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

dance Dance is an The arts, art form, consisting of sequences of body movements with aesthetic and often Symbol, symbolic value, either improvised or purposefully selected. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoir ...

, 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 U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

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

Skidmore College Skidmore College is a Private school, private liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Saratoga Springs, New York. Approximately 2,700 students are enrolled at Skidmore pursuing a Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Scien ...

. She met director and actor

Willem Dafoe William James "Willem" Dafoe ( ; born July 22, 1955) is an American actor. Known for his prolific career portraying diverse roles in both mainstream and arthouse films, he is the recipient of various accolades including a Volpi Cup Award for ...

at The Performance Group 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 Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (the ...

'', '' The Emperor Jones'', 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 The Performance Group from 1970 to 1975. Subsequently, LeCompte and

Spalding Gray Spalding Gray (June 5, 1941 – ) 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 and 1990s, as well ...

founded The Wooster Group, along with Jim Clayburgh,

, 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 stagings of classical and contemporary operas and plays. Sellars is a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he teaches ...

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'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

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

Angels in America ''Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes'' is a 1991 American two-part Play (theatre), play by American playwright Tony Kushner. The two parts of the play, ''Millennium Approaches'' and ''Perestroika'', may be presented separate ...

''.

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 colloquially called the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to typically between 20 and ...

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

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

, a

Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The foundation was created by Standard Oil magnate John D. Rockefeller (" ...

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), previously known as The University in Exile and The New School University, is a graduate-level educational division of The New School in New York City, United States. NSSR enrolls more than 1,000 stud ...

and the

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

. She was included in the 1993

Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. The event began as an annual exhibition in 1932; the first biennial was held in 1973. It is considered ...

. She won the 2016

Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize or Gish Prize is given annually to "a man or woman who has made an outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world and to mankind's enjoyment and understanding of life." It is among the most prestigious and on ...

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 opens around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, Stratf ...

; directed by Elizabeth LeCompte and

Mark Ravenhill Mark Ravenhill (born 7 June 1966) is an English playwright, actor and journalist. Ravenhill is one of the most widely performed playwrights in British theatre of the late-twentieth and twenty-first centuries. His major plays include '' Shoppi ...

* ''Cry, Trojans! (Troilus & Cressida)'' (2014) * ''Early Shaker Spirituals'' (2014) * ''The Room'' (2016) * ''The Town Hall Affair'' (2017) * ''A Pink Chair (In Place of a Fake Antique)'' (2018) * ''Nayatt School Redux'' (2019) * ''The Mother'' (2021) * ''Symphony of Rats'' (2024)

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 The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize winners