Anne Bogart - Life and Career

Life and Career

Bogart earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Bard College in 1974, followed by a Master of Arts degree from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in 1977. She served as Artistic Director of the Trinity Repertory Company for its 1989-90 season. From 1990-92 she was president of TCG (Theater Communications Group). In 1992 together with Tadashi Suzuki she founded SITI Company with a mission to create new work, to train young theatre artists and to encourage international collaboration. She has served as SITI Company’s Artistic Director since 1992 and since 2011 she shares the leadership with Company members Ellen Lauren and Leon Ingulsrud.

From 1987 - 1992 Bogart served as the Artistic Director of Via Theater. Founded by Bogart and Brian Jucha, Via Theater created a number of highly regarded productions in New York City including Assimil, No Plays, No Poetry, and Cinderella/Cendrillion. The company led workshops and residencies around the United States.

Between 1980 and 1992, Bogart taught at the Max Reinhart Academy, The Bern Conservatory, The University of Alaska, Bennington College, The American Center (Paris, France), Williams College, New York University, University of California at San Diego, and Playwrights Horizons Theater School. Since 1993 she has served as a Professor at Columbia University where she heads the Graduate Directing Program.

Since 1992 Bogart has taught in residencies around the world and given workshops and master classes at institutions as diverse as La Mama, Umbria, the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, Ireland, many US universities and colleges, as well as theaters and conservatories on many continents. Her skills as a speaker and public intellectual have garnered her over 50 speaking engagements since 1988.

Bogart has written A Director Prepares, And Then, You Act and co-authored The Viewpoints Book with Tina Landau, in which she outlines her theories of and approaches to making theatre. Shorter works have appeared in The Humana Festival – The Complete Plays (1996 and 1999), American Theater Magazine and The Drama Review.

In Anne Bogart: Viewpoints, drama critic Mel Gussow refers to Bogart as “a director of the present moment and, one might add, the prescient moment. Relentlessly she searches for imaginative ways to renew the theatrical experience, to make it more relevant for herself and those who are receiving it.”

Bogart is the granddaughter of Admiral Raymond Ames Spruance, Commander of Task Force 16 and later the overall commander of US Naval Forces at the pivotal Battle of Midway.

Anne Bogart is married to Rena Chelouche Fogel.