Barbara Vann

Barbara Vann (December 12, 1938 - August 26, 2015) was an American theatre director and actor, best known for co-founding the Off-Off-Broadway company the Medicine Show Theater Ensemble, one of the longest continually running experimental theater companies in New York City. She was also a founding member of The Open Theater, an early, New York City-based experimental theater group.

Biography Vann was born Barbara Kutner in 1938 in Brooklyn, and graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1959.

The Open Theater

In 1962, Vann and about 20 other former students of acting teacher Nola Chilton, along with director Joseph Chaikin, founded The Open Theater, under Chaikin's direction.

The Medicine Show Theatre After The Open Theater dissolved in 1970, she founded The Medicine Show Theatre Ensemble with fellow Open Theater member, James Barbosa, who died in 2003. Vann led the Medicine Show Theatre Ensemble for 45 years until her death in August 2015. which incorporated Cole Porter songs into Shakespearean tragedies. She published a series of workshop videos demonstrating the experimental techniques developed for the Medicine Show Theatre Ensemble.

Film Vann, with Rao Rampilla, directed the live action short, Gandhi, Untouchables and Me, in 2015 and provided voice talent in the 2014 animated short, Privy.

Teaching Vann taught at Smith College, Amherst College, Yale University and Colgate University.

Awards Barbara Vann was the recipient of the 1985 Obie Award for Direction, which she received for her work on the production, Bound to Rise, based on the Horatio Alger story, Bound to Rise; or, Harry Walton's Motto (1873).