The Party's Over

Confession—I have been coveting the Drama League's Fall Fellowship for many years. There are very few career development opportunities for directors and really nothing like this that combines assisting established directors with producing your own work. Both aspects of this program are fully realized and paid close attention to. This fall I was able to make connections in the theatre community that will keep me busy for a long time. Seven years of living in New York and producing my own work with an Off-off Broadway Theatre Company and three years at Drama School didn't provide me with the kind of innroads into the theatre community that my four months this fall did.

For the first time in a long time, I'm not anxious about my future as a director. The relationships I formed with established directors this fall helped me see how people make a life for themselves in this very precarious profession. All three directors I worked with, like me, have children. It was so good for me to hear about how they juggle their responsibilities to their families with a crazy free-lance professional life. Getting to know something about their professional histories also made me think about different ways I can make it all work. At the end of the day, I have to be able to live my life as fully as possible—it can't all be about where and what I'm directing next.

Thank you to the Drama League and its funders. Thank you to the three wonderful directors I worked with this fall—Diane Paulus, Marcia Milgrom Dodge and Evan Yionoulis. And thanks to the theatres I was fortunate enough to be involved with—The Public Theater, Theatre for a New Audience, and TheatreworksUSA. The impact that all of these people and organizations made on my life in the theatre is immeasuarble!