Pam MacKinnon is a theatre director. She has directed for the stage Off-Broadway, on Broadway and in regional theatre. She won the Obie Award for Directing and received a Tony Award nomination, Best Director, for her work on Clybourne Park. In 2013 she received the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play for a revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? She directed multiple shows for Edward Albee including Peter and Jerry, Occupant, A Delicate Balance, and The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? Other shows she has directed include Amélie, and The Parisian Woman.
Here’s a statistical truth bomb for you: women direct only about 17% of the shows on Broadway.
How do I know that? Pam MacKinnon has been keeping track.
Pam is already one of the few female A-list directors that make up that unbalanced percentage, having directed as many shows on Broadway as any woman out there (only Stroman has her beat). But that doesn’t mean she’s not determined to help others get to where she is today.
During our podcast, we talked about what we can all do to even the playing stage, as well as . . .
- How she went from pursuing a Ph.D. in Political Science to a career in directing.
- Why a Director often has to act like a Producer (hear the story of how she had to negotiate Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf into existence).
- Why Broadway shows not slated for Broadway that end up there have an advantage.
- How she developed her own style, which is different than everyone else’s and why yours should be different too.
- Her method for approaching classic material and making it her own.
Keep up with me: @KenDavenportBway