Theater director, filmmaker, writer, and teacher Lee Breuer is also the co-founding artistic director of Mabou Mines Theater Company in New York. Now an avant-garde institution, Mabou Mines, established in 1970, was instrumental in merging the theater and art worlds and pioneering performance art. In his earliest productions, Breuer collaborated with conceptual artists, musicians, and dancers, and he is well known for his productions with puppets. His adaptations of Samuel Beckett, Sophocles, Henrik Ibsen, and J. M. Barrie have won him numerous awards, including 14 Obies for Performances as well as for Writing, Directing, and Overall Achievement. Breuer has also directed internationally, and he won a MacArthur Fellowship in 1988.