Lynne Meadow

Lynne Meadow has been Artistic Director of Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC) since 1972, during which time she has been responsible for directing and/or producing over 500 New York and world premieres. Lynne has created one of the nation’s most acclaimed not-for-profit theatres and brought MTC to the forefront of the American stage. She has accepted every major theatre award on behalf of the company; under her leadership, MTC’s productions have been awarded 27 Tony Awards, 40 Drama Desk Awards and seven Pulitzer Prizes.

Lynne most recently shepherded the award-winning production of James Graham’s Ink and revivals of August Wilson’s Jitney and Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes (starring Laura Linney and Cynthia Nixon alternating in the roles of Regina and Birdie) at MTC’s Friedman Theatre on Broadway. The myriad of acclaimed plays developed at the company under her leadership include Choir Boy; Constellations (with Jake Gyllenhaal and Ruth Wilson); The Father (with Frank Langella); Heisenberg (with Mary-Louise Parker); Venus in Fur; Good People (with Frances McDormand); Time Stands Still (with Laura Linney and Alicia Silverstone); Ruined; The Piano Lesson; Love! Valour! Compassion! (with Nathan Lane); Putting It Together (with Julie Andrews); Sylvia (with Sarah Jessica Parker and Blythe Danner); The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs (with Glenn Close); Lips Together, Teeth Apart; Ain’t Misbehavin’; Crimes of the Heart; Pretty Fire; Fuddy Meers; The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife; Proof (with Mary Louise-Parker) and Doubt. Other New York and world premieres include The Miss Firecracker Contest (with Holly Hunter), Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune (with Kathy Bates), Other Places (with Dianne Wiest), Rabbit Hole (with Cynthia Nixon), Blackbird (with Jeff Daniels) and plays by Arthur Miller, Marsha Norman, Simon Gray, Lee Blessing, Sam Shepard, Athol Fugard, Brian Friel, John Guare and Israel Horowitz.

Lynne’s directing credits include Bekah Brunstetter’s The Cake (with Debra Jo Rupp); Penelope Skinner’s Linda; Melissa Ross’ Of Good Stock (with Alicia Silverstone); Richard Greenberg’s The Assembled Parties (with Judith Light and Jessica Hecht), The Perplexed and Our Mother’s Brief Affair (with Linda Lavin); Amanda Peet’s The Commons of Pensacola (with Sarah Jessica Parker and Blythe Danner); Margaret Edson’s Wit (with Cynthia Nixon); Donald Margulies’ Collected Stories (with Sarah Paulson and Linda Lavin) and The Loman Family Picnic; the 2001 Tony-nominated production of Charles Busch’s The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife (starring Linda Lavin, Michele Lee and Tony Roberts on Broadway and at MTC) and the production’s U.S. national tour (with Valerie Harper); the Broadway production of Alan Ayckbourn’s A Small Family Business (with Brian Murray); and the Obie Award-winning Ashes by David Rudkin.

Among Lynne’s other directing credits during her tenure at MTC are Charles Busch’s Our Leading Lady, David Greig’s The American Pilot, Neil Simon’s Rose’s Dilemma (with Mary Tyler Moore), Ron Hutchinson’s Moonlight and Magnolias, Three Sisters (with Dianne Weist, Sam Waterston, Christine Ebersole and Jeff Daniels), Golden Boy, Marsha Norman’s Last Dance (with JoBeth Williams), David Edgar’s The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs, Principia Scriptoriae, The Wager, Absent Friends (with Gillian Anderson and Brenda Blethyn), The Pokey, Eleemosynary, Vikings, Bits and Pieces, Blur (with Polly Draper), Biography (with Piper Laurie), Park Your Car in Harvard Yard (with Ellen Burstyn and Burgess Meredith), Captain’s Courageous (with Treat Williams), Artichoke (with Amanda Plummer), Catsplay (which transferred to the Promenade Theatre), Chez Nous, Simon Gray’s Close of Play and Sally and Marsha (with Christine Baranski and Bernadette Peters).

Lynne has directed productions for The New York Shakespeare Festival, the Alliance Theatre, the Spoleto Festival and the O’Neill Theatre Center. She has twice been nominated for Outstanding Director at the Drama Desk Awards: in 1996 for Leslie Ayvazian’s Nine Armenians and in 1988 for Alan Ayckbourn’s Woman in Mind with Stockard Channing.

Lynne is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College, where she served on the Board of Trustees. She attended the Yale School of Drama and was named a Herbert Brodkin Fellow. She has taught at Circle in the Square Theatre School, Stony Brook University, Yale University, Fordham University and New York University. Lynne has served on several panels, including the New York State Council on the Arts and the theatre panel for the NEA (for which she was co-chair), and she has sat for two terms on the Steinberg Award advisory committee.

She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Lee Reynolds Award from the League of Professional Theatre Women, the Manhattan Award from Manhattan magazine, the Person of the Year from National Theatre Conference, the Margo Jones Award, the 2003 Mr. Abbott Award, the 2011 Lucille Lortel Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2011 Lily Award for Lifetime Achievement, and the Louis Auchincloss Prize. She is a Theatre Hall of Fame Inductee.