The Great North

American Stage
Directors
VOLUME 8

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 The Great North American Stage Directors
Series Editor: James Peck

Volume 1
David Belasco, Arthur Hopkins, Margaret Webster
Edited by Cheryl Black

Volume 2
Harold Clurman, Orson Welles, Margo Jones
Edited by Jonathan Chambers

Volume 3
Elia Kazan, Jerome Robbins, Lloyd Richards
Edited by Harvey Young

Volume 4
George Abbott, Vinnette Carroll, Harold Prince
Edited by Henry Bial and Chase Bringardner

Volume 5
Richard Schechner, Lee Breuer, Anne Bogart
Edited by Joan Herrington

Volume 6
Meredith Monk, Richard Foreman, Robert Wilson
Edited by Ann Shanahan

Volume 7
Elizabeth LeCompte, Ping Chong, Robert Lepage
Edited by David Saltz

Volume 8
Jesusa Rodriguez, Peter Sellars, Reza Abdoh
Edited by James Peck

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 The Great North
American Stage
Directors
VOLUME 8

Jesusa Rodriguez,
Peter Sellars, Reza Abdoh

Edited by James Peck

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 Methuen Drama
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK
1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA

BLOOMSBURY, METHUEN DRAMA and the Methuen Drama logo are

trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

First published in Great Britain 2021

Copyright © James Peck and contributors, 2021

James Peck and contributors have asserted their right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the authors of this work.

For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. viii constitute

an extension of this copyright page.

Cover design: Louise Dugdale

Cover image © XX

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or

transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval
system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for,
any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given
in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher
regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased
to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN: HB: 978-1-3500-4559-0

HB set: 978-1-3500-4602-3

Series: Great Stage Directors

Typeset by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd.

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 Contents

List of Figures  vii

Acknowledgments  viii
Series Introduction by James Peck  ix

Introduction: Jesusa Rodríguez, Peter Sellars, and 

Reza Abdoh  James Peck  1

Jesusa Rodríguez
1 From El Hábito to Resistencia Creativa:
Reimagining Mexico through Jesusa Rodríguez’s
Artivism  Leticia Robles-Moreno  11
2 Directing the Public: On Jesusa Rodríguez’s Lesbian
Feminist Interventions  Iván A. Ramos  44

Peter Sellars
3 Peter Sellars: Politics and Spirituality in Opera 
James Peck  71
4 Peter Sellars’ Work in Theatre Directing 
Peter Lichtenfels  106

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 vi CONTENTS

Reza Abdoh
5 Hypervalent Elegies: Death and Loss in the Late
Works of Reza Abdoh  Daniel Mufson  133
6 Tough Love: Offstage and Affect in the Late Plays
of Reza Abdoh  Guy Zimmerman  167

Notes on Contributors  200

Index  202

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 Figures

1.1 Teatro Bar El Vicio (formerly El Hábito), Archivo

del Festival Internacional del Cabaret, Coyoacán,
Mexico City  25
1.2 Jesusa Rodríguez as Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz in
Primero Sueño, 2007  28
1.3 Street performance Sin Maíz No Hay País, 2013  35
2.1 The Rodriguez/Felipe Wedding  60
3.1 James Maddelena as Nixon meets Russel Braun as
Chou En-Lai in Nixon in China, 2011  84
3.2 Julia Bullock as Teculihuatzin and Vince Yi as
Hunahpu encounter Spanish soldiers in English
National Opera’s production of Henry Purcell’s
The Indian Queen, 2015  98
4.1 Rokia Traore as Barbary and Tina Benko as
Desdemona with artists of the company in Toni
Morrison’s Desdemona, 2011  127
5.1 Mario Gardner in Reza Abdoh’s Quotations from
a Ruined City, 1993  148
6.1 Peter Jacobs, Anita Durst, and Sabrina Artell of
Dar a La Luz perform Law of Remains, 1993  174
6.2 Peter Jacobs as Andy Warhol and Priscilla
Holbrook of Dar a La Luz perform Law of
Remains, 1993  178

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 Acknowledgments

James Peck would like to thank: Mark Dudgeon and Lara Bateman at
Methuen Drama; Peter Lichtenfels, Daniel Mufson, Iván A. Ramos,
Leticia Robles-Moreno, and Guy Zimmerman for their writing in
this volume; Henry Bial, Cheryl Black, Chase Bringardner, Jonathan
Chambers, Joan Herrington, Ann Shanahan, and Harvey Young
for their editorial work and writing in the other seven volumes; all
of the contributors, both writers and photographers. Much of the
work on this book series and on this volume was enabled by the
Muhlenberg College Class of ’32 Research Professorship. Thanks
to then Provost (now President) Kathleen Harring and the members
of the Faculty Development and Scholarship Committee for this
award. Bounteous thanks are due my departmental colleagues who
covered my absence in myriad ways, in particular my then Chair
Beth Schachter. Thanks to the members of my immediate family
for making this work possible in ways both material and spiritual:
Anne Kitch, Lucy Kitch-Peck, Sophie Kitch-Peck.

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 Series
Introduction

The Great North American Stage Directors examines twenty-four

major theatre directors from Canada, Mexico, and the United States
from the late nineteenth century to the present. The series describes,
contextualizes, and explicates their work with reference to both
theatrical and social history. Across this span of time, the director
has become an increasingly prominent member of the collaborative
team. Indeed, one of the major worldwide trends of theatre through
the modern and into the contemporary era has been the growing
prominence of directors in the theatrical process. Directing as
a discrete job in the theatre commenced only in the mid-to-late
nineteenth century. Prior to this, someone usually exercised many of
the modern director’s leadership functions—for example, choosing
the project, casting it, overseeing rehearsals, supervising scenic
choices, and/or monitoring public performances. But typically, that
individual was rooted in and more strongly associated with another
theatrical position such as playwright, leading actor, or business
manager. Often all three. Toward the end of the nineteenth century,
directing became its own job. A professional space emerged for an
individual to dedicate their energy to such tasks as interpreting a
text, conceptualizing a production, coordinating design elements,
crafting stage pictures, fashioning movement patterns, coaching
actors, and shaping the relationship of the audience to the action.
Put another way, the creation of a directorial mise en scène became
an independent art form.
This series probes that historical trajectory through sustained
engagement with the lives and achievements of major artists. The
directors profiled in this anthology were chosen in large part
because of the exceptional quality of their work, but also because
they established practices and attitudes that have influenced the

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 x SERIES INTRODUCTION

development of directing as a distinct mode of theatrical expression.

All of these directors lived primarily in North America (though
many also worked or work in other parts of the world), and the
meaning and boundaries of the term “American” is a recurrent
motif of the series. The volumes unfold roughly chronologically.
Each book looks into three directors grouped together to highlight
affinities of theme, aesthetic, or creative process. However, placing
the eight volumes in conversation, such lines of influence, response,
and reaction rapidly proliferate. The series reveals the art form
as a rich and variegated endeavor, too complex to maintain tidy
lineages. Directors, it seems, tend to be magpies. They pick up new
ideas and adopt new practices as needed, and that process is often
surprising and idiosyncratic. Directors develop at least in part,
the chapters suggest, in relation to other directors. Commonly,
a distinctive directorial vision arrives through personal scenes
of mentorship, collegiality, or competition. Just as commonly,
directors learn indirectly through some form of study. The history
of the theatre, it turns out, is a bountiful and pliable resource to
approach stage space in a fresh way or face up to an impasse in
rehearsal.
Taken together, these volumes argue that the complicated history
of directing exceeds a neat explanation for its still growing influence.
That said, the assembled chapters do demonstrate that though the
art form evolved within vectors of emulation and rivalry rooted in
the social institution of the theatre itself, its more meaningful shifts
happened in dialogue with social institutions and social behavior
outside the theatre. These directors are embedded in the theatre,
of course, if only by virtue of their capacious job description. With
few exceptions, though, they maintained simultaneous connections
to other, nontheatrical communities: communities that raised
them, communities they joined as they aged, and communities for
whom they intend their work. Directing as an autonomous job
developed because artists working within its purview found it to
be a potent means to address new historical situations and speak
to new audiences. Formal innovations followed from mandates and
aspirations in the bigger, badder world. The deep research and keen
analysis of the more than fifty contributors to this series elucidate
how these artists created theatre of vital import to the lifeworlds
of the people who attended it. In doing so, they helped to grow the

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 SERIES INTRODUCTION xi

mise en scène from a secondary, chiefly pragmatic concern into a

primary and consequential site of aesthetic investigation. Through
a complex orchestration of relations between writing, acting,
space, time, and public, these twenty-four great North American
stage directors contributed substantially to the creation of a major
modern art form.
James Peck

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