This Old Life

Herbert Blau leaves behind a monumental legacy as a visionary creator, scholar, and theorist of the theatre. In 1952, he and Jules Irving co-founded the Actor's Workshop of San Francisco, which introduced American audiences to major playwrights of the European avant-garde, including Brecht, Beckett, Genet, and Pinter. Blau went on from The Workshop to become co-director with Irving of the Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center, and then founding provost of the California Institute of the Arts. He later founded the experimental theatre group KRAKEN. His many influential and awardwinning books include The Impossible Theater: A Manifesto; The Dubious Spectacle: Extremities of Theater, 1976–2000; Sails of the Herring Fleet: Essays on Beckett; Nothing in Itself: Complexions of Fashion; To All Appearances: Ideology and Performance; The Audience; The Eye of Prey: Subversions of the Postmodern; Take Up the Bodies: Theater at the Vanishing Point; and As If: An Autobiography. He was a frequent contributor to PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art and a contributing editor to the journal since PAJ 14 (1981). His book Blooded Thought: Occasions of Theatre was published by PAJ Publications in 1982, and was awarded the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism. At the time of his death, Herbert Blau had just retired as the Byron W. and Alice L. Lockwood Professor of the Humanities at the University of Washington.