Despite the increasing popularity of academic filmmaking programs in the United States, some of contemporary America’s most exciting film directors have emerged from the theater world.  Directors: From Stage to Screen and Back Again features a series of interviews with directors who did just that, transitioning from work on stage productions to work in television and on full-length features.

 

Taken together, these interviews demonstrate the myriad ways in which a theater background can engender innovative and stimulating work in film. As unique and idiosyncratic as the personalities they feature, the directors’ conversations with Susan Lehman range over a vast field of topics. Each one traces its subject’s personal artistic journey and explores how he or she handled the challenge of moving from stage to screen. Combined with a foreword by Emmy award–winning screenwriter Steve Brown, the directors’ collective knowledge and experience will be invaluable to scholars, aspiring filmmakers, theater aficionados, and film enthusiasts.

Susan Beth Lehman, a former actor, director, and screenwriter, is assistant professor of TV and film at DeSales University in Pennsylvania.

— Johnnie Hobbs, Jr., Ira Brind School of Theatre Arts

— Kimberly Gadette, film critic