Wednesday, May 20, 2009

A career in theater is a fast track to poverty - The Arts Blog - OCRegister.com:

In November I had coffee in New York with Kate Whoriskey, one of the most well-regarded under-40 stage directors in the country. She was working with Elizabeth Franz on the New York debut of Julia Cho’s “The Piano Teacher” at the Vineyard Theatre. Despite her success, Whoriskey said she was worried about the future. “It’s not easy living from job to job,” she told me. “Often I have no idea where the next (directing assignment) will come from, or when it will come.” Whoriskey admitted she would love to find a resident full-time position, perhaps an artistic director job at a regional theater. “This gets old after a while,” she said of her itinerant and meager existence.

Whoriskey is a very compelling and likely choice to replace Bart Sher at Intiman. I have no inside track—I'm just saying that she has a fantastic resume, has worked on some excellent and provocative projects and just directed the Pulitzer Prize-winning RUINED.

She's also directed both THE CHAIRS and BLUE/ORANGE at Intiman, and was in residence at Intiman on a TCG New Generations grant.