Masters of the Stage

On June 18, 2011, SDCF Executive Director Laura Penn moderated a panel at the TCG conference featuring Gil Cates, Curt Columbus, Jeffrey Horowitz, Susan Medak, Madeline Puzo, and Julie Taymor to consider the centrality of the director's role in theatre today. This panel of well-regarded directors and national theatre leaders engages in thoughtful and dynamic discussion about how directors grow as distinctive artists over a lifetime and how the field supports them. They focus strongly on how to advance the craft and how to improve the lives and support the artistry of today's directors, both from the standpoint of an individual forging a career as a director and from the standpoint of a producer and industry leader. They discuss creative and interpretive energies of directors and the director as storyteller. This is an exciting and lively exchange about the current relationship between directors and the field and the obligations we have to the director.