Ellen Stewart

Ellen Stewart, the founder and director of the Off-Off-Broadway pioneering group La MaMa Experimental Theater Club. During Stewart's 49-year tenure, La MaMa presented some 3,000 productions, hosted artists from more than 70 countries and earned countless cultural awards. She was the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" in 1985 and a 2006 Tony Honor for Excellence in Theater. Stewart, who was born in Chicago, began her career in New York as a fashion designer and started La MaMa in 1961 when she rented a tiny basement in lower Manhattan for $55 a month to provide her brother and his playwright friends with a space to showcase their plays. Already nicknamed "Mama," one of her actors suggested La MaMa as the name for her theater.