15 teams of directors, writers, actors and designers explore new works; Lassalle directs Molière.

The 1998 Lab activities included seminars, symposia, discussions and active work on daily projects alongside leading theater artists including Uta Hagen, Moisés Kaufman, Nicholas Hytner, Scott Ellis, Meredith Monk, Rob Marshall, Bob Crowley, Jules Fisher, Rene Buch and Ping Chong. Actors worked with French director Jacques Lassalle on Molière, with Daniel Sullivan on Shakespeare and involved the development of 11 new plays by emerging playwrights.

Additionally, there was a French and African component. The French component featured, in addition to Jacques Lassalle's workshop of Molière's THE MISANTHROPE, an examination of the work of great French director Louis Jouvet, including discussions with French theater scholar Paul Louis Mignon and French director Brigitte Jaques.

The African component featured a symposium at the Schomburg Center in Harlem, with Lab participants from South Africa and Nigeria discussing the state of African Theater, moderated by Baraka Sele of Africa Exchange and a Master Directors workshop led by Duma Ndlovu, director of BERGVILLE STORIES (Lincoln Center Festival '97).

Finally, the Lab hosted a series of director-actor workshops. The majority of these workshops were devoted to new plays, and the writers joined the Lab as members, participating in all the Lab's activities. The workshops also benefited from the artistic input of young designers, who sat in the rehearsals and contributed to the collaborations.