Uwe Mengel was born in Bergen on the Baltic Island of Ruegen. He studied theology at Friedrich Schiller Universität, Jena, East Germany. He continued his studies after his escape to West Germany at the Freie Universität Berlin-West and Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna, and graduated with an MA in Drama, Theology and Philosophy. He emigrated to New York in 1980 and has lived since 1998 in Berlin and New York.
He began writing and directing interactive cross-media projects in East Germany, among them the performance Verein zur Verbreitung des Erdflachheitsgedankens (Association for the Dissemination of the Notion that the Earth is Flat) which was banned after its first showing.

He has created performances all over New York City, from empty store fronts up in the South Bronx, to the Whitney Museum of American Art in midtown, to a landfill on the Hudson River, all the way to Battery Park City in Lower Manhattan.

He has been invited to create his unique interactive performances at many festivals, in Melbourne, Australia; Zürich,Switzerland; Berlin, Germany; and San Antonio, Texas. He has written and directed numerous award-winning radio plays and TV documentaries for German Radio and TV.

He has been invited for workshops and seminars at Columbia University, New York; New York University, New York; the Freie Universität, Berlin; Monash University, Melbourne; International Sommer Academy, Frankfurt/Main; International Theater Institute, Switzerland; Goethe University, Frankfurt/Main, most recently teaching at the Summer Academy of the National Theater of Greece, Athens.