Lust, Geraldine

Biography

Biographical Narrative

New York theater producer and director Geraldine Lust (1920-1987) began her career in modern dance and choreography. The daughter of theater chain owner Sydney Lust, she studied acting and directing. She then worked for producer Dale Wasserman on Broadway, a connection she maintained. In 1950, Lust established classes for Stella Adler's drama school. For the next ten years, she produced and directed off-Broadway plays. She also directed plays for Julian Beck and Judith Malina, founders and directors of the Living Theatre, and created a school for the company. While at the Living Theatre, Lust developed an Artaud Workshop based on Antonin Artaud's "Theater of Cruelty."

Lust obtained the American rights to French author and playwright Jean Genet's The Blacks in 1960. With Lust as co-producer, the play opened on May 4, 1961 and ran for four years off-Broadway at St. Mark's Playhouse in New York City. Theater historians credit The Blacks with starting the "black movement" in American theater. While Genet's attempt to define the black experience angered African American critics, the play provided a showcase for the all-black cast, as well as steady employment. The cast included James Earl Jones, Roscoe Lee Brown, Lou Gossett Jr., Cicely Tyson, Godfrey Cambridge, and Maya Angelou.

In 1963, Lust directed plays for the newly established Open Theater. She conducted an Artaud Workshop and a teenage workshop for the Open Theater. Beginning in 1967, Lust attempted for several years to produce a college tour revival of The Blacks and a film version of Genet's The Screens, both of which proved unsuccessful.

Sources:

Aslan, Odette. Roger Blin and Twentieth-Century Playwrights . Translated by Ruby Cohn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

Banes, Sally. Greenwich Village 1963: Avant-Garde Performance and the Effervescent Body . Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993.

Genet, Jean. The Blacks: A Clown Show . Translated by Bernard Frechtman. New York: Grove Press, 1960.

Grossvogel, David I. The Blasphemers: The Theater of Brecht, Ionesco, Beckett, Genet. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1965.

Hill, Errol G. and James V. Hatch. A History of African American Theatre . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Sainer, Arthur. The Radical Theatre Notebook . New York: Discus Books, 1975.

Webb, Richard C., ed. File on Genet . London: Methuen Drama, 1962.

Williams, Mance. Black Theatre in the 1960s and 1970s: A Historical-Critical Analysis of the Movement . Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985.

From the guide to the Geraldine Lust Papers, 1959-1972, (bulk 1960-1969), (University of California, Davis. General Library. Dept. of Special Collections.)