The Village Voice Recalls Ellen Stewart's Accomplishments, Ponders La MaMa's Future

Ellen Stewart, founder and artistic director of the East Village's La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, has long been deemed the heart and soul of the theatre space.  Over the decades since opening La MaMa in 1961, she has been the main presence in the club and chief supporter of its artisits. She has lived by the motto that everyone who does a play at La MaMa is now part of the family.  

Writes Alexis Soloski in the Village Voice: "For decades, a show at the East Village's La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club began with a jingling sound both authoritative and merry. Like a very hip schoolmarm, Ellen Stewart, La MaMa's founder and artistic director, would open the performance by ringing a handbell, hushing the audience. Then, in resonant tones, she would read aloud from the program, introducing the show's title and praising its creators. Only then could the play commence."

The 90-year old Stewart has since lessened her participation in the theater due to poor health Writes Soloski: "Stewart still makes most of La MaMa's artistic decisions and has scheduled shows through 2012. But as she participates less in the day-to-day running of the theater, an uncomfortable question arises: What will become of La MaMa without her?"

Stewart has chosen Mia Yoo, La MaMa's current artistic associate, to be her successor when she retires. The only prediction Yoo could make for the future of La MaMa was this: "This place is going to go on with Ellen's spirit here."

To read the Village Voice's full account of Stewart, her career, and the future of La MaMa click here. 

In honor of it's great patron, the theater company renamed its Annex theater the Ellen Stewart Theater at its "Celebrating Ellen" Gala on November 1.

A host of La MaMa alum - including Tony winner Bill Irwin, Meredith Monk, John Kelly, Peggy Shaw, Lois Weaver, Elizabeth Swados, Andrei Serban and members of Ms. Stewart's own Great Jones Repertory Company - performed at the event, which will also mark the 48th anniversary of the founding of La MaMa ETC.

Ellen Stewart founded La MaMa in 1961 in a tiny basement theater, and has remained its Artistic Director ever since. With two theaters housed in La MaMa's original space at 74A E. 4 St., La Mama expanded its operations in 1974 with the opening THE TROJAN WOMEN at the Annex, a large, loft-like space a few doors down the street at 66 E. 4 St.

Through Stewart's guidance and vision of international and multi-cultural collaboration in the arts, La MaMa ETC is considered the home of experimental theater in America, one of the premiere presenters of the international avant-garde, and a beacon to all artists who explore the boundaries of creative expression. Well-known names of the theatre for whom La MaMa was their first artistic home in the United States include Andrei Serban, Elizabeth Swados, Jerzy Grotowski, Tadeusz Kantor, Tom O'Horgan, Lee Breuer,Tom Eyen, Mike Figgis, Joel Zwick, Harold Pinter (THE ROOM -- La MaMa was the first presenter of Mr. Pinter's work in the United States); Kazuo Ohno, Tan Dun, Julia Stiles and Diane Lane, as well as artists from Japan, Nigeria, Korea, Zaire, Ivory Coast, Poland and countless other countries. La MaMa was the first Off-Off Broadway theatre to support full-time resident companies, and was the first Off-Off company to tour Europe. La MaMa has been honored with numerous OBIE Awards, dozens of Drama Desk Awards, Bessie Awards and Villager Awards.

In January 1993, Stewart was inducted into the "Broadway Theatre Hall of Fame" becoming the first Off-Off-Broadway producer to ever receive this honor. In 2006, Ellen Stewart received a special Tony Award for supporting theatre artists of all nations and cultures in the development, production and presentation of new work. She is the recipient of the MacArthur "Genius" Award, the National Endowment for Arts and Culture, and the "Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold Rays with Rosette," presented to her by the Emperor of Japan. In 2007, she received the prestigious Praemium Imperiale Arts Award, considered one of the highest international distinctions for achievement in the arts. Quite possibly, however, the greatest distinction for Ellen Stewart is the untold thousands of theater artists and theater goers who call her and regard her as "Mama."

To learn more about La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, visit www.lamama.org.

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