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Linda Mussmann

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Linda Mussmann
Linda Mussmann
Linda Mussmann
Background information
Birth nameLinda Mussmann
Born (1947-04-20) April 20, 1947 (age 77)
Gary, Indiana
OriginGary, Indiana
Genreshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_theatre
Years active1973–present

Linda Mussmann (born April 20, 1947) is an American avant-garde play-write, visual artist, a multimedia set and lighting designer, and an activist whose work has addressed problems of representation and language. Her writings history examening the real and the illusionary past. Mussmann is the founder of Time Space Limited Theater Inc, a theater company and performance space.

Mussmann directed and adapted over 30 classic plays. Since 1978, Mussmann has been writting her own performance works and adapted from literature for theater and radio. Mussmann currently lives in Hudson, NY. She is the co-director of Time and Space Limited, (TSL) with Claudia Bruce, her wife and life long collaborator. Since 2017, Mussmann holds an elected position as the Fourth Ward Supervisor for Columbia County, NY. [1]


Biography[edit]

Early Life

In 1947, Mussmann, was born in Gary, Indiana, one of America's industrial centers, to farmers Harold and Hilda Mussmann, third generation German Americans. Mussmann grew up on the family farm until the age of 18 when she left to attend Purdue University. Mussmann was the first in her family to graduate from a 4-year university with a BA degree.

Career

Mussmann began her work in the theater while a student at Purdue University (1965-1969) where she directed works by Bertolt Brecht, Harold Pinter, Megan Terry, Venable Herndon & Beckett’s Waiting For Godot. She was the recipient of The Stewart Scholarship for Outstanding Theater Achievement and The Purdue University Outstanding Director Award. During the Summer of 1968 Mussmann studied in Chicago at the Hull House Theater (formerly the settlement house created by Jane Adams.)

In 1969, Mussmann moved to New York City and directed plays at Theater East, University of the Streets, Manhattan Theater Club, and in other off Broadway spaces on the Lower East Side.

In 1973 Musmmann founded Time & Space Limited and became a director in residence at the Universalist Church, on 76 Street and Central Park West, where she produced and directed classic plays such as Sartre’s No Exit, Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gablerand The Wild Duck, George Bernard Shaw’s The Devil’s Disciple, Bertold Brecht’s The Exception and The Rule, Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party, Eugène Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano, Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. Mussmann adapted literary works by Gertrude Stein, The Making of Americans and by Virginia Woolf, The Chapter I of The Waves for performance.

In 1976 Mussmann moved Time & Space Limited to a storefront on 22nd Street in Chelsea. She was joined by the artist Claudia Bruce (her Muse) with whom she began a life-long collaboration. The storefront became the studio where Mussmann and Bruce developed and presented their early abstract collaborations, including the first, Room/Raum. [2]

Between 1987 and 1989, Mussmann wrote the six-part Civil War Chronicles (If Kansas Goes, Blue Scene Grey, Cross Way Cross, [3], [4] , Mary Surratt [5], Go Between Gettysburg [6], Lincoln Speak [7]) in collaboration with Bruce as the lead performer and choreographer, and with composer Semih Firincioglu. The Civil War Chronicles [8] were produced at Marymount Theater, Merce Cunningham’s Dance Space, Whitney Museum, Cooper Union, The Theatre at The Riverside Church, all in NYC. The Civil War Chronicles are not textbook histories, but rather intricate theatrical pieces examining the real and the illusionary past. The protagonist in each piece is a woman, performed by Claudia Bruce. In 1988, Women and Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory published an academic analysis of the Civil War Chronicles and the script of Cross Way Cross.[9]

Mussmann has adapted and produced three plays for German radio. In 1989 she adapted Danton's Death[10] by Georg Büchner for radio Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln. In 1992, she wrote a piece entitled "Grief Has Though us Nothing" for the radio station Südwestrundfunkin Baden Baden. In November 1994, Mussmann's adaptation of Lenz by Georg Büchner was broadcast at the former Sender Freies Berlin.

Linda Mussmann has been described as “a contemporary artist in the Gertrude Stein tradition..."”[11] Her texts involve elaborate wordplay and free associations. She has rejected narrative line and subverted dramatic structure to express a concern with problems of representation and perspective. Her work has addressed the problem of meaning, speaking words, perception and intention. Her multi-media projects utilize 8mm films, audio and video tapes, overhead projections, and special lighting designs in site-specific installations.

Mussmann’s writings and adaptations are preoccupied with the patterns prescribed by gender and the dominant cultural ideology. Mussmann has written and directed multiple plays in which Bruce plays male characters (for example: “Lincoln Speak”, “Thoughts on Moby Dick,” and "Lenz"). In M.A.C.B.E.T.H, Musmann's adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth, the influence exerted by Lady Macbeth amidst a male power structure is the central theme. [12] Mussmann conceives a character that departs from the traditional Shakespeare to pose questions about assumptions regarding the role of women. In Mary Surratt, Part IV of The Civil War Chronicles, Mussmann tells the story of the first woman hanged by the U.S. Federal Government for her conspiratorial role in Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Mary Surratt brings the experience of women to the center of the piece by inverting the traditional male-centric perspective.

Mussman has been the recipient of grants from the Japan United States Friendship Commission, the former Goethe House now Goethe Institut, the New York Foundation for the Arts, Westdeutscher Rundfunk, the Whitney Museum of American Art (Equitable Center and Philip Morris). She has been resident director at the Universalist Church, the Manhattan Theater Club, La Mama. For the past 26 years, Mussmann has presented at least two new works for the stage every year.

In 1991 Time & Space Limited refused a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts [13] that mandated an anti-obscenity pledge. That event, combined with the rising costs in NYC, led them to relocate [14]Time & Space Limited, to Hudson, NY, where Mussmann and Bruce are the co-directors of TSL. In 2011, Mussmann and Bruce became the first gay couple to marry in NY State.[15] [16]



Plays Directed by Mussmann[edit]

  • Mussmann, ’’Enact’,” The Manhattan Theater Club, NY, (1972)
  • Beckett, “The Lost Ones,” Universalist Church, NY, (1974)
  • Dürrenmatt, “Play Strindberg,” Universalist Church, NY, (1974)
  • Mussmann, “White on White,” NY, (1974)
  • Pinter, “The Birthday Party,” Universalist Church, NY, (1974)
  • Ibsen, “Ghosts,” Universalist Church, NY, (1974)
  • Brecht, “The Elephant Calf,” Universalist Church, NY, (1975)
  • Brecht, “The Exception of the Rule,” Universalist Church, NY, (1975)
  • Beckett, “Endgame,” Universalist Church, NY, (1975)
  • Mussmann, “Everything is the Same and Everything is Different,” adapted works by Woolf, Olsen, Sexton, Stein, Toklas, Universalist Church, NY, (1975)
  • Shaw, “The Devil’s Disciples,” Universalist Church, NY, (1975)
  • Ibsen, “The Wild Duck,” Universalist Church, NY, (1975)
  • Chekhov, “Uncle Vanya,” Universalist Church, NY, (1975)
  • Stein, “The Making of Americans,” (adap. By Mussmann), Universalist Church, NY, (1976)
  • Strindberg, “The Creditors,” (adap. By Mussmann), (TSL) Time & Space Theatre Company, NY, (1977)
  • Woolf, “The Waves, Chapter I,” (adap. By Mussmann), (TSL) Time & Space Theatre Company, NY, (1977)
  • Woolf, “The Moment,” (adap. By Mussmann), (TSL) Time & Space Theatre Company, NY, (1977)
  • Tashiro, “The Bandit Princess,” (TSL) Time & Space Theatre Company, NY, (1977)
  • Mussmann, “Room/Raum,” (TSL) Time & Space Theatre Company, NY, (1978)
  • Stein, “The Re-Making of Americans,” (adap. By Mussmann), (TSL)Time & Space Theatre Company, NY, (1978)
  • Mussmann, “Door, Window, Room (Triptych) (TSL) Time & Space Theatre Company, NY, (1979)
  • Büchner, “Danton’s Death,” La Mama E.T.C, NY, (1981)
  • Tashiro, “Katana,”The Department Thornes Market, Northampton, MA(1980)
  • Mussmann, “Kon’surt,” (TSL)Time & Space Theatre Company, NY, (1981)
  • Büchner, “Lenz,” (TSL)Time & Space Theater Company, NY, (1982)
  • Mussmann, “Nebraska of Questions,” (TSL)Time & Space Theatre Company, NY, (1982)
  • Mussmann, “Paperplay,” (TSL)Time & Space Theatre Company, NY, (1982)
  • Mussmann, “Is the Dialogue Read,” (TSL)Time & Space Theatre Company, NY, (1983)
  • Mussmann, “America Hour,”(TSL)Time & Space Theatre Company, NY, (1983)
  • Mussmann, “Room/Raum II,” (TSL)Time & Space Theatre Company, NY, (1984)
  • Mussmann, “Fresh Starts,” (TSL)Time & Space Theatre Company, NY, (1984)
  • Mussmann, “Camouflage,” Lawndale & University of Houston, TX, (1984)
  • Mussmann, “Harbors Wait,” Museum of Modern Art, NY (1985)
  • Mussmann, “Flatlands Little Remarks,”PS122, NY (1985)
  • Mussmann, “Avoidance and Peculiar,” Phoenix Museum, AR, (1985)
  • Mussmann, “Silent When Loaded,” The Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT (1985)
  • Mussmann, “Omaha to Ogden - Southwesterly),” Theater of the Riverside Church, NY (1986)
  • Mussmann, “If Kansas Goes: Civil War Chronicles Part I,” Theater of The Riverside Church, NY (1987)
  • Mussmann, “Blue Scene Grey: Civil War Chronicles Part II,” Marymount Manhattan Theater, NY, (1987)
  • Mussmann, “Cross Way Cross: Civil War Chronicles Part III,” Marymount Manhattan Theater, NY, (1987)
  • Mussmann, “Mary Surratt: Civil War Chronicles Part IV,” Theater of The Riverside Church, NY (1988)
  • Mussmann, “Go Between Gettysburg: Civil War Chronicles Part V,” Theater of The Riverside Church, NY (1988)
  • Mussmann, “Lincoln Speak: Civil War Chronicles Part VI” Whitney Museum of American Art at Phillip Morris, NY, (1989)
  • Mussmann, Little Stumps & Real Conversations,” Marymount Manhattan Theater, NY, (1989)
  • Mussmann, “Little Stumps: The Deal,” Cunningham Dance Studio, NY, (1990)
  • Shakespeare, “M.A.C.B.E.T.H. ,”(adap. By Mussmann), Cunningham Dance Studio, NY, (1990)
  • Mussmann, “Silhouettes & Souvenirs,” Contemporary Architecture Museum, Montreal Canada, (1991)
  • Mussmann, “Grief Has Taught Us Nothing,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY (1992)
  • Mussmann, “A. Lincoln,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY (1993)
  • Mussmann, “Arkadin Overruled,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (1994)
  • Mussmann, “My Dinner With Matthew,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (1994)
  • Mussmann, “Hedda Possessed,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (1994)
  • Mussmann, “Looking Out: Part I, Moby Dick,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (1995)
  • Mussmann, “White Noise,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (1995)
  • Mussmann, “Songs for the Turn of the Next Century,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (1995)
  • Mussmann, “Let ‘Em Eat Biscuit,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (1995)
  • Mussmann, “My 20th Century,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (1996)
  • Mussmann, “Time Passes: 1976-1996,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (1996)
  • Mussmann, “The Madame Caillaux Affair,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (1997)
  • Mussmann, “Going Over Kansas,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (1998)
  • Mussmann, “Thoughts on Moby Dick,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (1998)
  • Mussmann, “Waxworks,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (1998)
  • Mussmann, “Six Simple Machines,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (1999)
  • Mussmann, “Mao Wow,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (1999)
  • Mussmann, “Fast Food,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2000)
  • Mussmann, “On the Way to Libertyville,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2001)
  • Mussmann, “Blind in Time,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2001)
  • Mussmann, “Water, Water Everywhere,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2002)
  • Mussmann, “Claudia Sings!,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2002)
  • Shakespeare, “H.A.M.L.E.T.,: (adapted by Mussmann), TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2002)
  • Mussmann, “There But Not There TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2002)
  • Mussmann, “Tee Vee,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2003)
  • Mussmann, “Now & Then: do the work,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2004)
  • Mussmann, “A.L.I.C.E. in Wonderland,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2005)
  • Mussmann, “Back to Kansas,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2006)
  • Mussmann, “Every Woman: Every Now and Then,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2007)
  • Mussmann, “Evacuate,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2008)
  • Mussmann, “Her Story: The Majority Report,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2009)
  • Mussmann, “Cabaret Nights, take 1, 2, 3,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2009)
  • Mussmann, “War and Peace: thoughts and notes,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2010)
  • Mussmann, “Nine+3,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2010)
  • Mussmann, “War and Peace: thoughts and notes: Part I,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2011)
  • Mussmann, “Making Macbeth Work,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2011)
  • Mussmann, “Kowtow/China See,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2011)
  • Mussmann, “Haywire, Part I,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2012)
  • Mussmann, “m… m… m… Oil! Haywire, Part II,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2012)
  • Mussmann, “Haywire, Part II,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2012)
  • Mussmann, “Cowgirls,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2012)
  • Mussmann, “Frame Upon Frame: Chapter one, God’s Woods,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2012)
  • Mussmann, “Anti-Gone,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2013)
  • Mussmann, “TSL Theater Works: Thursday Open Studio,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2013)
  • Mussmann, “Madam X,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2014)
  • Mussmann, “Untitled #12: The Heart of D. Cheney & other Concerns,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2014)
  • Mussmann, "An evening with TSL Founder, Mussmann & Bruce,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2015)
  • Mussmann, "The Life & Times of Mussmann & Bruce,” Bard College, Annandale on Hudson, NY (2015)
  • Mussmann, “Fragments: Part 1,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2016)
  • Mussmann, “Event,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2016)
  • Mussmann, “Dick Cheney’s Heart, Part II,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2017)
  • Mussmann, “Tid Bits,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2018)
  • Mussmann, “The TSL Staff Stew,” TSL WareHouse, Hudson, NY, (2018)

Publications[edit]

The Drama Review Women and Performance

New York University School of the Arts

Volume 24, Number 2, page 70 June, 1980

Women & Performance

A Journal of Feminist Theory

Volume 4, Number 1, Issue #7, page 64 - 1988/1989

Scenarios: Scripts to Perform

Assembling Press

Ed. By Richard Kostelanetz

Room Raum, page 234 – 1980

Interviews and Articles on Mussmann[edit]

Jim O’Quinn, Linda Mussmann’s Time and Space Limited Theater,” The Drama Review Vol. 24, No.2, June, 1980, pp.71-84.

Richard Kostelanetz, “Roberta Wilson, Richard Foreman, Linda Mussmann: A Symposium on Writing and Performance,“ (Interview) New York Arts Journal, No.25-26, 1982, pp. 4-9.

Harmony Hammond, “Women in Theater: Interview with Linda Mussmann and Ann Wilson,” Heresies Magazine Issue #17: Acting Up!: Women in Theater and Performance, Volume 5, Number 1, 1984, pp. 89-93.

Rebecca Schneider, "Narrative History, Female Subjectivity, and the Theater of Linda Mussmann Cross Way Cross: Going Forward by Going Back, Issue #7, Vol 4, Number 1, 1988/1989, pp. 64-149.

Fern Siegel, “The Cutting Edge: Time & Space Limited’s Linda Mussmann,” (interview) Theater Week, January 1988, pp.25-31.

Jack Anderson, “Mussmann and Troup: Enigmas in Motion,” New York Times, March 30, 1990.

Barbara Garmarekian, “Gallery and a Theater Group Reject Endowment Grants,” New York Times, September 24, 1990.

Jennifer Fortenbaugh, “Defining A Dream,” (Interview) The Paper, November 1994.

Carol Perkins, “You Will Know Her by Her Voice,” (Interview) The Women’s Times, Vol. III, No.2, Novemeber-December, 1995.

Radio Documentaries[edit]

1998 Time To Talk: A Conversation with James G. Snead Jr.

WAMC Public Radio, Albany NY

1997 Time To Talk: A Conversation with James G. Snead Jr. 

              Sender Freies, Berlin, Germany

Radio Dramas[edit]

Radio Play for: Sender Freies Berlin & Bayerischer Rundfunk, Munich & Südwestfunk, Baden-Baden

1990 Danton’s Death (George Büchner) 

          WDR Radio, Cologne, Germany

1992 Grief Has Taught Us Nothing 

          WDR Radio, Cologne, Germany

1994 Lenz (George Büchner) 

          WDR Radio, Cologne, Germany



Director in Residence[edit]

Universalist Church, New York City (1973-76)

St. Clements Church, New York City, (May, 1976)

Vorpal Gallery, New York City (June 1976)

Café Theater, Copenhagen/Denmark (Summer 1978)

Rider College, New Jersey (October 1979)

Thornes Department Gallery, Northhampton, MA (July 1980)

LaMama E.T.C., New York City, (1980/81)

References[edit]

  1. ↑ https://ns1or-wt1-p-prd.ncs-customers.io/article/newcomers-shined-columbia-county-supervisor-primaries-candidates-look-november
  2. ↑ Richard Kostelanetz, Scenarios: Scripts to perform, Assembling Press, 1980,pp.234-248.
  3. ↑ Ann Daly, Time & Space Limited: Cross Way Cross,” High Performance, February 25- March, 1987.
  4. ↑ Jack Anderson, "Stage: Cross Way Cross,' A Journey", New York Times, March 1, 1987.
  5. ↑ Rebecca Schneider, “Time & Space Limited: Mary Surratt,” High Performance, Winter, 1988.
  6. ↑ Jennifer Dunning, “Idiosyncratic Vision of Gettysburg Address,” New York Times, November 20, 1988.
  7. ↑ Jack Anderson, "Review/Dance; Lincoln's Dream of Death and the Nation's Nightmare," New York Times, May 6, 1989.
  8. ↑ Marianne Goldberg,Turning History Around: Linda Mussmann's Chronicles, Women & Performance Journal of Feminist Theory, Issue #7, Volume 4, Number 1, 1988/1989, pp. 150-156.
  9. ↑ Rebecca Schneider, "Narrative History, Female Subjectivity, and the Theater of Linda Mussmann Cross Way Cross: Going Forward by Going Back, Women & Performance Journal of Feminist Theory, Issue #7, Vol 4, Number 1, 1988/1989, pp. 64-149.
  10. ↑ Susanne L. Müller, “Die Andere Perspektive: Linda Mussmann: Danton’s Death, Fragmente Nach Georg Büchner,” Funk-Korrespondenz, Köln, Germany, October 10, 1989.
  11. ↑ Jack Anderson, DANCE VIEW; Chatter, Chirps, Cackles - On With the Dance," New York Times, December 1, 1989.
  12. ↑ Marilyn French, “Review: M.A.C.B.E.T.H.,” MS. The World of Women,Volume I, Number 5, March/April, 1991.
  13. ↑ Barbara Garmarekian, "Gallery and a Theater Group Reject Endowment Grants," New York Times,September 24, 1990.
  14. ↑ https://imby.com/hudson/article/the-rural-we-linda-mussmann-and-claudia-bruce/Alisa Solomon, “Downtown Upstream,” Village Voice, December 13, 1994.
  15. ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/25/nyregion/a-busy-day-for-nuptials-across-new-york-state.html
  16. ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/fashion/weddings/linda-mussmann-claudia-bruce-weddings.html Linda Mussmann Claudia Bruce Wedding

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