Anne Bogart

Career

In 1979, Bogart began teaching at the Experimental Theatre Wing of the New York University Tisch School of the Arts. There, she directed students in avant garde productions, including a 1984 staging of South Pacific for which she received a Bessie Award. Bogart set the show in a mental clinic for veterans who performed the musical as part of their therapy. The Rodgers and Hammerstein estate denied the production an extension.

Bogart was artistic director of Trinity Repertory Company for one season, from fall of 1989 to May 1990. With a year remaining on her contract, she was forced out when she refused to accept a 25 percent budget cut being imposed by the board. Bogart's season at Trinity Rep was controversial for being a departure from the previous programming, and came when the theater was already facing declining attendance and financial difficulties. Bogart later credited this experience as part of the inspiration for founding SITI Company, saying, "I learned you can't take over someone else's company. You have to create your own."

SITI Company

In 1988, Bogart visited Japanese director Tadashi Suzuki, who was becoming known for his physical method of actor training, and his theater company in Toga, Japan. After she left Trinity Rep, she began planning a project with Suzuki. This became the Saratoga International Theater Institute (SITI), which launched in September 1992 in Saratoga Springs, New York.

Suzuki's involvement was planned to be temporary.

Bogart began teaching at Columbia University in 1993 as head of the graduate directing program. In 2022, it was announced that she would retire from Columbia in 2026.

In 2023, Bogart was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Obie Award.

Bogart was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in 2025.

Works

Books

A Director Prepares: Seven Essays on Art and Theater (2001) The Viewpoints Book: A Practical Guidebook to Viewpoints and Composition co-written with Tina Landau (2005) And Then You Act: Making Art in an Unpredictable World (2007) Conversations with Anne: Twenty-two Interviews (2012) What's the Story: Essays about Art, Theater and Storytelling (2014) The Art of Resonance (2021)