Herbert Blau

A director and theoretician of performance, Herbert Blau (b. 1926) is professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Washington. As co-founder of The Actor's Workshop in San Francisco (1952-1965) and co-director of the Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center in New York (1965-68), Blau introduced American audiences to avant-garde drama in some of this country's very first productions of Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, and Harold Pinter including the legendary 1957 performance of Beckett's Waiting for Godot at California's San Quentin State Prison. He extended the challenges of such cutting-edge work as artistic director of the experimental group KRAKEN (1968-1981). The two books that emerged from that work—"Take Up the Bodies: Theater at the Vanishing Point" (University of Illinois Press, 1982) and "Blooded Thought: Occasions of Theater" (Performing Arts Journal Publications, 1982)—received the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism and became seminal books in the developing field of performance theory. Blau's most recent book is "The Dubious Spectacle: Extremities of Theater" (University of Minnesota Press, 2002). His first is "The Impossible Theater: A Manifesto" (Macmillan Company, 1964). In addition to the theater, Blau has taken up the subjects of literature, visual arts, fashion, postmodern culture and politics.

References

*Marranca, Bonnie and Gautam Dasgupta. "The Play of Thought: An Interview with Herbert Blau," "Performing Arts Journal" 14:3 (September, 1992): 1-32.

External links

* [http://www.ibdb.com/person.asp?ID=6263 Internet Broadway Database]
* [http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/katz/20042005/herbert_blau.html Audio and video from Herbert Blau's 2004 lecture, "The Right Side of the Tracks, from "As If: An Autobiography"]

Persondata
NAME=Blau, Herbert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=Blau, Herb
SHORT DESCRIPTION=American director and theoretician of performance