Lee Breuer (1937-2021) was an acclaimed theatre director of experimental and avant-garde productions, and the founding artistic director of Mabou Mines Theater in New York, writing, directing, and creating diverse fictions in plays, films, books, poems, and songs. He toured, taught, and directed worldwide. His awards included the Chevalier Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and a MacArthur Fellowship. Breuer was described by The New York Times as "a tenacious outsider who refused his sole Tony Award nomination — for his biggest hit and only Broadway show, the Sophocles adaptation The Gospel at Colonus."
Breuer was at home in Off Off Broadway venues, but also took larger productions to stages like the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Delacorte Theater, and the Comédie-Française in Paris. Some of his best-known recent productions include Mabou Mines DollHouse (2003), which toured with Maude Mitchell as Nora, the child-friendly Peter and Wendy (1996); and the multi-media puppet extravaganza La Divina Caricatura, Part 1, The Shaggy Dog (2013) written by Breuer.
Breuer founded Mabou Mines in 1970 with actress Ruth Maleczech, composer Philip Glass, director JoAnne Akalaitis and actor David Warrilow. He was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1985 for The Gospel at Colonus, with its composer, Bob Telson. Earlier iterations had won the Obie Award for best musical and been filmed for the PBS series “Great Performances.”
When Breuer and Mitchell came to MacDowell first in 2014, they decided to marry here as a celebration of 15 years of partnership. At MacDowell in 2018, in collaboration with Fellows Mitchell and Basil Twist, Breuer completed script editing and a staging paradigm for a new Mabou Mines adaptation of Medea by Olga Taxidou.
