BARBARA PITCHER has directed over 35 NYC productions, in over 20 venues. Winner of the Best Director - Jean Dalrymple Award, her work includes Classical, Contemporary, Opera, One person Plays and Performance Art. This work includes playwrights Harold Pinter, Paddy Chayesky, Eugene O’Neill, Wm. Shakespeare, J.D. Salinger, Anton Checkhov, August Strinberg, and opera composer Mark Grant. Her productions as Dramaturge/Director have introduced 16 new and award winning writers to the New York scene. It’s been said that her directing “has demonstrated the highest quality of Artistry one can imagine.” The critically acclaimed Performance Art 2002 entry into the NY International Fringe Festival - Almost Obscene, with Joe Raiola was hailed by the New York Times as “a ruefully amusing lament for the ineradicable hypocrisy of humanity.” - and has been touring the U.S. ever since it’s Fringe introduction.
As a performer, she worked in TV for 11 years in The Doctors, Search For Tomorrow,The Haunting of Rosalind, Blessed Are The What, and many others. working with such directors as Bruce Minnox, Lela Swift, Hugh Mc Phillips and Norman Hall. Highlights of her theatrical career include Y Is A Crooked Letter, opposite Al Pacino, and the creation of Monica in Robert E. Lee’s Sounding Brass. Her recent film, Pate, has been seen worldwide, is an Official Sundance Selection, and has received over 15 awards, including The Grand Jury Award at Worldfest Film Festival. As an actress, she has “worked out” at The Actor’s Studio - in the playwrights, directors and actors units under the guidance of such as Harold Clurman, Clive Barnes, and Lee Strasberg. She was a scholarship member of Strasberg’s renowned private classes, while performing on TV, having been one of two actors accepted at her entrance into her class.
Mr. Strasberg became her performing/directing mentor - and so much of her professional work and teaching, is based on his influence.
Ms. Pitcher started a workshop on West 72nd Street, in NYC, which evolved into both a theatre company, Friends Theatre Company, and an Acting/Writing Workshop. She says, ”We would start at 7:30 in the evening and work until 2:30 in the morning - making sure everyone was able to work every time. It was wonderful, because there were such dedicated, talented people - we would work on something, and when we thought it was “ready" for an audience, we were able to turn the studio into a theatre and perform - seeing whether our work was indeed theatre worthy. For rehearsals - we would sometimes take rehearsals out of the city to an old log cabin on top of a mountain in the Catskills, or to Fire Island by the ocean, or to the “wilds” of the Jersey Shore - where there were no distractions - we had the “luxury” of only being a company member and working.” This workshop, in one form or another lasted eight years.
Other workshops Barbara has lead include Performance Art - The Theatre of the Encounter, taking over a weekend workshop for the famed director, Alec Rubin, for one season; the IPA Conference, Elmer, NJ - a week each September for seven years; and an eight hour Intensive Art and Theatre Workshop, Boston, MA.
She also conducts private coaching sessions for Actors and Writers.
Ms. Pitcher is currently a Permanent Resident Director of the American Theatre of Actors and has a long history with The Theatre Within as a Performer/Director - both in NYC.
Barbara lives in her beloved Manhattan. But you might find her
- in off times - seeking silence and solitude looking out at the ocean, or walking the beach in a little town, called Lavalette, on the Jersey Shore; or walking and relaxing with her canine pal, Beauregard in Central Park - two blocks from her apartment.
Paté
Lee Strasberg