Artifacts x NYU Skirball

Raised in Cicero, Illinois, JoAnne Akalaitis (June 29, 1937 – ) went from pre-med studies at the University of Chicago and philosophy at Stanford, dropping out before graduation to pursue theater in the Bay Area. Her work with the San Francisco Mime Troupe signaled a life-long interest in political theater. While studying with Jerzy Grotowski in Paris, she grew close to Philip Glass, marrying in 1965. With Lee Breuer, Ruth Malaczech and David Warrilow, they founded the seminal performance collective Mabou Mines in 1970. Akalaitis’s career as a director has spanned many genres and theater companies, and she has been given five Obie Awards.  JoAnne Akalaitis succeeded Joe Papp as the artistic director of the Public Theater (1991-1993).

After studying theater at Brown and Yale, Richard Foreman (1937 – 2025) settled in Soho during its early art years.  Scoffing at Broadway theater, he found a handful of productions that inspired him—notably at The Living Theater—but felt greater kinship with Jonas Mekas’s Filmmakers Cooperative. Foreman created the Ontological-Hysteric Theater in 1968, and its productions of Foreman’s gnomic plays resembled no other—non-narrative, rooted in the process of the mind, deliberately alienating in its presentation of harsh noise, complex sets, and non-lifelike acting. Richard Foreman has won three Obie Awards and written more than fifty plays.

Lorraine O’Grady (September 21, 1934 – December 13, 2024) grew up in Boston, studied at Wellesley College and the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. Her circuitous route to becoming an artist at the age of 45 included writing rock music critic for Rolling Stone, translation, and teaching at the School of Visual Arts.  Exploring such seminal galleries as Just Above Midtown, and becoming a regular at performance nights at Franklin Furnace, she moved towards an art career. In the 1980s, she created her legendary persona, Mlle Bourgeoise Noire.  Lorraine received great attention in her later years: her writings were collected, she received exhibitions at the Studio Museum and the Brooklyn Museum. Lorraine was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship at the age of 89.

This conversation with Artifacts was Lorraine O’Grady’s final in-depth video interview. It was recorded at O’Grady’s Westbeth studio in June 2024, less than six months before her death, by Artifacts Founder Steven Watson and Franklin Furnace Founder Martha Wilson.

The large-looming position of Richard Schechner (born 1934 in Newark, New Jersey) in the world of theater is multi-dimensional. As a director, performance theoretician, pioneer in environmental theater, founder of the Performance Studies department at New York University, and investigator of ritual and performance internationally. Throughout much of his career, beginning in 1962, he has edited The Drama Review, a seminal publication that expands concepts of theater. Instrumental in bringing Jerzy Grotowski’s teaching to New York, Richard Schechner founded the Performance Group in 1967, culminating in its production Dionysus in 69, and then morphing into the Wooster Group.

Andrei Serban (June 21, 1943 – ) is best known for reimagining classic texts and operas through experimental  means. As a child in Romania, he sought an alternative to the repressive Communist regime in puppet shows, the church, music, and theater. In his early 20s, he staged revolutionary productions of Shakespeare and Alfred Jarry. Ellen Stewart, founder of La Mama engineered a Ford Foundation grant to bring him to New York in 1969. This began a rich collaboration at La Mama, notably his Fragments of a Greek Trilogy. Peter Brook invited him to join his International Centre for Theatre Research, which stripped language to its essence and experimented with sound. In his initial year at Lincoln Center, Joe Papp invited Serban to direct Chekhov. Over his long and continuing career, Serban has worked in scores of theaters and opera houses internationally, from The Metropolitan Opera to the Comédie Française. He taught at Columbia University for 27 years.

Kate Valk (born March 6, 1957) has been a central member of The Wooster Group since 1979. Raised with little access to the arts, she moved to New York at nineteen and studied with Stella Adler before encountering the Wooster Group through classes they taught at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Welcomed into the company by Elizabeth LeCompte, Valk filled any role required—sewing costumes, building props, stage managing, transcribing—before making her acting debut in Route 1 & 9.

Alongside founding figures such as Willem Dafoe, Ron Vawter, and Spalding Gray, Valk has appeared in nearly every Wooster Group production since 1981, including Hamlet, The Hairy Ape, Brace Up!, and House/Lights. Now also a director, she continues her fifth decade with the company, with no plans of slowing down.

Robert Wilson (October 4, 1941 – July 31, 2025) was a visionary force in experimental theater and opera, beginning in the late 1960s and continuing to the weeks before his death. His productions were often grand in scale, creating magical stage images from light and space, directing performers in a disciplined score of movement that reflected his aesthetic. He collaborated widely with figures as varied as Tom Waits, Lady Gaga, William Burroughs, Lucinda Childs, Willem Dafoe, and Jessye Norman. Originally from Waco, he relocated to New York to study architecture and work with children diagnosed as brain-damaged.  In 1968, he started a group of called the Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds, whose members participated in his early epic works, often produced at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He gained renown for Einstein on the Beach, his collaboration with Philip Glass, and became a prolific director and designer, often more appreciated in Europe than the United States.