Who

A major figure in the experimental theater scene, Wilson directs far-out work that's genius to his fans and charlatanism to his detractors.

Backstory

Growing up in Waco, Texas, Wilson had to contend with a stutter and learning disabilities, not to mention a strictly conservative family hostile to his homosexuality and artsiness, and by his early 20s he'd already survived a suicide attempt and a stay in a mental hospital. Escaping to New York, he studied architecture at Pratt; after earning a BFA, he moved to Arizona to work with famed architect Paolo Soleri. But Wilson was increasingly attracted to theater, especially the experimental dance scene, and in the mid-'60s he returned to New York where he befriended the likes of Merce Cunningham, Martha Graham and George Balanchine, and began choreographing and creating dance events. In 1968 Wilson formed the Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds, a hippie-ish, pot-smoking art collective named after the teacher who helped him overcome his learning handicaps.

Wilson's 1971 adoption of Raymond Andrews, a deaf/mute African-American boy he found being harassed by police in SoHo, provided the inspiration for "silent opera" Deafman Glance, which achieved international acclaim. More fame greeted Wilson's collaboration with Philip Glass on 1976's Einstein at the Beach: The plotless, inscrutable, nearly five-hour opus was a career-defining achievement for both men and remains one of the most critically-hailed works of experimental theater.

In the 1980s the director turned most of his attention to Wilson-izing great works of opera. Both his revamped versions of well-known classics and his avant-garde original operas tend to make critics go berserk, in good and bad ways.

Of note

Wilson's operas and theater pieces tend to be visually arresting and extremely long, sometimes to their detriment. KA MOUNTain and GUARDenia Terrace, which transpired over seven days on seven hills in Iran, left half his company, including Wilson himself, hospitalized with dehydration and exhaustion. But the most unequivocally disastrous instance of Wilson's overreaching was CIVIL warS: a tree is best measured when it is down, a 12-hour, five-part epic featuring the work of six composers from six different countries, which was supposed to be the centerpiece of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. A month before its scheduled premiere, the Olympic Arts Council pulled the plug, claiming it had run out of funding for the logistically nightmarish project, and to date it's never been performed in its entirety—although it won a unanimous jury nomination for the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for drama.

The hyperactive Wilson doesn't restrict himself to theater—he won the Golden Lion at the 1993 Venice Biennale for a sculptural installation—and he's collaborated with a slew of notables from different artistic fields including David Byrne, William S. Burroughs, Tom Waits (on the 1990 musical The Black Rider), Susan Sontag, Laurie Anderson, and Lou Reed. He's also put his inimitable stamp on classic operas like The Magic Flute (1991), Wagner's Lohengrin, Madame Butterfly (1993). More details about the extremes of Wilson's professional life can be seen in Katharina Otto-Bernstein's 2006 documentary Absolute Wilson.

Habitat

After getting evicted from the Spring Street loft he'd lived in and worked out of for 34 years, in 2007 Wilson moved to Front Street in Dumbo, where he'll also open a 2,400-square-foot gallery in early 2008. Each summer, he retreats to the Watermill Center, his sprawling arts laboratory/performance center housed on a six-acre estate on the East End. Wilson spends a good chunk of the year in Europe, where he enjoys rock-star status.