Leigh Silverman is a director for the stage, both Off-Broadway and on Broadway. She was nominated for the 2014 Tony Award, Best Direction of a Musical for the musical Violet and the 2008 Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Director of a Play for the play From Up Here. She directed the Lisa Kron play Well Off-Broadway. On Broadway, she was the Associate Director for the musical Never Gonna Dance in 2003 and directed Chinglish by David Henry Hwang. She directed the world premiere of the Neil Labute play The Way We Get By. Some other Off-Broadway plays she has directed are Blue Door by Tanya Barfield, From Up Here by Liz Flahive, David Greenspan's Go Back to Where You Are, and In the Wake.

Not only was I taken by Leigh’s passion for the theater and her methodology for shaping plays and musicals, I was so impressed by how she has shaped her own career. Instead of majoring in directing in college? She majored in writing . . . knowing full well she wanted to direct. She understood that knowing the ins and outs of the structure of a play and how it was built from the ground up would serve her more than just studying directing. It’s like an architect choosing to work construction for a few years to understand what keeps a building in place. #Genius.
We talked all about that choice and so much more including:

Why she’s glad someone told her she was a terrible Actor when she was just 15.

How she decides if a new play is “viable.”

Why she makes her Designers act.

The difference between working on a play and a musical . . . and what her two new musical projects are.

Why television is the reason the new American play is thriving.


Keep up with me: @KenDavenportBway
www.theproducersperspective.com 
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices