Samuel Shepard Rogers III was an American playwright, actor, director, screenwriter, and author whose career spanned half a century. He wrote 58 plays as well as several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs. He won 10 Obie Awards for writing and directing, the most by any writer or director. 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 Living Theatre is an American theatre company founded in 1947 and based in New York City. It is the oldest experimental theatre group in the United States. For most of its history it was led by its founders, actress Judith Malina and painter/poet Julian Beck. After Beck's death in 1985, company member Hanon Reznikov became co-director with Malina; the two were married in 1988. After Malina's death in 2015, her responsibilities were taken over by her son Garrick Maxwell Beck, Tom Walker and Brad Burgess. The Living Theatre and its founders were the subject of the 1983 documentary Signals Through the Flames.
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.
Ma-Yi Theater Company is a professional, not-for-profit, Obie Award and Drama Desk Award-winning theater company based in New York City that was founded in 1989. Ma-Yi Theater is headed by executive director Jorge Ortoll and artistic director Ralph Peña. Some of its recent notable productions include:
Marshall W. Mason is an American theater director, educator, and writer. Mason founded the Circle Repertory Company in New York City and was artistic director of the company for 18 years (1969–1987). He received an Obie Award for Sustained Achievement in 1983. In 2016, he received the Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theater.
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.
The American Place Theatre was founded in 1963 by Wynn Handman, Sidney Lanier, and Michael Tolan at St. Clement's Church, 423 West 46th Street in Hell's Kitchen, New York City, and was incorporated as a not-for-profit theatre in that year. Tennessee Williams and Myrna Loy were two of the original board members.
Marguerite Duffy, known professionally as Megan Terry, was an American playwright, screenwriter, and theatre artist.
Signature Theatre Company is an American theatre based in Manhattan, New York. It was founded in 1991 by James Houghton and is now led by Artistic Director Emily Shooltz. Signature is known for their season-long focus on one artist's work. It has been located in the Pershing Square Signature Center since 2012.
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.
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.
Sheila Dabney is an American actress, best known for her co-starring role in the 1987 lesbian feminist film She Must Be Seeing Things alongside Lois Weaver and directed by Sheila McLaughlin.
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.
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.
