Elizabeth LeCompte (born April 28, 1944) is an American director of
experimental theater,
dance, and media. A founding member of
The Wooster Group, she has directed that ensemble since its emergence in the late 1970s.[1]
Life and career
LeCompte was born and grew up in
New Jersey. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Fine Arts from
Skidmore College. She met director and actor
Willem Dafoe at
The Performance Group and began a professional and personal relationship. Their son, Jack, was born in 1982.[2][3][4]
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 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 founded The Wooster Group, along with
Jim Clayburgh,
Willem Dafoe, 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.[1] 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.[5][6] As a New Yorker writer put it: "Luminaries of the theatrical avant-garde—
Richard Foreman,
Robert Wilson, and
Peter Sellars among them—describe her as first among equals".[7]
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 critics ranked House/Lights the 16th greatest American play since Angels in America.[8]
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
Willem Dafoe. They never married and ended their relationship in 2004 after 27 years. The couple have one son, Jack.[16]