Maria Ley-Piscator (born Friederike Flora Czada, 1 August 1898 – 14 October 1999) is best known as the wife of

Erwin Piscator Erwin Friedrich Maximilian Piscator (17 December 1893 – 30 March 1966) was a German theatre director and producer. Along with Bertolt Brecht, he was the foremost exponent of epic theatre, a form that emphasizes the socio-political content of ...

(1893–1966), Germany's famous left-wing

theater director A theatre director or stage director is a professional in the theatre field who oversees and orchestrates the mounting of a theatre production such as a play, opera, dance, drama, musical theatre performance, etc. by unifying various endeavors a ...

. Born on 1 August 1898 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary (now Austria), Maria Ley sought to create a theatrical career for herself as a

dancer Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoi ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

and

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

. Later, she turned to

choreography Choreography is the art or practice of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which Motion (physics), motion or Visual appearance, form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design ...

and helped in several stage productions with

Max Reinhardt Max Reinhardt (; born Maximilian Goldmann; 9 September 1873 – 30 October 1943) was an Austrian-born Theatre director, theatre and film director, theater manager, intendant, and theatrical producer. With his innovative stage productions, he i ...

, including ''

A Midsummer Night's Dream ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' is a comedy written by William Shakespeare 1595 or 1596. The play is set in Athens, and consists of several subplots that revolve around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. One subplot involves a conflict amon ...

''. Maria Ley also studied literature at the

Sorbonne Sorbonne may refer to: * Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities. *the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970) *one of its components or linked institution, ...

, where she met Erwin Piscator (her third husband) during his exile in 1936. After marrying in Paris, the couple moved to Manhattan in 1939, where they founded the

Dramatic Workshop Dramatic Workshop was the name of a drama and acting school associated with the New School for Social Research in New York City. It was launched in 1940 by German expatriate stage director Erwin Piscator. Among the faculty were Lee Strasberg and Ste ...

at the

New School for Social Research The New School for Social Research (NSSR) is a graduate-level educational institution that is one of the divisions of The New School in New York City, United States. The university was founded in 1919 as a home for progressive era thinkers. NSSR ...

. Their students included

Harry Belafonte Harry Belafonte (born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.; March 1, 1927) is an American singer, activist, and actor. As arguably the most successful Jamaican-American pop star, he popularized the Trinbagonian Caribbean musical style with an interna ...

Marlon Brando Marlon Brando Jr. (April 3, 1924 – July 1, 2004) was an American actor. Considered one of the most influential actors of the 20th century, he received numerous accolades throughout his career, which spanned six decades, including two Academ ...

and

Tony Randall Anthony Leonard Randall (born Aryeh Leonard Rosenberg; February 26, 1920 – May 17, 2004) was an American actor. He is best known for portraying the role of Felix Unger in a television adaptation of the 1965 play ''The Odd Couple'' by Neil Sim ...

. Ley-Piscator directed several theatrical productions off Broadway. During the 1970s she worked as a teacher at the

Southern Illinois University Carbondale Southern Illinois University (SIU or SIUC) is a public research university in Carbondale, Illinois. Founded in 1869, SIU is the oldest and flagship campus of the Southern Illinois University system. The university enrolls students from all 50 s ...

and at

Stony Brook University Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public research university in Stony Brook, New York. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State University of New York system's ...

. Filmmaker

Rosa von Praunheim Holger Bernhard Bruno Mischwitzky (born Holger Radtke; 25 November 1942), known professionally as Rosa von Praunheim, is a German film director, author, painter and one of the most famous gay rights activists in the German-speaking world. In ov ...

portrayed her in his film ''

Dolly, Lotte and Maria ''Dolly, Lotte and Maria'' (German: ''Dolly, Lotte und Maria'') is a 1987 German documentary film directed by Rosa von Praunheim. The film recounts the lives of Lotte Goslar, Dolly Haas and Maria Ley-Piscator, three German women performers who ...

'' (1987). Ley-Piscator lived at 17 East 76th Street, sometimes called the Piscator House, where Erwin and she had made a home prior to his return to Europe in the 1950s. Even after Erwin's death, Maria remained a fixture in NYC cultural circles. In 1988. encountering the 90-year-old matron of the arts at a reception at the former Goethe-Institut New York building at 1014 Fifth Avenue, journalist Claudia Steinberg described Ley-Piscator as a "tiny, delicate lady in the lilac velvet suit" who "continues to philosophize in whispers about the interplay between art and life." Ley-Piscator died in New York in 1999 at the age of 101.

Works

* Ley-Piscator, Maria. 1954. ''Lot's Wife''. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill. * Ley-Piscator, Maria. 1967. ''The Piscator Experiment: The Political Theatre''. New York: Heineman. Revised edition. Carbondale: Southern Illinois U P, 1970. .

Other sources

* Rutkoff, Peter M. 1986. "Politics on Stage. Piscator and the Dramatic Workshop." ''New School: a History of the New School for Social Research''. Ed. Peter M. Rutkoff and William B. Scott. New York: Macmillan. 172–195. .

References

External links

Short biography
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ley-Piscator, Maria 1898 births 1999 deaths Austrian female dancers Dancers from Vienna Austrian emigrants to France Modernist theatre University of Paris alumni French emigrants to the United States