Mark Weil, founder of Uzbekistan's most controversial theatre and known around the world as a director, has been stabbed to death in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent. He was 51.

Weil, who spent half the year in Seattle, where his wife and daughter live, died on the operating table after being taken to hospital by neighbours.

He was stabbed on the porch of his Tashkent home but not robbed, actors who worked with him said.

Weil was preparing for Friday's opening of the new season at the Ilkhom theatre, which he founded in 1976. "Ilkhom" means inspiration in Uzbek.

The first independent theatre in the Soviet Union, it was known for presenting edgy, often controversial works — including plays involving homosexuality, a taboo topic in the largely Muslim country, and plays that tweaked the nose of the old Soviet system.

 "Our credo is not to repeat ourselves, and each new project obliterates everything we've done before," Weil told the Associated Press in 2006.

Productions combined elements of Uzbek folk theatre, Italian commedia dell'arte and the absurd.

Weil also had an international reputation. He directed plays in Moscow and Seattle, first travelling to the United States at the invitation of a group of Seattle theatre artists who had visited Tashkent for a two-week artistic collaboration.

"Their productions are very rich, deep and more organic than most of what we see in the U.S.," said Sarah Nash Gates, executive director of the School of Drama at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Actors at the theatre say they will go ahead with Friday's opening of The Oresteia by ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus and will dedicate the show to Weil.

"To the last minute, he kept talking about tomorrow's premiere," musical director Artyom Kim said.

Weil's neighbours reported seeing two young men in baseball caps running from the scene of his stabbing. Police say they are investigating.

Weil, who was conscious when he arrived at the hospital, told friends he did not know his assailants.

Weil will be cremated in Moscow and his ashes sent to relatives in Seattle.

With files from the Associated Press