After a weekend attending performances of “Class Dismissed,” his latest play now in the midst of a two-week run at La MaMa in the East Village, playwright Robert Lyons steered his car onto the Taconic State Parkway and headed north. The applause had faded, the city dimmed behind him, and the parkway stretched quiet and dark toward Pine Plains — where new scripts waited on his desk, and the lawn, predictably, needed mowing.
Lyons, who spent more than three decades shaping downtown New York’s experimental theater scene, is putting more and more of his creative energy into Pine Plains, where he has lived part-time for more than 20 years. Even as his work reaches international stages, he is increasingly excited about collaborations rooted in Hudson Valley history, new plays written for upstate neighbors, and a theater practice anchored here in Pine Plains. “I loved working in the city,” said Lyons, “but we’ve built a lot of connections here. Stissing Center is like a new home, and a great outlet for what I’m doing.”
A native of Detroit, Lyons arrived in New York City in 1987 and became involved with the Ohio Theatre on Wooster Street in Soho, an important venue in Manhattan’s downtown scene. He soon became the theater’s artistic director, producing and presenting works of his own and other playwrights, while living in the building and acting as its super.
“It was a big, beautiful, old factory space,” Lyons recalled. “I had a loft on the third floor, we had a big rehearsal space, I had a writing studio — for a guy with no money it was pretty nice.”
In 1989, Lyons met playwright and actor Lenora Champagne when she performed in “Dr. Charcot’s Hysteria Shows” at the Ohio. (Champagne is a volunteer contributor to the Herald.) The two married and had a daughter, Amelie, who had her own small desk in the Ohio’s office. “She even had a sign on it: ‘Amelie’s desk, don’t put your things here!’” Lyons recalled.
“That space was a hothouse of experimental theater for 20-something years,” Lyons said. “Eventually the real estate market caught up with us. The owners were losing money every year by keeping us as a theater, a kind of quiet unspoken philanthropy, but it couldn’t last forever.”
In 2010 the building was sold, but the following year Lyons established the New Ohio Theatre in the Archive Building in Greenwich Village. He continued his mission there for a dozen years, but in 2023 decided to end that chapter of his career.
“I was done running a theater,” Lyons said, “but I wasn’t done as a theater artist.”
By then he and Champagne were spending more time in the Hudson Valley, and Lyons wanted to focus on writing and directing on a broader scale. The final show at the New Ohio was “Ultra Left Violence,” a workshop production that evolved into “Class Dismissed.”
Having filled so many roles within theater, Lyons is a natural fan of the collaborative process. “Class Dismissed” is his third project with Daniel Irizarry, who directs and acts in the play.
“Daniel has this wild theatrical imagination,” said Lyons. “He takes things way beyond anything I’m thinking when I’m writing. I love that, and I trust that.”
Rhys Tivey, also in the cast, composed the music, working closely with Lyons and Irizarry.
The path of “Class Dismissed” from its workshop incarnation to its final form offers a case study of Lyons’ work and his process. “The original piece was a celebration of what we’d been doing at the New Ohio, and it was great, but we knew it wasn’t a finished product,” Lyons recalled. “We needed to reconceive it outside of that specific context.”
The piece continued to evolve through performances at the Mercury Store in Brooklyn and at the NACL Theatre in the Catskills.
“I wrote two more monologues for Daniel’s character, to balance the four roles and develop some themes,” Lyons said. “I also added a couple scenes for Rhys to compose big musical moments that required restructuring.”
After the editing, expansions, and contractions, the team arrived at what can be seen at La MaMa, a surreal four-character examination of the joys and absurdities of academia. The production runs through May 4.
Lyons cites a wide range of influences for his work. He earned a bachelor’s degree in English at Michigan State, studying poetry with Diane Wakoski, and later received an MFA from Brooklyn College where he worked with the playwright Mac Wellman. A stint in London provided an opportunity to expand his learning.
“I worked at a bookstore that had a small theater in the basement,” Lyons said. “I was the stage manager, lighting designer, and sound designer, but I had access to their entire inventory of theater books. I read everything, and they were OK with it so long as I didn’t break the spines.”
More than anything else, Lyons draws from his peers. Running the Ohio was hard work but paid dividends in terms of his own craft. “I was in such a privileged position,” said Lyons. “I had non-stop engagement with people who were doing such interesting work – experimental projects, non-traditional forms. It was a constant source of inspiration.”
Looking beyond the “Class Dismissed” run at La Mama, Lyons is preparing for an appearance at the Sibiu International Theatre Festival in Romania in June. He will take a troupe of 14 performers and production staff to stage “My Onliness,” another collaboration featuring Lyons’ text and performances by Irizarry and Tivey.
(J.R. Tracy/The New Pine Plains Herald)
Closer to home, Lyons is active in several arts projects in the Pine Plains area. He conceived the Downtown Upstate festival co-hosted by the Ancram Center for the Arts and the Stissing Center. The festival included his play “Puzzling Evidence” this past September. He wrote a play with local nonagenarian Grace Dietrich in mind, creating “Upstate Untitled” and directing a table read at the Stissing Center with Dietrich in the central role.
“It turned into a celebration of Grace’s life, really,” Lyons said. “That was one of the most meaningful theater experiences I’ve ever had.”
Lyons has directed the Lantern Tour at the Evergreen Cemetery each Halloween for the last three years, succeeding Champagne, who ran it for five years. Lyons and Champagne write many of the pieces, and familiar faces fill the roles.
“I love that project and look forward to it every fall,” Lyons said. “It’s beautiful, community theater at its finest — locally cast, all about local people.”
Alongside the cemetery tours, Lyons is preparing to direct “Widow’s Weeds,” a play by Pine Plains’ Dyan Wapnick. Produced by the Little Nine Partners Historical Society, the show is part of the commemoration of the 250th anniversary of American independence. The performance is slated for Sept. 6 at Stissing Center.
While keeping an eye on several simmering pots, Lyons is devoted to ensuring a successful closing weekend for “Class Dismissed.”
“The New York Times described the play as ‘effusively unhinged,’” Lyons said with a laugh. “That’s a great quote but the play is anything but unhinged. We work hard to create a sense of chaos, that we’re teetering on the brink of catastrophe, but we’re always in control. I’m happiest when we can pull the audience to the edge of their seats. There’s a huge seduction happening on stage, breaking down the audience and inviting them in.”