Stacy Klein (Stacy/Her/Hers) is a radical visionary who came to the realization that she could not find a place among institutionalized formalities or rigid identities to create her art. Through a Kabbalistic and mystical world lens, she visualizes in dreams and dimensions of hidden territories. Consequently in 1982, Stacy Klein became the Founding Artistic Director of Double Edge in Boston, MA. She is also the founder of the Farm, DE’s center of Art, Living Culture and Art Justice. Over the near 40 years of DE, Klein’s work with the Center has been written about in numerous publications and received awards, among them the prestigious Doris Duke Artist Award for artists who have transformed their field.
Klein has conceived and directed six original performance cycles and the outdoor spectacles, which are sourced in her vision of a sanctuary of limitless imagination at the crossroads of art justice, environment, and explosive performance. She conceived and directed the signature indoor performance of the Latin American Cycle Leonora, la maga y la maestra, which premiered in March 2018 at Peak Performances at Montclair State University and recently returned there for a multi-camera video capture that is on air nationally on PBS until 2024. Klein conceived and directed The Grand Parade, part of the Chagall Cycle, which premiered at Arena Stage (Washington, DC) in February 2013, followed by tours to The Golden Mask Festival, Moscow (2013); the Redfern Performing Arts Center, New Hampshire (2015); the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans (2015); ArtsEmerson’s Paramount Center, Boston (2015); Brygga Kultursal, Halden Norway (2015); the PIT Festival, Porsgrunn, Norway (2015); and Peak Performances at Montclair State, New Jersey (2016).
Beginning in 2002, she began directing an annual Summer Spectacle series: indoor/outdoor traveling performances that take place throughout the grounds of the Farm Center, drawing on classic novels and legends, and using larger-than-life puppetry, live music, and street theatre techniques to bring audiences on a literal and figurative journey. These Spectacles also tour to engage other communities, including The Latin American Spectacle in Jamaica Plain, MA and Springfield, MA, The Odyssey/Shahrazad in Halden, Norway, and The Odyssey at College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, ME. In 2017, Klein produced the Ashfield Town Spectacle & Culture Fair, a celebration throughout the town inspired by the spirit of Direct Democracy. In 2018-19, she directed and designed DE’s first ever Fall Spectacle Leonora’s World, a traveling spectacle based on the paintings of Leonora Carrington.
Klein’s other projects include the International Womyn’s Theatre Festivals in Boston (1980–81), the US / Latin American Spiral Mirror Project (1996–2001), the summer Ex-CHANGE Program (2002–4), and, with Poland’s Gardzienice Theatre, the International Consortium for Theatre Practices (1999–2001). The Conversations Series, convened with Philip Arnoult from 2006-2010, brought internationally renowned artists, writers, and thinkers to the Farm for wide-ranging discussions, broadcast live over the internet. Klein’s methodology has been profiled in New Theatre Quarterly, American Theater, Theater Heute, TheatreForum, and TDR, and she has written for Theater Topics and The Open Page. Klein received the Outstanding Career Achievement Award from Tufts University (2014), the OTTO award (2006), the MCC Artist Award (1999), an InRoads grant (1998), and was a Mentor in the New Generations Mentorship Program. She holds a PhD in Theatre History and Criticism from Tufts University, an MA in Political Theatre Education from Goddard College, and a BFA in Directing from Boston University.
