Elizabeth LeCompte (born April 28, 1944) is an American director of

experimental theater Experimental theatre (also known as avant-garde theatre), inspired largely by Wagner's concept of Gesamtkunstwerk, began in Western theatre in the late 19th century with Alfred Jarry and his Ubu plays as a rejection of both the age in particular ...

dance 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 repertoire ...

, and media. A founding member of The Wooster Group, she has directed that ensemble since its emergence in the late 1970s.Mitter, Shomit, and Maria Shevtsova, ed. (2004) ''Fifty Key Theatre Directors''. London: Routledge.

Life and career

LeCompte was born and grew up in

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delawa ...

. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Fine Arts from

Skidmore College Skidmore College is a private liberal arts college in Saratoga Springs, New York. Approximately 2,650 students are enrolled at Skidmore pursuing a Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science degree in one of more than 60 areas of study. Histo ...

. She met director and actor

Willem Dafoe Willem James Dafoe (; born July 22, 1955) is an American actor. He is the recipient of various accolades, including the Volpi Cup for Best Actor, in addition to receiving nominations for four Academy Awards, four Screen Actors Guild Awards, t ...

The Performance Group The Performance Group (TPG) was an experimental theater troupe that Richard Schechner founded in 1967 in New York City. TPG's home base was the Performing Garage in the SoHo district of Lower Manhattan. After 1975, tensions led to Schechner's res ...

and began a professional and personal relationship. Their son, Jack, was born in 1982. With The Wooster Group, she has composed, designed, and directed over forty works for theater, dance, film and video, starting with ''Sakonnet Point'' in 1975. These works characteristically interweave performance with multimedia technologies and are strongly influenced by historical and contemporary visual arts and architecture. She is known both for taking apart and reworking classics such as ''

Hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

'', ''

The Emperor Jones ''The Emperor Jones'' is a 1920 tragic play by American dramatist Eugene O'Neill that tells the tale of Brutus Jones, a resourceful, self-assured African American and a former Pullman porter, who kills another black man in a dice game, is jailed, ...

'', and '' The Hairy Ape'' as well as constructing new works from scratch. Prior to her work with The Wooster Group, she was a member of the experimental theater company

from 1970 to 1975. Subsequently, LeCompte and

Spalding Gray Spalding Gray (June 5, 1941 – January 11, 2004) was an American actor, novelist, playwright, screenwriter and performance artist. He is best known for the autobiographical monologues that he wrote and performed for the theater in the 1980s a ...

founded The Wooster Group, along with

Jim Clayburgh Jim Clayburgh (born 23 May 1949) is a scenic designer. He was a founding member of The Wooster Group and served as the group's resident designer from 1975 to 1994. He currently lives in Brussels, Belgium, where he founded the company JOJI INC with ...

, Peyton Smith, Kate Valk, and Ron Vawter. For her work with these groups, LeCompte was included in Mitter and Shevtsova's 2004 volume discussing 50 influential theater directors around the world. Other writers consistently include her in the lineage of experimental theater artists that passes through Meyerhold and Grotowski to the present generation of "postdramatic" theater makers. As a ''New Yorker'' writer put it: "Luminaries of the theatrical avant-garde— Richard Foreman, Robert Wilson, and

Peter Sellars Peter Sellars (born September 27, 1957) is an American theatre director, noted for his unique contemporary stagings of classical and contemporary operas and plays. Sellars is professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), whe ...

among them—describe her as first among equals". LeCompte has lectured and taught at American University, the Art Institute of Chicago, Columbia University, Connecticut College, the Lincoln Center Theatre Directors Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York University, Northeastern University, the O’Neill Center, Smith College, the University of London, and the Yale School of Drama. In 2018, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' critics ranked ''House/Lights'' the 16th greatest American play since ''

Angels in America ''Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes'' is a two-part play by American playwright Tony Kushner. The work won numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Tony Award for Best Play, and the Drama Desk Award f ...

''.

Awards

Among her honors, LeCompte has received the National Endowment for the Arts Distinguished Artists Fellowship for Lifetime Achievement in the American Theater, the

MacArthur Fellowship The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 indi ...

, the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres from the French Cultural Ministry, a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the art ...

, a

Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropy, philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, aft ...

Fellowship, a United States Artists Fellowship, an Anonymous Was A Woman Award, the Theater Practitioner Award from Theatre Communications Group, The Skowhegan Medal for Performance, a Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Performance Artist Award and honorary doctorates from 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. NSS ...

and the

California Institute of the Arts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private art university in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for students of both ...

. She was included in the 1993

Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, United States. The event began as an annual exhibition ...

. She won the 2016 Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize.

Wooster Group works made by LeCompte

Theater

Three Places in Rhode Island

* ''Sakonnet Point'' (1975) * ''Rumstick Road'' (1977) * ''Nayatt School'' (1978) * ''Point Judith (an epilog)'' (1979)

The Road to Immortality

* ''Route 1 & 9'' (1981) * ''L.S.D. (…Just the High Points…)'' (1984) * ''Frank Dell’s The Temptation of St. Antony'' (1988) * ''North Atlantic'' (1984, 1999, 2010) * ''Brace Up!'' (1991, 2003) * ''The Emperor Jones'' (1993, 2006) * ''Fish Story'' (1994) * ''The Hairy Ape'' (1996) * ''House/Lights'' (1998, 2005) * ''To You, The Birdie!'' (Phèdre) (2002) * ''Poor Theater'' (2004) * ''Who’s Your Dada?!'' (2006) * ''Hamlet'' (2007, 2012) * ''La Didone'' (2009) * ''Vieux Carré'' (2011) * ''Troilus and Cressida'' (2012) — a collaboration with the

Royal Shakespeare Company The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and produces around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, St ...

; directed by Elizabeth LeCompte and Mark Ravenhill * ''Cry, Trojans! (Troilus & Cressida)'' (2014) * ''Early Shaker Spirituals'' (2014)

Dance

* ''Hula'' (1981) * ''For the Good Times'' (1982) * ''Dances with T.V. and Mic'' (1998) * ''Erase-E(X)'' (2004) (with JoJi Inc.) * ''I Am Jerome Bel'' (2008)

Film and video

* ''Flaubert Dreams of Travel but the Illness of His Mother Prevents It'' (1986) * ''Today I Must Sincerely Congratulate You'' (1991) * ''White Homeland Commando'' (1992) * ''Rhyme ’Em to Death'' (1994) * ''The Emperor Jones'' (DVD - 1999) * ''House/Lights'' (DVD - 2004) * ''There Is Still Time . . Brother'' (installation - 2007) * ''Brace Up!'' (DVD - 2009) * ''Dailies'' (2010 - present) * ''To You, The Birdie! (Phèdre)'' (DVD - 2011) * ''Rumstick Road'' (DVD - 2013)

Radio-audio

* ''The Emperor Jones'' (BBC Radio 3 play - 1998) * ''Racine’s Phèdre'' (BBC Radio 3 play - 2000)

Personal life

In 1977 LeCompte began a relationship with actor

. They never married and ended their relationship in 2004 after 27 years. The couple have one son, Jack.

References

External links

*
The Wooster Group website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lecompte, Elizabeth 1944 births Living people MacArthur Fellows Skidmore College alumni