An Early Influence

Ellen Stewart:  La MaMa

One of the leading influences in the New York theatre scene in the 1960s and 1970’s was Ellen Stewart at La MaMa Experimental Theatre, where I had the opportunity to work between 1969 and 1976.  Ellen Stewart influenced me personally as a theatre artist, as well as many other artists over the years which in turn helped to lay the ground work for the birth of expressive arts therapy. Stewart lived and breathed theatre, not as an art form but as an entrance or a portal to a way of life, a meaningful way of life. This is a common theme which is also present in expressive arts practitioners, that expressive arts is about having a meaningful life not just a meaningful profession. Training in expressive arts brings a person into a way of life that includes the arts but is not about the arts.