Bartlett Sher

Currently: Making his directorial debut on Broadway with The Light in the Piazza, which received 11 Tony nominations, including Best Musical and Best Director.

Hometown: San Francisco

Tony Terrors: When the Tony nominations were announced, Sher was in Seattle, where he is Artistic Director of the Intiman Theatre, which hosted the premiere of Piazza in 2003. "It was 5:30 in the morning," he recalls, "and I had been seized by an absolute pathological fear the night before that somehow-cause you know when you direct, you do nothing but worry about everybody else-we weren't going to get the nominations for everybody that I loved. I probably slept two hours." Then the phone rang. "I was so relieved for everybody," Sher says. "But particularly that Kelli [O'Hara] she got her nomination-maybe even more than my own."

Changing of the Guard: Cutting his theatrical teeth in a high school production of The King and I, Sher deadpans, "I got to play a palace guard. Couldn't sing a note, but I could do Uncle Tom in the ballet OK." Hooked on theater, but not on being a thespian, Sher says, "I never wanted to be an actor under any conditions. I just didn't feel much capacity for it. But I've always been really interested in all the other elements." After writing a few plays while at Holy Cross College in Worcester, MA, Sher eyed directing. Upon graduation, his first job returned him to SF-and to the scene of the "Run, Eliza, Run!" crime. "My old high school hired me to teach English. And I somehow told them I could run the drama department, even though I hadn't directed anything," he laughs. With a theater of his own, and a bunch of eager kids, Sher says, "It was fun! And I could kind of experiment with no real fear of laceration from anybody."

Is There Life After High School? Two years later, "I just got too worn out," Sher says, and quit the teaching job. He moved to San Diego to start a theater company with some friends. Several years and lots of shows later, Sher landed his first professional gig, as an assistant director at a La Jolla Playhouse production of A Man's a Man starring fellow 2005 Tony nominee Bill Irwin Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?."

In Minneapolis, the Wright Guy: "Probably the greatest thing that happened to me was being hired as a Resident Director at the Guthrie, where I worked for five years with Garland Wright." A master of stagecraft and mentor to many, Sher says the late Wright, "really made me into a director. The previous experimental years had passed," he laughs, "and I was able to do all this classical work. Garland was really the one person who guided me into a whole different level of work. He had an extraordinary mind for how to think through and create 'an evening'," Sher describes, "to create a whole approach to a play was the huge-est influence on me. He was so thorough and so compassionate and able to integrate all the elements-the sense and ability of where design intersects with the storytelling- that it really taught you how to think about what makes a great evening of theater. And that," Sher states, "has had the most influence on Piazza."

Broadway-Bound: Following acclaimed productions at Seattle's Intiman directed by librettist Craig Lucas and Chicago's Goodman Theatre, Sher was "thrilled" to bring Piazza to Lincoln Center. "Early on," he says, "I told André [Bishop, Producing Director of LCT], "the Beaumont was the perfect place for Piazza because it has that great relationship of epic to intimate-with this huge surround, while having this beautiful mother and daughter in the middle of it." Still, Sher was aware that what was applauded on the LORT circuit could face more complicated obstacles in Gotham. "Audiences in New York know it's important, it's the center. It sets the standard. It's not that I think New York audiences are consciously more difficult or better, but they're very analytical and comparative. That's part of the sport of being in New York! It's also part of the anxiety. But I like the sort of noble sportsmanlike quality of it. What's been great about this season," Sher says, citing Piazza's Tony competitors, "is that there's four amazing musicals-all very, very different from each other. It's a healthy competitiveness in the best possible sense of the word. It creates a good environment for innovation. We all push each other to do better."

From Russia, With Love: Currently readying a production of Three Sisters at Intiman starring Judy Kuhn, Sher looks forward to returning to New York with a new piece by Piazza collaborator Craig Lucas. "Craig's working on a new musical with [composer] Michael Torke. And hopefully we're going to be experimenting with a group of Julliard students next fall. But other than that," Sher sighs, reflecting on the journey of Piazza, "I'm sort of taking it easy a little. It's been a pretty busy two or three years."