The South Florida theater community is in mourning after the passing of Louis Tyrrell, founding director of the Theatre Lab at Florida Atlantic University.
Tyrrell died Friday, April 10, after a brief and sudden illness. He was 75.
Tyrrell’s theater roots in Florida run deep. In 1974, he became the founding director of Florida Stage, a position he held for 24 years until the theater closed in 2011. Under his guidance, the company produced more than 150 new works, many of which went on to be produced around the country.
Raised in New York, Tyrrell studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London from 1971 to 1973, followed by mime and improvisation at the Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris from 1973 to 1974.
Well known and widely admired, Tyrrell built a reputation as a developer and producer of new plays and artists. At FAU, he produced a mainstage series, yearlong play readings, a new play festival, a master class forum for playwrights and an innovative education outreach program.
Matt Stabile, his colleague and producing artistic director at Theatre Lab, first met Tyrrell when they worked together at The Theatre at Arts Garage from 2011 to 2015. Still processing the loss, both personally and professionally, Stabile said, “Lou was a tireless champion for new plays and the artists who help create them.”
“The list of titles and careers which Lou helped to launch into the world is nearly innumerable and, quite frankly, staggering in scope,” he says. “Those of us who knew and loved him are infinitely better for having had him in our lives, and our entire community will be feeling the impact of this immeasurable loss for a very, very long time.”
As an actor and director, Tyrrell was recognized extensively. His awards include several acting and directing Carbonell Awards, the Ubertalli Award for Artistic Excellence from the Palm Beach County Cultural Council, a Florida Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship, the Fallon Award for Excellence in Professional Theatre, the FAU Palm Beach County Cultural Leader Award and the George Abbott Award for Outstanding Artistic Achievement in 1995.
Michael J. Horswell, dean of FAU’s Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, says the entire FAU community is mourning. “Lou’s impact and legacy on our theater programs, especially the founding of our resident professional company, Theatre Lab, will live on forever in the relationships he forged and the incredible collaborations he created for the benefit of our students, theater colleagues and community members.”
But it is Tyrrell himself that is the hardest loss for him to bear. “It is the great human being who Lou was in all aspects of life that I will miss the most,” he says. “I will miss the global theater family he created, his love of theater, good food and joyful fellowship.”
What gives him solace, he says, is knowing Tyrrell will be “watching all the great theater his friends and colleagues continue to create” — and imagining him “playing croquet and feeding his friends great food wherever he may be.”
Stabile also finds comfort in the many artists, playwrights and supporters who have reached out to express their reverence and love for Tyrrell and their gratitude for his years of kindness and generosity. Many playwrights credit him as the first person to believe in their capabilities — support that changed careers and lives.
Two of those artists are actor Beth Dimon and playwright Deborah Zoe Laufer, the most produced playwright at Theatre Lab. In 2002, Tyrrell produced Laufer’s first professional play, The Last Schwartz, at Florida Stage and went on to produce and direct two more. He chose her play The Three Sisters of Weehawken for Theatre Lab’s first full production and gave her the opportunity to direct as well.
Laufer won the Carbonell Award for Outstanding New Work last season for The Last Yiddish Speaker, and Theatre Lab is currently in rehearsal for her new musical with Daniel Green, By Any Other Name, opening this month.
Still “shocked and gutted,” Laufer says, “Lou was my mentor. He taught me that you can lead with kindness and generosity and make something extraordinary.” She added that his “belief in me, greater than my belief in myself, changed my life and I’m forever grateful.”
Dimon, who met Tyrrell in 1990, was cast in 16 plays at the Theater Club of Palm Beach (later Florida Stage), beginning with Shy of Dallas by Charles Green.
“Lou and Nan Barnett gave me my start in Florida,” she says. “Lou gave me my career.” She remembers him as “so positive and full of life,” with a gift for bringing people together on and off stage.
Tyrrell’s friend and neighbor Nelson Hammell, owner of Devonshire in West Palm Beach, who often socialized with the Tyrrells, says, “Lou was our ringleader and table bon vivant. He was easy to know and easier to love.”
He recalled Tyrrell’s love of cooking and hospitality: “The oven was warm, the stove was hot, the drinks were cold and the table was set … Everyone was welcome. Your hugs were legendary and your smile as bright as the theater stage lights.”
Tyrrell is survived by his wife of 46 years, artist Kathleen Holmes, and his brothers Arthur Smadbeck of Martha’s Vineyard, Paul Smadbeck of New York, and David Smadbeck of California.
Theatre Lab is dedicating its 2026 Owl New Play Festival, opening this month, to his memory, and a celebration of his life is planned for May.