group.
Jonathan Slaff is an American theater publicist specializing in new work and actor best known for comedic parts and appearances in television commercials.
Luke Leonard is an American theatre director, designer, actor, playwright, and filmmaker whose work has been described as "outstanding" by The New York Times and "sophisticated and thought-provoking" by Limelight Magazine. He is the Founding Artistic Director of Monk Parrots, a New York City-based not-for-profit that produces new theatre, music theatre, and opera.
Martha Boesing is an American theater director and playwright. She was the founding artistic director of the Minneapolis experimental feminist theater collective At the Foot of the Mountain.
The Women's Interart Center was a New York City-based multidisciplinary arts organization conceived as an artists' collective in 1969 and formally delineated in 1970 under the auspices of Women Artists in Revolution (WAR) and Feminists in the Arts. In 1971, it found a permanent home on Manhattan's far West Side.
When the World was Green is a play by Sam Shepard and Joseph Chaikin published in 2007. One of four genre works, the other collaborations include: Tongues (play), Savage/Love and The War in Heaven. In a similar vein, Shepard collaborated with Patti Smith on Cowboy Mouth (play). An extension of the avant-garde theatre, these experimental works provide a framework for dramatic expression.
