I love this book so much. Years ago (maybe nine years ago?) when I still lived in Pennsylvania, there was a time period where I got tired of taking the Bieber bus to New York City and I would drive down to Washington DC quite frequently and I saw Henry IV Part 1 twice at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in DC because it was that good. And I went to college in Paris, France, so I like to think I know what good theater is like. That Henri IV Part 1 was really, really good. (And I loved the Tom Hiddleston TV series but that was not live theater.) Anyway, in the Shakespeare DC bookshop when I was in town to watch Henry IV Part 1, I bought The Director's Voice volume 2, about more recent interviews (at the time) of directors, and I remember seeing The Director's Voice later in the bookshop (maybe the second time I drove down to catch Henry IV Part 1 again) and at the time I decided I didn't know enough about the times where those directors had made theater to connect with what they had to say in interviews. Frankly, I don't think any of the names resonated with me. (!)
But I am where I am now and I bought this book on a recent trip to New York City (Drama Book Shop, I love you), and once I started reading it I could not put it down. It was fascinating to hear theater landmark names like JoAnne Akalaitis or Zelda Fichandler or Harold S. Prince express themselves when time has made them become stultified. This is an important book for anyone who cares about theater directing.
Finally, a funny aside is that my current employer is mentioned in two interviews (out of twenty-one) in the book, and in the second of them it is mentioned more than once. Theater is not a discipline that my employer currently seems to include in its strategy for greater academic preeminence, but I have also read about my employer in another theater-related book, and they are ranked in the top 25 drama programs in the world in Hollywood Reporter, so I think they are good, even if they don't play a leading role in the current strategic plan, for whatever reason.
The two directors with ties to SMU mentioned in the book are John Hirsch and Garland Wright. The other university that gets mentioned a lot in the book is Yale, so it is all to SMU's credit that it was mentioned in the book too more than once. SMU alum Garland Wright tragically died at 52 of cancer and we are left to imagine the impact he could have had on American theater if he had lived longer.
This was a phenomenal book I could not put down and I recommend it to anyone interested in theater, especially directing.
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