Jeff Weiss (5) (1940–2022)

Jeff Weiss was a towering American playwright, actor, and downtown theater impresario who left formal school at age 16 to move to New York City. Bypassing conventional conservatory training, he emerged as an electric, mercurial force within the 1960s underground theater scene, staging work at the Caffe Cino and La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club. Alongside his life partner and collaborator, Carlos Ricardo Martinez, he operated a microscopic storefront theater on East 10th Street, famously forcing audiences to bring flashlights when they had no electricity. His multi-decade dramatic canon earned him a 1992 Obie Award for his episodic serial Hot Keys and the 2000 Robert Chesley Award for Lesbian and Gay Playwriting. Parallel to his radical underground career, he was a highly sought-after Broadway character actor, appearing in massive productions of The Iceman Cometh, Hamlet, and Henry IV. He was an openly gay vanguard artist.