Diane Paulus

Diane Marie Paulus (born 1966) is an American theater and opera director who is currently the Terrie and Bradley Bloom Artistic Director of the American Repertory Theater at Harvard University.

Paulus was born in New York City in 1966, the daughter of a Japanese mother and an American father.

Her parents met while her father, a New York television producer, was stationed in Japan after World War II.

She attended the Brearley School, studied dance at New York City Ballet, and trained in classical piano.

In 1988, she graduated magna cum laude from Radcliffe College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in social studies and as a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

She then earned a master's degree from the Columbia University School of the Arts.

Paulus and her husband, Randy Weiner, along with a few other theater school graduates established a small theater troupe in New York City called Project 400 Theatre Group.

With Project 400, Paulus and Weiner specialized in creating avant-garde musical productions which married classic theater and modern music.

Paulus's first production with the group was a rock version of The Tempest.

Other productions included an R&B Phaedra and a hip-hop Lohengrin.

Paulus won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical, becoming the third woman to win the award after Julie Taymor in 1998 and Susan Stroman in 2001.

The production also received Tony Awards for Best Revival of a Musical, Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical for Miller, and Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical for Andrea Martin.

In collaboration with Weiner, Paulus co-created The Donkey Show, a disco adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream which ran off-Broadway from 1999 to 2005.

Critics cited the production as an example of a trend in which edgy avant-garde theater had become fashionably mainstream.

In May 2008, Paulus was named the artistic director of the American Repertory Theater (affiliated with Harvard University).

The American Repertory Theater chose Paulus after Anna D. Shapiro, the August: Osage County director, decided not to take the job to replace Robert Woodruff. Paulus's first production was a revival of The Donkey Show, written by Paulus and her husband Randy Weiner.

Paulus previously taught courses at Columbia University and Yale University.

She received the 2009 Harvard College Women's Leadership Award and the Columbia University IAL Diamond Award.

In 2010, Paulus was selected by the magazine American Theatre as one of the 25 theater artists who were asked to share their vision of coming developments in the next 25 years in the theater world.

In her comments she talks about her goal to "revolutionize" the theatre experience by making it more interactive, letting the audience participate and making theatre content more "open source".

She has also argued that theater has the power to make people more compassionate and cooperative citizens.

Also in 2010, Paulus directed Il mondo della luna (The World on the Moon), an opera by Joseph Haydn, in the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History.

A Gotham Chamber Opera, in partnership with the Museum and in association with American Repertory Theater, Paulus's production fused live opera and stargazing using the 180-degree dome with projections courtesy of NASA.

Paulus directed a concert production of Paul Simon's The Capeman at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park for the Public Theater in August 2010.

In 2011 she staged a production of the Gershwin opera Porgy and Bess at the American Repertory Theater, which moved to Broadway in 2012.

The production was nominated for 9 awards in the 2012 Tony Awards, winning Best Revival of a Musical and Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical for Audra McDonald.

The production ran through September 23, 2012.

In advance of this production, renowned composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim expressed his dismay on her proposed edits and directorial choices in a letter to The New York Times.

In 2012, Paulus directed a production of Pippin for the American Repertory Theater.

She cast a woman, Patina Miller, in the part of Leading Player, originated by Ben Vereen.

Paulus was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for her revivals of Hair and The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess, and won the award in 2013 for her revival of Pippin.

The production opened on Broadway at the Music Box Theatre on Broadway, on April 25, 2013.

She was selected for the 2014 Time 100, Time magazine's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world; as one of Variety "Trailblazing Women in Entertainment for 2014"; Boston magazine's "50 Thought Leaders of 2014"; and Boston magazine's 2018 and 2020 "100 Most Influential People in Boston".

In 2014, at the American Repertory Theater Paulus directed the American premier of the musical Finding Neverland, based on the film of the same name.

Tony winner Roger Bart was announced to star, but left the project over creative differences.

At the American Repertory Theater, Michael McGrath replaced Bart as Charles Frohman, a role played on Broadway by Kelsey Grammer.

Finding Neverland was produced on Broadway by Harvey Weinstein and played the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre for 565 performances.

In 2015, Paulus directed the new musical Waitress, based on the 2007 film of the same name, written by Adrienne Shelly.

The music was written by six-time Grammy Award nominated singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles.

Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Paula Vogel was announced to write the book of the musical, but left the project.