Wilson, Robert (1941– )

US avant-garde theatre director. He specializes in non-narrative, elaborately visual theatre productions such as Deafman Glance (1971), Ka Mountain (1972), and The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin (1973). Later productions include Einstein on the Beach (1976 and 1992); operatic productions of Euripides' tragedies Medea (1984) and Alcestis (1986); The Black Rider (1990); Alice in Bed (1993), and Lady from the Sea (1998).

Wilson has worked consistently outside the USA, and has collaborated closely with the German dramatist Heiner Müller.

Wilson's long association with noted opera singer Jessye Norman began with Great Day in the Morning, presented in Paris in 1982. Wilson has collaborated with singer/songwriter Lou Reed on Time Rocker, which opened in Hamburg, Germany, in 1996, and at POEtry, in 2000. He has also collaborated with singer Tom Waits, and in 2000 they worked together on an adaptation of Büchner's Woyzeck, which toured internationally. Wilson is also an accomplished artist whose drawings, paintings, and sculptures have been presented around the world in hundreds of solo and group showings.