Barbara Lee Horn - Ellen Stewart and La Mama: A Bio-Bibliography (Bio-Bibliographies in the Performing Arts)

Cover

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ELLEN STEWART AND LA MAMA

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Photograph of Ellen Stewart courtesy of the Billy Rose Theatre Collection, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

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A Bio-Bibliography

Barbara Lee Horn

Bio-Bibliographies in the Performing Arts, Number 41

Greenwood Press

Westport, Connecticut London

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Horn, Barbara Lee.
Ellen Stewart and La Mama: a bio-bibliography/Barbara Lee Horn.
p. cm.(Bio-bibliographies in the performing arts, ISSN
08925550; no. 41)
Includes indexes.
ISBN 0-313-28734-1 (alk. paper)
1. Stewart, Ellen, 1920?-. 2. Stewart, Ellen, 1920?
Bibliography. 3. Theatrical producers and directorsUnited
StatesBiography. 4. La Mama Experimental Theatre Club
Bibliography. 5. Off Off-Broadway theaterBibliography.
6. TheaterNew York (N.Y.)History. I. Title. II. Series.
PN2287.S6793H67 1993
792.0232092dc20
[B] 9324755

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.

Copyright 1993 by Barbara Lee Horn

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 93-24755

ISBN: 0-313-28734-1

ISSN: 08925550

First published in 1993

Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881

An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.

Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the
Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National
Information Standards Organization (Z39.481984).

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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This book is for Jonathan, Emily, Jeremiah, and Christopher Stewart.

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Ive always been interested primarily in people, a kind of oneness with peoplecommunication. Going to Europe I began to realize that we could best establish this oneness with people by being able to communicate through our theatre.

Ellen Stewart

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Ellen Stewart has made a name for herself as someone who discovers and nurtures talent, takes risks, and presents provocative work in exciting and theatrical ways. She is known all over the world as La Mama, the mother of many young theatre artists--playwrights, directors, and actors--who have found in her theatre arena the opportunity to develop without the commercial pressures of Broadway. She has been called the doyenne of Off-Off-Broad way. She has had the title of National Treasure bestowed upon her. And in the opinion of most veteran theatrical observers, she has been the outstanding Off-Off-Broadway pioneer, after the defunct Caffe Cino and the Living Theatre, through the theatre she has produced and the artists she has nurtured at La Mama Experimental Theatre Club.

Some thirty years ago on October 18, 1961, as an accomplished but unemployed black fashion designer, she paid the first months rent on a tiny basement room that came to bear the name of Cafe La Mama (now La Mama Experimental Club), taking her place beside Caffe Cino as the earliest evidence that theatre in New York could flourish elsewhere than on Broadway or Off-Broadway. She founded her coffeehouse theatre, with no prior background or training in the field (as had Joe Cino), as a place for playwrights to blossom without the stresses of professional theatre. If Cino was the Papa of Off-Off-Broad way, she was the Mama; and after his suicide in 1967, she went on to become the most influential of the Off-Off-Broadway producers and a prominent figure in the world of experimental theatre--boldly forging a niche in an art world heretofore virtually closed to Black women.

Since its first production of One Arm, an adaptation of a Tennessee Williams short story, set in a tiny 25 seat basement theatre at 321 East Ninth Street, on July 27, 1962, La Mama (as both theatre and founder are called) has produced 1400 plays, and earned more than 50 Obie Awards, and dozens of Drama Desk, Bessie, and Villager Awards. In addition, La Mama has become a vital part of the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan; an institution that boasts two theatres, a cabaret, seven floors

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of free rehearsal space, an art gallery, a performance workshop space, and an educational workshop space.

Success, however, did not come easily. In terms of civic hostility that rose on occasion to weirdly punitive heights to all of the Off-Off-Broadway establishments over nonlicensed spaces for public occupancy, violations of fire safety regulations, and perhaps more to the point, the unorthodoxy of those involved, La Mamas impressario qualified as the most prosecuted. If the License Department didnt succeed in closing her theatre, the Fire and Buildings Department were on the scene to discover costly violations to dissuade the continuation of her efforts. That she succeeded at all is a testament to her fierce loyalty to her cause.