Taymor was born in Newton, Massachusetts, the daughter of Elizabeth (née Bernstein), a political science professor and Democratic activist, and Melvin Lester Taymor, a gynecologist.[1][2] Taymor's interest in theatre took root early in her life. By age ten, she had joined the Boston Children's Theatre and starred in a number of productions. Being the youngest member of theatre groups became common. By 13, she was taking trips to Boston by herself every weekend, where she discovered Julie Portman's Theatre Workshop. At the age of 15, her parents sent her to both Sri Lanka and India with the Experiment in International Living.[3] After graduating High School at 16, Taymor went to Paris to study with L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq. Her studies there exposed her to mime, which helped develop her physical sensibilities. While in Paris, Taymor worked with masks for the first time and immersed herself in film, especially the work of Fellini and Kurosawa.[3]
In 1970 Taymor was enrolled in Oberlin College in Ohio. During her second year, she interned with Joseph Chaikin's Open Theatre and other companies in New York City. Hearing that director Herbert Blau was moving to Oberlin, she returned there and auditioned successfully, becoming, once again, the youngest member of a troupe. In 1973, Taymor attended a summer program of the American Society for Eastern Arts in Seattle. The instructors were masters of Indonesian topeng masked dance-drama and wayang kulit shadow puppetry. This would prove to have a great effect on Taymor in later years. Taymor graduated from Oberlin College with a major in mythology and folklore and with Phi Beta Kappa honors in 1974. She spent a summer with Bread and Puppet Theater.[4]
As a college senior, Taymor won a year long Thomas J. Watson Fellowship that began after graduation. The Watson allowed her to travel to Japan and Indonesia which she continued independently from 1975 until 1979. In Indonesia, she developed a mask/dance company, Teatr Loh, consisting of Japanese, Balinese, Sundanese, French, German and American actors, musicians, dancers and puppeteers. The company toured throughout Indonesia with two original productions, Way of Snow and Tirai, which were subsequently performed in the United States. She met her long-time collaborator, Elliot Goldenthal, in 1980.
Back in New York from Indonesia, Taymor remounted Tirai at La MaMa in 1980. Her next project, The Haggadah, came from the desire of The Public Theater director Joseph Papp to create an annual Passover pageant that would be culturally inclusive. In 1984, Taymor worked in collaboration with Theatre for a New Audience on a 60-minute version of A Midsummer Night's Dream presented at The Public Theater. Two years later, she directed her first Shakespeare play, The Tempest, for Theatre for a New Audience. She went on to direct three other productions at that theatre, including The Taming of the Shrew, Titus Andronicus and The Green Bird by Carlo Gozzi. She later adapted Tempest and Titus into major motion pictures.
Taymor is known for a distinct visual style, with extensive use of puppets and masks, developed largely from her time in Indonesia working with Teatr Loh.[5]
Taymor is most widely recognized for her production of The Lion King, which opened on Broadway in 1997. The Lion King's worldwide gross exceeds that of any entertainment title in box office history, and has been presented in over 100 cities in over 20 countries, having been seen by more than 100 million people worldwide.[6][7]
Taymor has the distinction of being the first woman to receive the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical, which she won for The Lion King.[6] She also received a Tony Award for her original costume designs for the production. Taymor co-designed the masks and puppets, and wrote additional lyrics for the show.[8] In 2007, The Lion King was performed in Johannesburg, and had its first French language production in Paris. In 2008, Le Roi Lion was awarded Best Costume Design, Best Lighting Design, and Best Musical at the Molière Awards, the national theatre awards of France.[9]
In 2000, Taymor directed Carlo Gozzi's The Green Bird on Broadway. The work was first produced in 1996 by Theatre for a New Audience at the New Victory Theater and presented at the La Jolla Playhouse.[10] Taymor's stage production of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus was produced off-Broadway by Theatre for a New Audience in 1994. Other directing credits include The Tempest, The Taming of the Shrew, The Transposed Heads, based on the novella by Thomas Mann, co-produced by the American Musical Theater Festival and the Lincoln Center; and Liberty's Taken, an original musical co-created with David Suehsdorf and Elliot Goldenthal.
Her original music-theatre work, Juan Darién: A Carnival Mass, presented at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theater in 1996, received five Tony Award nominations including Best Director. Originally produced by Music Theater Group in 1988, Juan Darién: A Carnival Mass was directed by Taymor, and co-written with Elliot Goldenthal. The recipient of two Obies and numerous other awards, the piece was performed at The Edinburgh International Festival, as well as festivals in France, Jerusalem and Montreal, and had an extended run in San Francisco.[11]
In April 2007, it was announced that a musical adaptation of Spider-Man was being prepared for Broadway. Taymor was selected to direct the show and write the book with Glen Berger. The production features music and lyrics by Bono and The Edge. The musical, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, was scheduled to begin previews on November 28, 2010, at the Foxwoods Theatre. The play was delayed for several months due to numerous injuries, and Taymor was fired and replaced by Philip William McKinley. The play officially opened on June 14, 2011, having set the record for the longest preview period in the history of Broadway at 182 performances. The production also set the record for most expensive Broadway production at an estimated $75 million.[12] In November 2011, Taymor sued the show's producers, Michael Cohl and Jeremiah J. Harris, claiming that they were profiting from her creative contributions without compensating her.[13] Taymor and the producers reached a settlement in August 2012.[14]
Taymor directed a Broadway revival of David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly, starring Clive Owen, which opened on October 26, 2017, at the Cort Theatre, with previews beginning on October 7. David Henry Hwang made changes to the original text for the revival, mostly centering on the issue of intersectional identities.
Stage production history
Way of Snow (1974–75, 1980) – writer, director, and designer in Java and Bali and The Ark Theater, New York City
Tirai (1978–79, 1981) – writer, director, and designer in Java and Bali and La MaMa, New York City
The Haggadah (1980) – sets, costumes, masks, and puppetry produced for the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater, New York City
Black Elk Lives (1981) – sets, masks, and puppetry produced at Intermedia Theater, New York City
The King Stag (1984) – costumes, masks, puppetry and choreography produced at ART, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Liberty's Taken (1985) – director, masks, and puppetry produced at the Castle Hill Festival, Massachusetts
The Transposed Heads (1984, 1986) – director, masks, and puppetry produced at The Ark Theater, New York City and Lincoln Center
The Tempest (1986, by Shakespeare, abridged) – director, puppetry. produced for Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA) at Classic Stage Company (New York City)
The Taming of the Shrew (1988, by Shakespeare) – director, produced by Theatre For a New Audience
Salome (1995 premiere at Passionstheater, Oberammergau, Germany) directed and choreographed by Taymor and Andreas Liyepa
The Lion King (1997) – director, lyricist for the song "Endless Night", costume designer, co-mask designer, co-puppet designer – Tony Award winner for Best Direction of a Musical, Tony Award co-nomination for Best Original Score, Tony Award winner for Best Costume Design
The Green Bird (1996, 2000) – director, mask designer, puppet designer produced by Theatre for a New Audience at the New Victory Theater (1996), La Jolla, and on Broadway at the Cort Theatre (2000)
The Magic Flute (premiered 2005, opera by Mozart) – director, Metropolitan Opera, New York, live broadcast
The Magic Flute (2006), newly translated and abridged version, Metropolitan Opera, Opera Australia (2012)
A Midsummer Night's Dream (2013) – director, Theatre for a New Audience, Polonsky Shakespeare Center
Grounded (2015) – director, The Public Theater
M. Butterfly (2017) – director, Broadway at the Cort Theatre
Film
Taymor's first film, Fool's Fire, which she co-directed and adapted from Edgar Allan Poe's short story, Hop-Frog, was produced by American Playhouse.[16] The hour-long film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and aired on PBS in March 1992.[17] In the film, all characters except the titular character Hop-Frog are either elaborate puppets or masks, not unlike Taymor's stage work.[18] The film won the Best Drama award at the Tokyo International Electronic Cinema Festival.[19]
Taymor also directed a film adaptation of opera Oedipus rex after directing a stage production of the same opera. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won the Jury Award at the Montreal Festival of Film on Art. Broadcast internationally in 1993, the film garnered an Emmy Award and the 1994 International Classical Music Award for Best Opera Production.[1]
Taymor received critical acclaim for her direction of Salma Hayek and Alfred Molina in Frida (2002), the true story of the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. Frida garnered six Academy Award nominations, including a Best Actress nomination for Hayek, and won two Academy Awards for make-up and original score.[21]Frida was honored with four BAFTA nominations and one win, including nominations for Hayek and Molina, as well as two Golden Globe nominations, winning the Golden Globe for Best Original Score.[22] In addition, the film received two Screen Actors Guild nominations. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival where it won the festival's Mimmo Rotella Foundation Award.[23]
Her next film was the jukebox musicalAcross the Universe (2008), which received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Musical/Comedy as well as an Academy Award for Costume Design.[24] With a collection of 33 Beatles songs, the film stars Evan Rachel Wood and Jim Sturgess in a 1960s love story set to the music of The Beatles, and featured performances by Bono, Joe Cocker, Eddie Izzard and Salma Hayek. Taymor both directed and co-wrote the story for the film.[25]
In June 2006, Taymor directed the premiere of Elliot Goldenthal's opera Grendel for the Los Angeles Opera, starring Eric Owens, which was also presented as part of the Summer 2006 Lincoln Center Festival in New York City.[33] A darkly comic retelling of the Beowulf tale based on the novel by John Gardner, the opera was co-commissioned by the Los Angeles Opera and the Lincoln Center Festival. The opera was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2007.[34]
For the Metropolitan Opera 2005/06 season, Taymor directed a successful production of The Magic Flute. It was revised for the 2006/07 season and, in addition to full-length performances, was adapted for a 100-minute version over the holiday season to appeal to children. That version of the opera was the first of a series of NCM Fathom Live on the Big Screen presentations of MET operas downloaded via satellite to movie theaters across North America and parts of Europe for the 2006/07 season.[35] In 2012, Opera Australia produced this version with locally built scenery and props at the Sydney Opera House, the Arts Centre Melbourne, and the Queensland Performing Arts Centre in Brisbane.[36]
A major retrospective of 25 years of Taymor's work, titled 'Playing With Fire' opened in the fall of 1999 at the Wexner Center for the Arts[37] and toured the National Museum of Women in the Arts (Washington D.C.) in 2000 [38] and the Field Museum of Natural History[39] (Chicago) in 2001, and was extended due to popular demand in each venue.
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George Tsypin is an American stage designer, sculptor and architect. He was an artistic director, production designer and coauthor of the script for the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games in Sochi in 2014.
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The Prince Theater is a non-profit theatrical producing organization located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and specializing in music theatre, including opera, music drama, musical comedy and experimental forms. Founded in 1984 as the American Music Theater Festival by Marjorie Samoff, Eric Salzman and Ron Kaiserman, for the first 15 years AMTF performed in various venues throughout Philadelphia. In March 1999, AMTF moved into the renovated Midtown Theater and changed its name in honor of Broadway producer and director Harold Prince. AMTF/Prince Theater has produced 92 world premieres and has sent 81 productions to theaters in New York and worldwide.
Juan Darién: A Carnival Mass is a musical with music and lyrics by Elliot Goldenthal and a book by Goldenthal and Julie Taymor. The musical premiered Off-Broadway in 1988 in the former St. Clement's Church. It was subsequently reworked and refined before playing on Broadway in 1996 at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre, directed by Taymor. The musical, based on a modern fable of the same name by Horacio Quiroga, is set in the jungle in South America, with a jaunty skeletal Death ever present. Its story concerns an orphaned jaguar cub who is miraculously transformed into a human child by the compassion of a woman who has lost her own baby; the boy must then confront the savagery of human civilization. The production employs masked actors and puppets, and the score includes elements of Latin American folk music and the Requiem Mass. The piece was revived and toured extensively.
Susan Hilferty is an American costume designer for theatre, opera, and film.
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The Tempest is a 2010 American fantasy comedy-drama film based on the 1611 play of the same name by William Shakespeare. In this version, the gender of the main character, Prospero, is changed from male to female; the role was played by Helen Mirren. The film was written and directed by Julie Taymor and premiered at the Venice Film Festival on September 11, 2010.
Anthony Ward is a British theatre designer specializing in set and costume design. He studied theatre design at Wimbledon School of Art.
The Green Bird is a 1765 commedia dell'arte play by Carlo Gozzi. It is a sequel to The Love of Three Oranges. The main plot of The Green Bird has several similarities with the widespread tale The Dancing Water, the Singing Apple, and the Speaking Bird.
Toni-Leslie James is an American costume designer for stage, television and film. James was awarded The Irene Sharaff Young Masters Award and the 2009 Obie Award for Sustained Excellence in Costume Design. She received a BFA in costume design from The Ohio State University. James was an associate professor and head of design in the theatre department of Virginia Commonwealth University for 12 years, and is currently an assistant professor of design and Yale Repertory Theatre resident costume designer for the Yale School of Drama.
Stephen Brimson Lewis is a British scenic designer. Director of Design for the Royal Shakespeare Company, he is also known for his work on the London theatre. He has also designed for opera and film. He won an Olivier Award for Best Set Design in 1995 for his work on Les Parents Terribles and Design for Living. He has also been nominated for a Tony Award and Drama Desk Award.
Thuli Daisy Dumakude is a South-African-born singer-songwriter and Broadway actress. She is best known for having originated the title role in 1983's Poppie Nongena, for which she received the Laurence Olivier Award for Actress of the Year in a New Play in 1984.
G. W. "Skip" Mercier was an American costume, puppet, and set designer. He has designed for over 370 productions of theater, musical theater, opera, dance, film, and television. He is best known for his set and costume designs for Juan Darien: A Carnival Mass in which he received a Tony Award Nomination for Scenery and two Drama Desk Nominations for Scenic Design and Costume Design in 1997. He was a member of the faculty at the University of Washington School of Drama, where he taught scenic design and costume design to both graduate students and undergraduates.
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