The La Femme Board Members: Jean Lichty, Robert Dohmen, and Austin Pendleton
Jean Lichty is a producing artist, who has produced highly acclaimed regional and Off-Broadway productions of American classics that explore the female experience. Her most recent producing credit includes La Femme's first solo production -- a successful Off-Broadway production of Tennessee Williams's rarely revived A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur at the Theatre at St. Clement's in the fall of 2018. She also co-produced, with the Cherry Lane Theatre, Horton Foote's The Traveling Lady in the summer of 2017 and Ingmar Bergman's Nora in the fall of 2015. Earlier in 2015, she was the associate producer of an Off-Broadway production of Clifford Odets's Rocket to the Moon at the Theatre at the St. Clement's. In 2014, she was the associate producer of an Off-Broadway production of William Inge's A Loss of Roses at the Theatre at St. Clement's. She also has produced numerous staged readings including two readings of William Inge's Bus Stop, which featured Alec Baldwin, Brian Cox, Laura Heisler, Norm Lewis, Larry Pine, John Riggins, Jane Summerhays, Benjamin Walker, and Emma Zaks. Regionally, she has collaborated with the Olney Theatre Center in Olney, MD and the Arkansas Repertory Theatre, conceiving and realizing projects that fulfill La Femme's mission.
As an actress, she last played Dorothea in A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur at the Theatre at St. Clement's, then the title roles in The Traveling Lady and Nora at the Cherry Lane Theatre, Lila in A Loss of Roses, first at Arkansas Repertory Theatre and then at Theatre at the St. Clement's, and Cherie in Bus Stop at the Olney Theatre Center. After graduating from Barnard College, Columbia University, with theater honors, she trained with William Esper and Wynn Handman. And her partnering with Austin Pendleton and Robert Dohmen has been the fulfillment of a lifelong dream – inspired by the journeys of her mother, Joanne Dillon Lichty, her grandmother, Viola Sherwood Dillon, and her other maternal ancestors – to highlight and honor the female experience.
Robert Dohmen, a lifelong supporter of the arts, is a Production Partner at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF), sponsoring its recent productions of Hamlet, Long Day's Journey Into Night, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. He is also a major supporter of the American Players Theatre (APT). Chairman of the Board of the F. Dohmen Company, a 150 year old family owned health care services firm, he has served as Secretary to the Board of Directors of the International Crane Foundation (ICF) since 2003 – and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Wisconsin Historical Foundation since 2013. A proud Badger, he earned his BA degree from the University of Wisconsin, majoring in history, philosophy, and psychology. And his mother, Gladys Dite Dohmen, was one of the first women to graduate from the University of Wisconsin business school.
Austin Pendleton is a triple threat as an acclaimed director, actor, and playwright. He was last represented as a director on the New York stage by War of the Roses: Henry VI & Richard III at Theater for the New City, A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur at the Theatre at St. Clement's, The Saintliness of Margery Kemp at the Duke on 42nd Street, The Traveling Lady at the Cherry Lane Theatre, A Taste of Honey at the Pearl Theatre, A Day by the Sea at the Mint Theater, Orpheus Descending at the St. John's, Nora (Bergman's adaptation of Ibsen's A Doll's House) at the Cherry Lane Theatre, Stephen Adly Giurgis's Between Riverside and Crazy (which won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in Drama), first at the Atlantic Theater and then at the Second Stage, Uncle Vanya, Ivanov, Hamlet, all at CSC, and Michael Weller's Fifty Words at MCC. He has directed numerous regional productions including Bus Stop at the Olney Theatre Center and Lisa D'Amour's Detroit at the Steppenwolf Theatre. He also directed the National Theatre production of Detroit in London.
His most recent acting appearances on the New York stage include the Broadway production of Tarell Alvin McCraney's Choir Boy at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, Jean Young Lee's Straight White Men at the Public Theater, Robert Brustein's Last Will at the Abingdon Theatre, and Pamela Enz's City Girls and Desperadoes at the Secret Theatre. His legendary past performances on the New York stage include the Broadway premiere of Fiddler on the Roof, the Broadway revival of The Diary of Anne Frank, and the Off-Broadway premiere of Arthur Kopit's Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feeling So Sad. He has appeared on screen in Peter Bogdanovich's What's Up Doc, Mike Nichols's Catch 22, and HBO's Oz.
As a playwright, Austin has penned the critically acclaimed Orson's Shadow, Uncle Bob, and Booth. He wrote the libretto to A Minister's Wife, a new musical based on George Bernard Shaw's Candida, presented first at the Writers Theatre in Chicago and later at Lincoln Center.
Austin is renowned for his direction of actresses in critically acclaimed performances, directing Elizabeth Taylor and Maureen Stapleton in a Broadway production of The Little Foxes and Kate Nelligan in a Broadway production of Michael Weller's Spoils of War. All three actresses received Tony nominations as did Austin himself. Austin received Obie Awards for his direction of Three Sisters and his performance in Gretchen Cryer's The Last Sweet Days of Isaac. He also received the Drama Desk Special Award, Renaissance Man of the American Theatre.
After graduating from Yale University, Austin was mentored by Nikos Psacharopoulos at the Williamstown Theatre Festival and Uta Hagen and Herbert Berghof at HB Studios, where he now teaches and mentors countless artists. And he very proudly directed his mother, Francis Manchester Pendleton, as Amanda in The Glass Menagerie at TNT, a theater that she helped to found in Warren, Ohio.