Leigh Silverman is an American director for the stage, both
off-Broadway
An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...
and on
Broadway
Broadway may refer to:
Theatre
* Broadway Theatre (disambiguation)
* Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
** Broadway (Manhattan), the street
**Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
. She was nominated for the 2014
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual cer ...
, Best Direction of a Musical for the musical ''
Violet
Violet may refer to:
Common meanings
* Violet (color), a spectral color with wavelengths shorter than blue
* One of a list of plants known as violet, particularly:
** ''Viola'' (plant), a genus of flowering plants
Places United States
* Viol ...
'' and the 2008
Drama Desk Award
The Drama Desk Award is an annual prize recognizing excellence in New York theatre. First bestowed in 1955 as the Vernon Rice Award, the prize initially honored Off-Broadway productions, as well as Off-off-Broadway, and those in the vicinity. Fo ...
, Outstanding Director of a Play for the play ''From Up Here''.
Biography
Early life
Silverman was born in
Rockville, Maryland
Rockville is a city that serves as the county seat of Montgomery County, Maryland, and is part of the Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area. The 2020 census tabulated Rockville's population at 67,117, making it the fifth-largest community in ...
, went to high school in
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
, and attended
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...
, earning a BFA in Directing and an MFA in Playwriting.
Upon graduation, she had an internship at the New York Theatre Workshop. Silverman said "I can say, without a doubt, that most, if not all, of my important theatrical relationships came out of my time with New York Theater Workshop."
Career
Silverman directed the
Lisa Kron
Elizabeth S. "Lisa" Kron (born May 20, 1961) is an American actress and playwright. She is best known for writing the lyrics and book to the musical ''Fun Home'' for which she won both the Tony Award for Best Original Score and the Tony Award for ...
play ''
Well
A well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...
'' off-Broadway at
The Public Theater
The Public Theater is a New York City arts organization founded as the Shakespeare Workshop in 1954 by Joseph Papp, with the intention of showcasing the works of up-and-coming playwrights and performers.Epstein, Helen. ''Joe Papp: An American Li ...
; the play ran from March 2004 to May 2004. She also directed ''Well'' on Broadway in 2006. Among other awards, the play was nominated for the
Outer Critics Circle Award
The Outer Critics Circle Awards are presented annually for theatrical achievements both on Broadway and Off-Broadway. They are presented by the Outer Critics Circle (OCC), the official organization of New York theater writers for out-of-town newspa ...
, Outstanding Off-Broadway Play. She directed Kron's play ''In the Wake'' in its premiere engagement at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Los Angeles, California in March 2010. She directed ''In the Wake'' at the Public Theater in November 2010.
She has directed many plays off-Broadway, including ''Blue Door'' by
Tanya Barfield
Tanya Barfield is an American playwright whose works have been presented both nationally and internationally.DeVoti, Emily"Blue Door: Painting within the lines of history with Tanya Barfield"brooklynrail.org, October 2006, Accessed 13 September 2 ...
in 2006 at
Playwrights Horizons
Playwrights Horizons is a not-for-profit Off-Broadway theater located in New York City dedicated to the support and development of contemporary American playwrights, composers, and lyricists, and to the production of their new work.
Under the ...
, for which she was nominated for the
Audelco Award
AUDELCO, the Audience Development Committee, Inc., was established in 1973 by Vivian Robinson to honor excellence in African American theatre in New York City.
AUDELCO presents the Vivian Robinson/AUDELCO Recognition Awards (also known as Viv awar ...
, Best Director. ''The New York Times'' reviewer wrote that the play was "directed with care by Leigh Silverman." She directed ''From Up Here'', by Liz Flahive at The
Manhattan Theatre Club
Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC) is a theatre company located in New York City, affiliated with the League of Resident Theatres. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Lynne Meadow and Executive Producer Barry Grove, Manhattan Theatre Club has gr ...
's off-Broadway City Center Stage I in 2008 and received a 2008
Drama Desk Award
The Drama Desk Award is an annual prize recognizing excellence in New York theatre. First bestowed in 1955 as the Vernon Rice Award, the prize initially honored Off-Broadway productions, as well as Off-off-Broadway, and those in the vicinity. Fo ...
nomination for Outstanding Director of a Play. She directed
David Greenspan
David Greenspan (born 1956) is an American actor and playwright. He is the recipient of six Obies, including an award in 2010 for Sustained Achievement.
Life
Greenspan was born in 1956 in Los Angeles, California. He holds a B.A. in Drama fro ...
's ''Go Back to Where You Are'' at the off-Broadway Playwrights Horizons' Peter Jay Sharp Theater, opening in March 2011. She received the 2011
Obie Award
The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards originally given by ''The Village Voice'' newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City. In September 2014, the awards were jointly presented and administered with the A ...
, as director, for ''Go Back to Where You Are'' and ''In the Wake.''
On Broadway, she was the Associate Director for the musical ''
Never Gonna Dance
''Never Gonna Dance'' is a Broadway musical featuring the music of Jerome Kern. The musical was based on the 1936 Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers film ''Swing Time''. Lyricists include Oscar Hammerstein, Ira Gershwin, P. G. Wodehouse, Bernard Dougall, ...
'' in 2003. She directed ''
Chinglish
Chinglish is slang for spoken or written English language that is either influenced by a Chinese language, or is poorly translated. In Hong Kong, Macau, Guangdong and Guangxi, the term "Chinglish" refers mainly to Cantonese-influenced English. ...
'' by
David Henry Hwang
David Henry Hwang (born August 11, 1957) is an American playwright, librettist, screenwriter, and theater professor at Columbia University in New York City. He has won three Obie Awards for his plays '' FOB'', '' Golden Child'', and '' Yellow ...
at the
Goodman Theatre
Goodman Theatre is a professional theater company located in Chicago's Loop. A major part of the Chicago theatre scene, it is the city's oldest currently active nonprofit theater organization. Part of its present theater complex occupies the lan ...
, Chicago in June to July 2011 and on Broadway in October 2011. She was nominated for the
Joseph Jefferson Awards
The Joseph Jefferson Award, more commonly known informally as the Jeff Award, is given for theatre arts produced in the Chicago area. Founded in 1968, the awards are named in tribute to actor Joseph Jefferson, a 19th-century American theater star ...
as Director of the Goodman Theatre production of ''Chinglish.''
Silverman directed the premiere of
Hansol Jung
Hansol Jung is a South Korean translator and playwright. Jung is a recipient the Whiting Award in drama and three of her plays were listed on the 2015 Kilroys' List. Jung is a member of the Ma-Yi Theater Writers' Lab and was a Hodder Fellow at ...
's ''
Cardboard Piano'' at the 2016
Humana Festival of New American Plays
Humana Festival of New American Plays is an internationally renowned festival that celebrates the contemporary American playwright. Produced annually in Louisville, Kentucky by Actors Theatre of Louisville, this festival showcases new theatrica ...
in
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...
. She directed the revival of the musical ''
Violet
Violet may refer to:
Common meanings
* Violet (color), a spectral color with wavelengths shorter than blue
* One of a list of plants known as violet, particularly:
** ''Viola'' (plant), a genus of flowering plants
Places United States
* Viol ...
'' on Broadway for the
Roundabout Theatre Company
The Roundabout Theatre Company is a leading non-profit theatre company based in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, affiliated with the League of Resident Theatres.
History
The company was founded in 1965 by Gene Feist, Michael Fried and Elizabet ...
in 2013 and received a
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual cer ...
nomination as Best Director. The ''USAToday'' reviewer wrote that the musical was "quietly affecting and lovingly staged by director Leigh Silverman."
Silverman directed ''Bright Half Life'', a new play by Tanya Barfield at the off-Broadway Women's Project Theatre in February 2015. This is the third time Silverman and Barfield have worked together. (She previously directed Barfield's ''The Call'' in 2013 and ''Blue Door'' in 2006.)
She directed the world premiere of the
Neil Labute
Neil N. LaBute (born March 19, 1963) is an American playwright, film director, screenwriter, and actor. He is best-known for a play that he wrote and later adapted for film, ''In the Company of Men'' (1997), which won awards from the Sundance Fi ...
play ''The Way We Get By'' at the off-Broadway Second Stage Theatre, which opened on May 19, 2015, and closed on June 21. The cast starred
Thomas Sadoski
Thomas Christian Sadoski (born July 1, 1976) is an American stage, film, and television actor. He is best known for his roles as Don Keefer in the HBO series '' The Newsroom'' and as Matt Short in the sitcom television series '' Life in Pieces'' ...
and
Amanda Seyfried
Amanda Michelle Seyfried ( ; born December 3, 1985) is an American actress. Born and raised in Allentown, Pennsylvania, she began modeling at age 11 and ventured into acting at 15, with recurring roles as Lucy Montgomery on the CBS soap opera ...
. She directed the
Encores!
Encores! is a Tony-honored concert series dedicated to performing rarely heard American musicals, usually with their original orchestrations. Presented by New York City Center since 1994, Encores! has revived shows by Irving Berlin, Rodgers & Ha ...
Off-Center production of Andrew Lippa's ''
The Wild Party'' in July 2015, starring
Sutton Foster
Sutton Lenore Foster (born March 18, 1975) is an American actress, singer and dancer. She is known for her work on the Broadway stage, for which she has won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical twice, in 2002 for her role as Millie Dill ...
and
Steven Pasquale
Steven Pasquale (pronounced ; born November 18, 1976) is an American actor. He is best known for his role as the New York City Firefighter/Emergency Medical Technician Sean Garrity in the series '' Rescue Me''. He made his television debut on the ...
. She directed another LaBute play, ''All the Ways to Say I Love You'', which ran off-Broadway from September 28, 2016 to October 23, 2016 and starred
Judith Light
Judith Ellen Light (born February 9, 1949) is an American actress. She made her professional stage debut in 1970, before making her Broadway debut in the 1975 revival of ''A Doll's House''. Her breakthrough role was in the ABC daytime soap opera ...
in this solo play.
She directed the off-Broadway revival of the musical ''
Sweet Charity
''Sweet Charity'' is a musical with music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by Dorothy Fields and book by Neil Simon. It was directed and choreographed for Broadway by Bob Fosse starring his wife and muse Gwen Verdon alongside John McMartin. It is based on ...
'', which started at the Pershing Square Signature Center on November 2, 2016 (previews) and ran through December 23. The musical starred
Sutton Foster
Sutton Lenore Foster (born March 18, 1975) is an American actress, singer and dancer. She is known for her work on the Broadway stage, for which she has won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical twice, in 2002 for her role as Millie Dill ...
.
For the Roundabout Theatre's Underground, she directed ''On the Exhale'' by
Martin Zimmerman
Martín Zimmerman is an American bilingual (English and Spanish) playwright.
Zimmerman grew up speaking both languages. He attended Duke University, graduating with a BS summa cum laude in theater studies and economics. He later attended ...
, which premiered off-Broadway at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre on February 7, 2017 (previews), and ran through April 2. This one-woman play starred
Marin Ireland
Marin Yvonne Ireland is an American actress. Known for her work in theatre and independent films, ''The New York Times'' deemed Ireland "one of the great drama queens of the New York stage". Her accolades include a Theatre World Award and nomina ...
.
In 2017 she also directed the world-premiere of ''Hurricane Diane'' by
Madeleine George at the
Two River Theater
Two River Theater is a professional, not-for-profit, regional theater company producing plays and educational programs for audiences from central New Jersey and beyond. It is located in Red Bank, New Jersey, on the peninsula between the Navesink ...
in New York. The cast included Mia Barron (Sandy Fleischer),
Becca Blackwell Becca Blackwell (born 1973/1974) is an American trans actor, performer, and playwright based in New York City. Blackwell's pronoun is the singular they. Their play "They, Themself and Schmerm," has been presented by a number of venues including The ...
(Diane), Nikiya Mathis (Renee Shapiro-Epps), Danielle Skraastad (Pam Annunziata) and Kate Wetherhead (Beth Wann). In September of the same year, Silverman directed the world-premiere of
Hansol Jung
Hansol Jung is a South Korean translator and playwright. Jung is a recipient the Whiting Award in drama and three of her plays were listed on the 2015 Kilroys' List. Jung is a member of the Ma-Yi Theater Writers' Lab and was a Hodder Fellow at ...
's ''Wild Goose Dreams'' at
La Jolla Playhouse
La Jolla Playhouse is a not-for-profit, professional theatre on the campus of the University of California, San Diego.
History
La Jolla Playhouse was founded in 1947 by Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire, and Mel Ferrer. In 1983, it was revived under ...
in San Diego.
In 2018, for the
Minetta Lane Theatre
The Minetta Lane Theatre is a 391-seat off-Broadway theatre on Minetta Lane in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of lower Manhattan, New York City.
Significant productions include '' Marvin's Room'' in 1992, '' Jeffrey'' in 1994, and ''The La ...
she directed the monologue ''Harry Clarke'' by
David Cale
David Cale (born David Egleton) is an English-American playwright, actor, and songwriter, best known for his solo performance works.
Early life
Cale was born in England in 1958 or 1959 and grew up in the town of Luton, Bedfordshire. He faile ...
with
Billy Crudup
William Gaither Crudup (; born July 8, 1968) is an American actor. He is a four-time Tony Award nominee, winning once for his performance in Tom Stoppard's play ''The Coast of Utopia'' in 2007. He has starred in numerous high-profile films, inc ...
in the title role.
She also directed the world premiere of David Henry Hwang's musical ''Soft Power'' at the Ahmanson Theatre in from May to June 2018. The production was presented by
Center Theatre Group
Center Theatre Group is a non-profit arts organization located in Los Angeles, California. It is one of the largest theatre companies in the nation, programming subscription seasons year-round at the Mark Taper Forum, the Ahmanson Theatre and th ...
in association with
East West Players
East West Players is an Asian American theatre organization in Los Angeles, founded in 1965. As the nation's first professional Asian American theatre organization, East West Players continues to produce works and educational programs that give v ...
, and featured music by
Jeanine Tesori
Jeanine Tesori (known earlier in her career as Jeanine Levenson) is an American composer and musical arranger best known for her work in the theater. She is the most prolific and honored female theatrical composer in history, with five Broadway mu ...
as well as choreography by
Sam Pinkleton Sam Pinkleton is an American theatre choreographer and director. He is best known for choreographing the Broadway musical '' Natasha, Pierre, & the Great Comet of 1812'', for which he received a Tony Award nomination. Pinkleton's additional work on ...
.
In 2022, Silverman was featured in the book ''50 Key Figures in Queer US Theatre'', with a profile written by theatre scholar Bess Rowen.
Awards and nominations
* 2022 Drama League, Best Direction of a Musical, ''SUFFS'', nominated
* 2014 Tony Award, Best Direction of a Musical, ''Violet'', nominated
* 2011 Obie Award, Direction, ''In the Wake'', won
* 2011 Obie Award, Direction, ''Go Back to Where You Are'', won
* 2008 Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Director of a Play, ''From Up Here'', nominated
* 2007 Audelco Award Nomination, Director, ''Blue Door'', nominated
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Silverman, Leigh
American theatre directors
Living people
American musical theatre directors
People from Rockville, Maryland
Obie Award recipients
Year of birth missing (living people)
Carnegie Mellon University College of Fine Arts alumni
American women theatre directors