Even as our country comes undone, as the very foundation seems to be unraveling, as any semblance of agreements—the kind we grew up with, that bind a civil society together—appears quaint, a thing of the past, as we no longer live in a country governed by laws, I ask myself what matters, and I still find myself saying, “The Theatre.”

Every time I read the final proof of SDC Journal I am reminded of the scope, scale, and stature of the SDC Membership. I see the breadth and depth of your work in these pages. And, as you continue to expand the craft, we continue to grow SDC protections.

I write this letter as I am headed back to NYC from Washington, DC. I have had the privilege of working with colleagues on advocacy through the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, and last
night I had the unique pleasure of taking a guided tour through the National Portrait Gallery. I’m a bit embarrassed to say I had never been—perhaps you will excuse me, knowing that I am often in one of the
many theatres in DC.

In the fall of 2020, SDC + SDCF published On the Edge: The Lives and Livelihoods of Stage Directors and Choreographers, A Next Stage Report. Next Stage set out to investigate the lives of directors and choreographers and to articulate the findings of that investigation so that we might find ways to enrich your lives […]

When I came to SDC some 15 years ago, I knew very little about choreography. I had done what many do. I took childhood dance classes with recitals in the neighborhood park on one of those “stages” next to the BBQs, perfected the Hustle thanks to Van McCoy & the Soul City Symphony, and performed […]

Anniversaries provide opportunities for celebration. We pause to partake of the ritual of well-deserved congratulations, parties, toasts. Anniversaries can also provide opportunities for reflection, assessment, and consideration of the future. Ten years ago, the Executive Board determined to take the opportunity of the 50th anniversary of the founding of SDC to do some of this […]

Amid all that we do, that we can find time to consider the larger questions is impressive; it is even more impressive that we can do this together and that SDC Journal is a forum for sharing and discourse. Two years ago, the trauma and terror of COVID-19 collided head-on with the murder of George […]

Now is a moment of disruption—disruption across the field. An extended, painful disruption that I think we all hope has positioned us for change. As a path to reopening develops, and as, every day, we see more commitments to emerge as better versions of ourselves and our institutions, I have decided to try to draw […]

Fall 1997, well past midnight: I was sitting with my fellow members of the Theater panel in the National Endowment for the Arts offices at the Old Post Office on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC. We were reviewing applications submitted to the federal government’s agency that funds the arts nationwide. The heat wasn’t working—or maybe […]

Hazard and hope. Meeting with hazard and hope. This is how Aaron Frankel remembered the “smoke-filled rooms” Margaret Webster wrote of when considering how the Union would take hold. As we enter the final months of the 60th anniversary year, this issue of the Journal is our attempt to capture the essence of the founding […]

I am writing this during a heat wave, as record hot temperatures blast the central and eastern United States. Miserable though it may be outside, the weather feels appropriate for the moment—we’re all under pressure right now as we make our work and live our lives in extraordinary times. The first issue of the Journal […]

As I mentioned in SDC Journal’s Spring/Summer Issue, in honor of SDC’s 65th anniversary, last April the Union surveyed Members, asking each of us to identify directors and choreographers whose work has inspired us and transformed the American theatre. More than 500 directors and choreographers were nominated. The list was rigorously discussed by a cross-section […]

One of the joys of SDC Executive Board and at-large committee service is that you get to spend time with other directors and choreographers, thoughtful and passionate folks working for the SDC Membership in a variety of ways. At the Board level, we are charged with seeing that the contractual and artistic rights of directors […]

I hope this issue finds you, as I am, back in rehearsal, in a room with a great play whose investigation brings you rewarding artistic challenges and joy in collaboration. Even in person, despite all our close work with actors and designers, directing and choreographing remain mostly solitary ventures. Although we enjoy seeing the fruits […]

We have turned our clocks forward and there is more sun today, and for longer, in our hemisphere. Spring. Theatres are reopening. The diversity of voices represented and bodies representing on our stages is expanding. Creativity abounds and has found places to bloom. People are in rooms together again and touching again. Actors are cautiously […]

On February 8, the SDC Foundation, in a remote celebration, honored the recipients of this year’s awards for excellence in directing and choreography: the Joe A. Callaway Awards, Danya Taymor and Travis Wall, and finalists Knud Adams and Les Waters; the Gordon Davidson Award, Seret Scott; the Zelda Fichandler Award, Kamilah Forbes, and finalists Carol […]

When I look back at my first letter as SDC Executive Board President, which I wrote in January, it feels like a missive from another world. There are threads that must be put on hold, but also those we carry forward with renewed vigor into the pandemic world we are living in now, in which […]

This is my first letter as SDC Executive Board President. It’s a great honor to be following in Pam MacKinnon’s estimable footprints and to work with my fellow Board Members, Executive Director Laura Penn, and the extraordinary SDC staff to ensure that, as we enter a new decade, we build on the important work of […]

This is my final letter as SDC Board President. I have tasked myself with writing about the accomplishments that we achieved together over the last three years. It’s less of a snapshot and more of an unfolding tapestry, true to our three-part mission verbs: Unite. Empower. Protect. Engagement in Union activities has increased around the […]

I joined SDC to direct a production of Donald Margulies’s Dinner with Friends at the Alley Theatre in the spring of 2001. It was on the heels of the implosion of a national tour based on Daniel Sullivan’s direction of Dinner with Friends that I, as the Associate Director, was supposed to have put up. […]