Sam Buntrock

Hometown: London, England

Currently: Preparing to enjoy the 2008 Tony Awards as a Best Director nominee for his innovative production of Sunday in the Park with George, which received a total of nine Tony nominations.

Addicted to Sondheim: Buntrock's journey with the works of Stephen Sondheim began in 1990, when he was a young teenager. "I saw Into the Woods [in London], and it blew me away," the now 32-year-old director says. "I'd heard West Side Story but I'd not seen his work before. I didn't think it was possible to entertain and be that beautiful and honest. In the next week and a half, I must have listened to everything he'd ever done! I became fixated. So to step [from then] to now, where I've directed a show of his on Broadway, is just phenomenal."

Children and Art: Though drawn to the arts as a child and encouraged by his creative parents dad was an ad man, mom a journalist, Buntrock faced the challenge of overcoming a severe stutter. "When I was seven, I could barely speak," he says, articulating with control that now nearly conceals the speech impediment. "My mum sent me to speech therapy, and I hated it. So she sent me to drama group. And from that moment, I was flying." As Buntrock found his voice, he eagerly put it to use, demanding cash from his high school principal to put on a play. "I said, 'I can make this money back. I've got an audience!'" he recalls. "I was that precocious." The principal agreed, and Buntrock went on to study drama at the University of Bristol. "I directed a production of Sweeney Todd—terribly, it was really bad—and David Babani [now artistic director of the Menier Chocolate Factory, where Buntrock's production of Sunday was born] was the lighting operator for the show." The two young men then collaborated on a production of Sondheim's Assassins at a local fringe theater, which propelled Buntrock from student director to bona fide theater pro.

The Midnight Oil: The success of Assassins landed Buntrock a job as resident assistant at London's Donmar Warehouse under the tutelage of Oscar- and Tony-winning director Sam Mendes. "I worked with fantastic directors and learned how to pace rehearsals," he says, "but there was a point when I was hitting my knuckles against doors trying to get shows off the ground." Struggling to make ends meet as a freelancer, Buntrock picked an unusual day job: animation. "When I was a teenager, because of the stammer, I was very good with a pen and pencil and was fascinated with animation—I was a real nerd about it, actually," he explains. "It's the worst thing for a workaholic to do, because it's hard at 6pm to step away when you've made so little. Very often I'd step away at 3am." Balancing directing and animating became difficult. "It eats your brain! I'd get calls from agents going, 'Where are you?' 'I'm on sketch 420! See you next week!'" Luckily, Buntrock's sideline ended up inspiring his breakout theater project: the innovative, animation- and projection-heavy Sunday in the Park with George.

Sunday in the Park with Sam: "The idea of Sunday came up initially as a joke," Buntrock says. "[Babani] showed me this tiny factory space at Menier, only 10 feet high, and I said, just as a laugh, 'We could do Sunday here.' And he said, 'If you can find a way, we will do it.'" The idea of a sketch line shooting across the stage popped into Buntrock's mind. "It was clear to me that, at least in the first act, animation could provide a narrative that wasn't directly on the page: a linear picture to help guide the audience through the story," he explains. As the concept took shape, Buntrock began to take his joke more seriously. "It was a Sunday, of all things, and I listened to the original recording for the first time in years. I sat there for so long after I listened that it got dark. I was devastated! I had gotten a bit older, and I understood things I hadn't before." Buntrock was touched by the show's message. "I had just had a cancer scare, and then lost a very dear friend to cancer. Grief gives you a perspective—I listened to "Lesson #8" and "Move On" and thought that's what it's about." Just over a year later, in 2005, Buntrock's Sunday opened at the Menier to rave reviews, eventually moving to the West End and then to Studio 54.

Moving On: Buntrock is candid about moving past the dark phase in his life and embracing the joy that Sunday has given him, Tony trophies or no. "I'd like to think that the play itself, as [Sondheim] has said, helps anyone who's ever tried to create and failed in doing that," he says. "But for me, it's about the connections we've made, about how we're all interconnected." And he couldn't be prouder of his team: "Daniel [Evans] has transformed himself like an athlete to do this show. And Jenna [Russell] is who you see onstage, this incredibly warm bundle of energy. This experience with a group who six months ago were good friends, and are now great friends? That all this happened is very special to me."