[citation needed] As co-founder (with Jules Irving)[1] of The Actor's Workshop[2] in San Francisco (1952–1965) and co-director of the Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center in New York City (1965–67), Blau introduced American audiences to avant garde drama in some of the country's first productions of Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, and Harold Pinter including the 1957 performance of Beckett's Waiting for Godot at California's San Quentin State Prison.

[3] This was the Godot that during the second red scare, after extralegal State Department maneuvers denied travel permission for unstated political reasons to a member of the company, represented American theater at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair.

[5] In 1968, Blau was named founding provost and dean of the school of theatre and dance of the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), where he led the way in designing its educational model.

With president Robert W. Corrigan, Blau recruited faculty including artists Allan Kaprow, John Baldessari, and Nam June Paik, composers Mel Powell and Morton Subotnick, musician Ravi Shankar, ethnomusicologist Nicholas England, designers Peter de Bretteville and Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, choreographer Bella Lewitzky, director Alexander Mackendrick, film scholar Gene Youngblood, filmmaker Pat O'Neill, and animation artist Jules Engel.

[6] In 1971, after three years at CalArts, Blau moved to Oberlin College, where he formed the experimental theater group KRAKEN, with which he continued presenting challenging productions for another decade.