Paul Lazar is a founding member, along with Annie-B Parson, of Big Dance Theater. He has directed, co-directed, and acted in works for Big Dance since 1991, including commissions from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Walker Art Center, Dance Theater Workshop, Classic Stage Company, and Japan Society. In 2017 Paul premiered a solo piece called Cage Shuffle (text by John Cage, choreography Annie-B Parson), at the American Realness Festival in New York. He has subsequently toured Cage Shuffle throughout the United States and Europe. https://www.cageshuffle.com
In Fall 2020 he created a duet version of Cage Shuffle with Choreographer/Dancer Bebe Miller for the Wexner Center For The Arts. The Cage Shuffle Duet toured to the Cena Festival in Brasilia, Brazil in December of 2020.
Outside of Big Dance, Paul has directed numerous productions including Young Jean Lee’s Obie Award-winning, “We’re Gonna Die. A version of We’re Gonna Die featuring David Byrne premiered at the Meltdown Festival in London in 2015. Paul also directed Bodycast: An Artist Lecture by Suzanne Bocanegra and featuring Frances McDormand at the BAM Next Wave Festival in 2014 ; He directed Major Bang for The Foundry Theatre at St. Ann’s Warehouse. Paul has performed in the following works by The Wooster Group: Brace Up!, Emperor Jones, North Atlantic, and The Hairy Ape. Other stage acting credits include Tamburlaine at Theatre For A New Audience, Young Jean Lee’s Lear, The Three Sisters at Classic Stage Company, Richard Maxwell’s Cowboys and Indians at Soho Rep, Richard III at Classic Stage Company, Svejk at Theatre for a New Audience, Irene Fornes’ Mud at the Signature Theater and at Mabou Mines, and Mac Wellman’s 1965 UU. He has acted in over 40 feature films, including Snowpiercer, The Host, Mickey Blue Eyes, Silence of the Lambs, Beloved, Lorenzo’s Oil and Philadelphia. His awards include two Bessies (2010, 2002), the Jacob’s Pillow Creativity Award in 2007, and the Prelude Festival’s Frankie Award in 2014, as well as an Obie Award for Big Dance in 2000. Paul currently teaches at New York University. He has also taught at Yale, Rutgers, The William Esper Studio, and The Michael Howard Studio.
At MacDowell, Paul worked on writing a work of theatre that premiered at the Brooklyn Academy Of Music in 2017. He was here at MacDowell with his wife, Annie-B Parson, coartistic director of their theater company, Big Dance Theater.
