Ellen Stewart opened her arms and her theater to many people like us. Mussmann/Bruce/TSL started working with Ellen in 1980 and continued to produce works there until 2002. I was the resident director in 1980-81. This was with two plays Danton’s Death and Katana. These were hard times at LaMaMa the NEA had cut her funding. Ronald Reagan had just defeated Jimmy Carter for  president and the shift of the nation was moving to the right with the Reagan Revolution. It was the time when John Lennon was gunned down at the Dakota.  And it was a time that Linda was working on the French Revolution play by Georg Buchner—Claudia and Linda would work on this play for 10 years following the LaMaMa production.  This would eventually be recorded for WDR Radio in Koln and performed at the Whitney Museum in 1989 at the Equitable Center space in NYC.
Ellen was away that winter and we were without heat. The furnace broke and we rehearsed in the Annex in the cold…this was a very hard time.THis was a play called DANTON’S DEATH–10 actors and 7 musicans.- Here we worked with Jun Maeda and Mark Tambella. We still work with Maeda and see Mark here in Hudson. Ellen called us her babies and she did believe in people. IT was the “beep” that told her who to bet on and Claudia and I were her children. Yes for Ellen it was intuition that formed her choices.
Ellen Stewart’s LaMaMa influenced me in the early 1960’s when I found the plays and learned about her work when i was in Chicago working at the Hull House Theater. Later i went to New York and found the books and read the plays that LaMaMa had produced: Megan Terry for example. Ellen will be missed. THe bell that she rang every time before the beginning of the show welcoming people to LaMaMa is silent. Her kisses and her embraces are all no more. A great woman moves off the stage. We will miss her and thank her for her endless love for all of us—her children of the theater.
There are a lot of stories that can be told about Ellen. We were part of her celebration of 40 years–Claudia Sang songs from BLIND IN TIME one of the shows we did at the LaMaMa Annex in 2001.
We performed right after 9/11 in 2001 and listened to Ellen talk about the Fireman lost at the World Trade Center  (her neighbors near East 4th street) and the funds she raised for them….and on and on and on.  Ellen had one of her children drive her to TSL.  She wanted to see what we did and where we worked.  She took a tour of TSL and blessed us with her short visit.

Ellen Stewart the mother of the theater—the experimental theater. Risk taker
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/14/theater/14stewart.html