Theater is magic; a momentary trick that--if played with courage, humility, and sincerity--reveals universal human truth. This magic lives in the alchemy of actors' fully felt and fully thought relationship with the text, as expressed through the triumphs and disappointments of the ardent pursuit of purest desire. Half commitments and hedged bets are death to the art.
Only through actors' courageous quest for truth can a play touch the sublime; my director's duty is to position them for greatest success. My process is not proscriptive; I begin with a precise guiding plan, and in the search for truth evolve it as stronger choices unfold. The only "rule" in my rehearsal hall is that the word "no" be checked at the door in the service of collaborative exploration. I have yet to meet a question for which the text--mined in meticulous detail with the actors' living truth--did not contain the answer.
My collaborations are described by colleagues, critics, and audience members alike as courageous, smart, joyous, full of heart, and elevating and expanding of the text. They consistently exceed their income goals, have set sales records in two of Milwaukee Repertory Theater's three core performance spaces, and almost always conclude with the audience on its feet.
To do the play for the audience is the only point of the exercise. I strive to create productions that engage everyone in the room in conversation--for dialogue is democracy's greatest tool. I strive, as a director, for my own invisibility on stage--to press a vivid theatrical imagination in service of creating cohesive, seamless worlds in which all elements harmonize perfectly and avoid overly curated moments that overwhelm the audience's relationship with the actors. I strive to create productions that engage emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, visually, and aurally, by unleashing the most epic, transcendent, primal, elemental forces of the human heart.
LORT B
LORT A
A CHRISTMAS CAROL adapted by Joseph Hanreddy and Edward Morgan (2015)
Second-best-selling annual installment in last ten years
OUR TOWN by Thornton Wilder (2018)
LORT D
GUARDS AT THE TAJ by Rajiv Joseph (2018)
THE WHIPPING MAN by Matthew Lopez (2014)
Closed as best-selling drama in the history of Milwaukee Rep's Stiemke Studio
MCGUIRE by Dick Enberg (2017)
Closed as best-selling production in the history of Milwaukee Rep's Stackner Cabaret
LIBERACE! by Brent Hazelton (2010, 2014)
2014 remount closed as best-selling production in the history of Milwaukee Rep's Stackner Cabaret
THE BEAUTIFUL MUSIC ALL AROUND US by Stephen Wade (2015)
HOW THE WORLD BEGAN by Catherine Trieschmann (2013)
SONG MAN DANCE MAN by John Peterson (2011)
Closed as top-ten best-selling production in the history of Milwaukee Rep's Stackner Cabaret
TYA
SLAMMED by Kelby Siddons (2010)
D'TENSION by Laura Lynn McDonald (2009)
TWENTY FEET TALL by John Van Slyke (2008)
OTHER
ELLIS ISLAND: THE DREAM OF AMERICA by Peter Boyer (2006)
NON-AEA
THE VAST DIFFERENCE by Jeff Daniels (2008)
TWO ROOMS by Lee Blessing (2008)
ONE-ACT AND TEN-MINUTE
Alien Monster Bowling League by Matthew Lopez (2017)
THE FURIES by Neil Labute (co-directed with Mark Clements; 2011)
LOBSTER BOY by Dan Dietz (2012)
CONTROLLING INTEREST by Wayne Rawley (2011)
ONE FOR THE CHIPPER by Adam Seidel (2012)
SUMMER DAYS by Gregory Lewinski (2008)
PUBLIC READINGS
MIRIAM by Peretz Hirschbein, translated by Joel Berkowitz and Jeremy Dauber (2016)
IDIOT'S DELIGHT by Robert E. Sherwood (2009)
THE LIEUTENANT OF INISHMORE by Martin McDonagh (2008)
THE SEAGULL by Anton Chekhov (2006)
TONIGHT AT 8:30 by Noel Coward (2010)
CLARENCE by Booth Tarkington (2008)
THE COUNTRY COUSIN by Booth Tarkington (2007)
DESIGN FOR LIVING by Noel Coward (2004, 2006)
THE PLAY'S THE THING by Ferenc Molnar (2009)
ARMS AND THE MAN by George Bernard Shaw (2008)
THE VISIT by Friedrich Durrenmatt (2007)
PYGMALION by George Bernard Shaw (2006)
THERE SHALL BE NO NIGHT by Robert E. Sherwood (2005)