Lawrence Sacharow, 68; Obie-Winning Theatrical Director

Lawrence Sacharow, 68, an Obie Award-winning director who led the theater program at Fordham University for 17 years, died of leukemia Aug. 14 at New York Hospital in Manhattan.

Born in Brooklyn in 1937, Sacharow attended Brooklyn College, where he saw a production of “Zoo Story” that drew him into the theater world and led to later work with the play’s author, Edward Albee.

Sacharow founded River Arts Repertory in Woodstock, N.Y., where he directed the American premiere of Albee’s “Three Tall Women,” which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994. Two years later Sacharow won a Lucille Lortel Award for the off-Broadway production of the play. He also directed the 1996 staging at the Mark Taper Forum at the L.A. Music Center.

In 1968 Sacharow created and directed “The Concept,” an off-Broadway production featuring the stories and performances of recovering drug addicts from a Staten Island rehabilitation center. He later took the show on tour across the United States and to Russia.

He won the Obie in 1984 for directing the off-Broadway production of Len Jenkin’s “Five of Us.”