BY DAVID HERSKOVITS
Our performance space is named for Lenore Doxsee. Lenore passed away on May 19th, 2017. She had lived with ovarian cancer for the previous four years with astonishing strength and humor.
No one did more than Lenore Doxsee to shape and build the vision that is the best of Target Margin Theater. Lenore was a foundational member of the company, designing the lights for Titus Andronicus and countless TMT shows, as well as designing scenery (and even costumes) for many more. She was Associate Artistic Director for years because although she always led our design work, her artistry shaped our programming and artistic culture as a whole. Together we read plays, reviewed portfolios, discussed and questioned every decision pertaining to the life of TMT. She served on the Board from the start; she supervised and cultivated our Lab artists; she planned budgets and calendars. Along the way we all consumed no small quantity of red wine and steak and oysters, all to the betterment of our artistic process, of course. Without her Target Margin would never have had the impact, never have achieved the growth and stability, never have built the rigorous artistic culture which is our greatest pride.
For me personally she was the indispensable partner. Lenore was the artist I could always ask the tricky questions that had been nagging at me in rehearsal; she was the eye that corrected my fruitless wandering, and the heart that kept me true when the work seemed most chaotic and rootless. She understood me from the start. We shared the kind of weird language that two people only can nurture over hundreds of hours spent around midnight in dark theaters. She became my work and I hope desperately that in some small way I became hers too. We had met—was it really by the chance of a telephone message?—27 years earlier, and over that time we created each other artistically. Now I know her loss will never leave me, and I will spend the rest of my working life seeking a level of collaborative joy to match ours.
To honor Lenore look at the world with fresh irreverence every day, and please give to The Ovarian Cancer Research Fund Alliance.
Photo by Paul Bartlett