Born: 15 December 1952, United States
Died: NA
Country most active: United States
Also known as: NA
The following is republished from the National Endowment for the Arts. This piece falls under under public domain, as copyright does not apply to “any work of the U.S. Government” where “a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. Government as part of that person’s official duties” (See, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 105).
Whether directing for the stage or screen, Julie Taymor has consistently defied cultural expectations and tested technological limits, reinventing storytelling in the process. She is perhaps best known for her 1997 Broadway hit The Lion King, which earned her Tony Awards for Direction and Costume Design. Based on the Disney movie, the musical utilizes masks and puppetry, an art form Taymor studied while living in Indonesia and Japan as a young woman. Her 1996 multimedia off-Broadway production, Juan Darién: A Carnival Mass, earned two Obie Awards, while early stage works such as The Tempest, Liberty’s Taken, andTransposed Heads were recognized with a 1991 MacArthur Fellowship. Taymor has also brought her imaginative touch to other media. She has directed operas such as The Magic Flute and Grendel (which she created with the help of a 1988 National Endowment for the Arts grant), while her filmography includes Titus (1999), Frida (2002) — which won Oscars for Best Makeup and Best Original Score — Across the Universe (2007), based on music by the Beatles, and The Tempest (2010).