Herbert Blau was an American director and theoretician of performance. He was named the Byron W. and Alice L. Lockwood Professor in the Humanities at the University of Washington.
Early life and career
Blau earned his bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from New York University. Later, he earned his master of arts in drama and doctorate in English and American literature, both from Stanford University. As co-founder of The Actor's Workshop in San Francisco and co-director of the Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center in New York City, Blau introduced American audiences to avant garde drama in some of the country's first productions of Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, and Harold Pinter including the 1957 performance of Beckett's Waiting for Godot at California's San Quentin State Prison. This was the Godot that during the second red scare, after extralegal State Department maneuvers denied travel permission for unstated political reasons to a member of the company, represented American theater at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair. In 1968, Blau signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. In 1968, Blau was named founding provost and dean of the School of Theatre and Dance of the California Institute of the Arts, where he led the way in designing its educational model. With president Robert W. Corrigan, Blau recruited faculty including artists Allan Kaprow, John Baldessari, and Nam June Paik, composers Mel Powell and Morton Subotnick, musician Ravi Shankar, ethnomusicologist Nicholas England, designers Peter de Bretteville and Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, choreographer Bella Lewitzky, director Alexander Mackendrick, film scholar Gene Youngblood, filmmaker Pat O'Neill, and animation artist Jules Engel. In 1971, after three years at CalArts, Blau formed the experimental group KRAKEN, where he continued presenting challenging productions for another decade. The two books that emerged from that work—Take Up the Bodies: Theater at the Vanishing Point and Blooded Thought: Occasions of Theater —received the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism. In addition to the theater, Blau has taken up the subjects of literature, visual arts, fashion, postmodern culture, and politics. CalArts conferred an honorary doctor of arts degree to Blau in May 2008.
Personal life
Blau was born in Brooklyn. He married actress Beatrice Manley in 1949 and they divorced in 1980. They had three children: film professor Dick Blau, Tara Gwyneth Blau, and Dr. Jonathan Blau. Blau married a second time to Kathleen Woodward and they had one daughter, Jessamyn Blau.
Death
Blau died on his 87th birthday, May 3, 2013, in Seattle, Washington from cancer. He is survived by his wife, Kathleen Woodward, three children from his first marriage, a daughter from his second marriage, seven grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.
Books
Blau, Herbert. Programming Theater History: The Actor's Workshop of San Francisco. New York: Routledge, 2013.
