Home Links:
•	In Rehearsal/ In Production
•	Biography
•	My Directing Philosophy

Having a vision of the way ahead is fundamental.
– Deborah Warner

The director who cannot collaborate with his (or her!) actors has mistaken his (or her) vocation.
– Harley Granville-Barker

Young directors simply must from time to time be hired by a theatrical institution, if only to correct its inevitable tendency to fossilize.
– Tyrone Guthrie

Welcome to plainkate.com, website for Kathleen Powers, Stage Director SSDC
This website is for theatre professionals and those interested in learning more about my work and my style.

In Rehearsal/In Production

I will direct David Kravitz’s The Ex for the Turnip Theatre’s 15-Minute Play Festival at the American Globe Theatre in April 2008. In September, I will direct Hamlet for Richmond Shakespeare.

I am currently talking to potential producers about directing the American premiere of a smart, epic, politically-charged play with which I have been entrusted by its Tony and Olivier Award-winning author. Details to come.

top of page

Biography

My production of The Winter’s Tale opened July 6, 2007 at the American Shakespeare Center and played in repertory on the Blackfriars’ stage through early December 2007. The Staunton News Leader wrote "The current American Shakespeare Center production of "The Winter’s Tale," directed by Kathleen Powers, is the finest I have seen at Blackfriars Playhouse."

In March 2007, I directed Twelfth Night for the Richmond Shakespeare Theatre.

In November 2006, I returned to the North Shore Music Theatre to direct Jon Kimbell’s A Christmas Carol, A Musical Ghost Story, at the North Shore Music Theatre, in Beverly, MA. In September, I directed Amy de Lucia in her one-woman adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s Fräulein Else at Theatre Five in New York.

In 2005, I directed Measure for Measure on the Kansas City Rep. mainstage for the University of Missouri at Kansas City Graduate Acting Program. I also lost my apartment and most of my belongings to a fire late in the year; this displaced directing as my priority for several months.

In November / December 2004, I directed Julius Caesar at the Juilliard School; because this was a project for the students in the second year of the Drama School, performances were not open to the public. The emphasis was on putting the language to work to explore character and storytelling; the production was very much "poor theatre." In April / May, I directed Noël Coward’s Private Lives at the Irish Classical Theatre Company in Buffalo, New York. In January, I directed Emily Mann’s Execution of Justice on the Babcock Stage at the Pioneer Theatre in Salt Lake City, in commemoration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the murders of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk by Supervisor Dan White. The production closed February 7, 2004.

In the autumn of 2003, I directed the Royal National Theatre’s UK Tour of Charlotte Jones’ Humble Boy in London. The production featured Hayley Mills, Brigit Forsyth, John Burgess, Paul Hecht, Hugh Sachs and Carla Lang; it played to 99% capacity houses throughout the United Kingdom from October 1 through December 6, 2003. Also in 2003, I directed The Taming of the Shrew at North Shore Music Theatre, in Beverly, Massachusetts and served as associate director to John Caird on the American premiere of Humble Boy at Manhattan Theatre Club.

I was a 2001-2002 Fulbright Scholar. In December 2002, I received my M.A. with Distinction in Shakespeare at the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon, which is part of the English Department at the University of Birmingham.

If you are would like to see a sample of my work at the Institute, click on one of the following links:

Talking Amiss of Her: Speech, Silence and Shrewishness in The Taming of the Shrew

Open Stage to Empty Space: The Granville-Barker Inheritance

Prior to my Fulbright year, I directed As You Like It at Playhouse on the Square in Memphis, TN and worked with graduate student playwrights at the NYU/Tisch Dramatic Writing Program, which I continue to do. In the fall of 2000, I directed Pieces, written and performed by Zohar Tirosh, for a limited run at the Blue Heron Arts Center in New York. I have directed Twelfth Night at Otterbein College in Columbus, Ohio and How I Learned to Drive at the Penobscot Theatre in Bangor, Maine. A member of SSDC and a former Drama League Directing Fellow, I created Some Other Shakespeare (S.O.S.) with performers Frank Bradley and Seana Lee Wyman in 1996. We produced and I directed Much Ado about Nothing and Twelfth Night in New York City vest-pocket parks. I have directed productions at several off-off-Broadway venues as well as at Connecticut Repertory Theatre at UCONN, Trinity College (Hartford) and with Exiles Theatre at the University of Ulster in Coleraine, Northern Ireland.

I have been fortunate enough to assist some of the people whom I respect and admire most in this business. As the 1998-99 Directing Assistant at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, NJ, I assisted David Leveaux on his production of Sophocles’ Electra, featuring Zoë Wanamaker, Claire Bloom, Pat Carroll, Michael Cumpsty, Marin Hinkle and Stephen Spinella. I assisted Mr. Leveaux when we transferred Electra to Broadway, where it received three Tony Award nominations. I assisted Emily Mann on the world premiere of her play Meshugah; I assisted Brian Kulick on the world premiere of Nilo Cruz’s Two Sisters and a Piano. I assisted Stephen Wadsworth on his effervescent production of Noël Coward’s Design for Living, which was a co-production with Seattle Rep.

top of page

My Directing Philosophy

Classic. Smart. Provocative. Truthful.

I direct kick-ass Shakespeare. I make smart, thoughtful, entertaining, socially aware theatre. I love Shakespeare and Stoppard and really great words. In addition to my classical experience, I have regularly worked on contemporary plays that explore issues of social justice and politics. I am dramaturgically prepared; my tablework is thorough; my productions are powerful. I have directed plays from every century between the 16th and the 21st, both intense drama and raucous comedy; I like it best when they are combined in the same script.

I want to tell each story as clearly as possible, with clarity, wonder, humor and textual precision. I work to create a play-ful rehearsal environment, where the actors and I can explore the action of the play and the lives of the characters with safety but also with tenacity. I ask the actors a lot of questions in the rehearsal room. I like to spend a fair amount of time at the table. At the beginning of the process, I should know more about the play than the actors do. As we work, each actor will eventually overtake me in his understanding of his individual character. Asking the question, encouraging the exploration of several possible choices, is at the epicenter of my directorial style. I seek out and value true collaboration, real exchange, with my actors.

I want every element of production to help tell the story; I want to exhaust the space. Does the set serve the story? What extra information does it give me about the universe of the play? What do the costumes tell me about who these people are and the world they inhabit? I have worked at theatres off- and off-off-Broadway and throughout the American regional theatre circuit. I have directed a national tour for Britain’s Royal National Theatre (2003).

I am looking to work at increasingly higher profile venues, to continue directing great material by authors both canonical and new, to build ongoing relationships with theatres that focus on both classics and social justice. I want to be the artistic director of a really great theatre company.

To learn more about my work to date, go to my résumé.

top of page