SDCF Podcast Series

Welcome to SDCF Podcast Series Replay, which revisits podcasts that seem especially relevant this season. As we approach the 2017 "Mr. Abbott" Award Gala honoring director Kenny Leon, we will be featuring discussions by previous "Mr. Abbott" Award recipients. Today's podcast features our last "Mr. Abbott" Award honoree James Lapine. Originally recorded - July 1985

Welcome to SDCF Podcast Series Replay, which revisits podcasts that seem especially relevant this season. As we approach the 2017 "Mr. Abbott" Award Gala honoring director Kenny Leon, we will be featuring discussions by previous "Mr. Abbott" Award recipients. Also, in acknowledgement of Women's History Month, this week's podcast features two directors at the top of their game who also happen to be...

Welcome to SDCF Podcast Series Replay, which revisits podcasts that seem especially relevant this season. As we approach the 2017 "Mr. Abbott" Award Gala honoring director Kenny Leon, we will be featuring discussions by previous "Mr. Abbott" Award recipients. Today's podcast features George C. Wolfe. On April 18th, 1994 collaborator and colleague Hope Clarke sat down to interview writer-director G...

Welcome to SDCF Podcast Series Replay, which revisits podcasts that seem especially relevant this season. Today's podcast features Hamilton director Thomas Kail in conversation with director Stafford Arima about their careers and the theatrical worlds that have shaped them.

On May 8th, 2015, director Marshall Mason spoke to audiences at the SDC Collaboration Symposia in a keynote address. In this speech, Mason discusses how a director's greatest challenge is often reconciling the invisibility of their work. Mason then relates this difficulty to the importance of collaboration and trust with other artists and focuses on the director's relationship with the actor. Addi...

Welcome to SDCF Podcast Series Replay, which revisits podcasts that seem especially relevant this season. Today's podcast features Hamilton director Thomas Kail in conversation with director Leigh Silverman about ideal directorial skills, the value of readings, career beginnings, and much more.

In a DCN focused on preparing for the first rehearsal, directors May Adrales, Anne Kauffman, and Lonny Price describe how they respectively get from picking a project to the rehearsal room. Listen in as these three master directors discuss how they prepare to stage a piece, how they initially approach the all important collaborations with their fellow artists, how they compartmentalize when juggli...

Welcome to SDCF Podcast Series Replay, which revisits podcasts that seem especially relevant this season. Today's podcast features Hamilton director Thomas Kail in conversation with director Lear deBessonet about their early-career experiences, from the importance of making work with friends to the advantages and disadvantages of assisting.

On May 2nd, 2016, directors Rachel Chavkin and Bartlett Sher visited Emerson College and engaged in a conversation about their craft with a group of Boston-based directors. In this one-on-one discussion, Chavkin and Sher speak about the broad spectrum of their work—from preparing for meetings with designers, to the actor-audience relationship, to how space informs their approach on a given piece....

On June 9, 2016, author Jennifer Tepper had a conversation with director Michael Grandage , who is best known in America for hit productions like Red , Evita , and Frost / Nixon . In their conversation, Michael speaks about his early years as an actor and what inspired him to become a director, as well as the advice he frequently gives to early career directors. Other topics include the ways in wh...

On March 23, 2016, Jennifer Tepper, author and Director of Programming at 54 Below, interviewed director John Doyle about his craft and illustrious career. In this conversation, Tepper and Doyle dive into Doyle's methods for contemporizing both classics and revivals, as well as discussing his current Broadway revival of The Color Purple and his upcoming role as Artistic Director of Classic Stage C...

Welcome to SDCF Podcast Series. This is the first installment of a series curated by Jennifer Tepper, author and Director of Programming at 54 Below in New York City, and released by SDCF to celebrate some of the many luminaries currently represented on Broadway. On February 15, 2016, Tepper interviewed Jerry Mitchell about the evolution of his wide-spanning career. Best known for Broadway hits li...

On April 7, 2015 in Los Angeles, star of stage and screen Annette Bening sat down with director Tom Moore to discuss her career, the actor-director relationship, and the differences between working in film and theater. In this conversation, Bening and Moore discuss Bening's production of The Ruth Draper Monologues,  in which Bening served as her own director, the many ways in which actors and dire...

Welcome to SDCF Podcast Series Replay, which revisits podcasts that seem especially relevant this season. Today we replay a 2011 conversation with playwright and director Moisés Kaufman, best known for The Laramie Project , and Thomas Kail, director of the hit Broadway show Hamilton .   

SDCF Podcast Series Replay re-releases podcasts that seem especially relevant this season. This 2014 podcast features directors Bartlett Sher and Julie Taymor, and is moderated by Anne Bogart.

On April 28, 2014, director/choreographer Susan Stroman  visited the SDCF Symposium on Musicals. In this Q&A session with early-career directors and choreographers, Ms. Stroman shares the story of how her career began, imparting guidance about several dimensions of the craft—from the design process to working with a dance arranger. Listen in as this master director reminds her audience—and all of...

On June 23rd, 2014, Director Jack O'Brien visited the Emerging Artists Symposium for Plays and spoke with SDC Members about his career as well as his advice for the next generation. As O'Brien touches on his early days with the APA-Phoenix Repertory Company, his experiences with Porgy and Bess , his time at the Old Globe, and other phases in his career, he shares perspective gained on creating, re...

This is the first in a series curated by Thomas Kail, director of Hamilton and In the Heights, and featuring Kail in conversation with some of the most fascinating directors currently working on the American stage. In this podcast Kail and Stafford Arima engage in a lively conversation about their careers and the theatrical worlds that have shaped them. Throughout their hour-long session, the two...

On January 27, 2014, SDCF hosted a DCN with director Michael John Warren to discuss his experiences with filming "live captures" of Broadway musicals like RENT and Shrek . 

On August 25, 2014, director Jeremy Cohen moderated a conversation with panelists and fellow directors Leigh Silverman and Joel Sass at the Guthrie Theater. Listen in to learn about the views, experiences, and lives of these two master directors. 

On January 17, 2011, SDCF hosted a One-on-One Conversation with Berkeley Repertory Theatre Artistic Director Tony Taccone.

At the 2013 Emerging Artist Symposium on Plays, SDC's Executive Director Laura Penn spoke with acclaimed theatre and film director Daniel Sullivan on the art and practice of directing.

At the June 17 ,  SDCF 2013 Emerging Artist Symposium on Plays, SDCF Producing Director Ellen Rusconi moderated a discussion with directors Shelley Butler, Benjamin Endsley Klein, and Tony Speciale about the transition from assistant to director. Listen as they compare stories and experiences illustrating their unique transitions into directing their own work.

On April 30, 2012, Walter Bobbie and Sam Gold discussed their shared background in performance and respective discoveries that they are better suited for directing. Both directors go into great detail about how they find collaborators, how to give notes to a director, and the generous professionals who helped them when they were getting their start.

At SDCF's annual Emerging Artist Symposium on Musicals on May 20, 2013, SDCF Producing Director Ellen Rusconi moderated a conversation with Executive Board President and director/choreographer Karen Azenberg. Listen as they discuss Karen's transition from working as a freelance director/choreographer to her current position as Artistic Director of Salt Lake City's Pioneer Theatre Company, and how...