Best Local Director

Writer and director Takashi Doscher evokes the mystique of the Appalachian Mountains in his quiet drama Still, in which a hiker becomes entwined in the lives of a mysterious couple (Lydia Wilson and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D’s Nick Blood). Screening at the 2018 Atlanta Film Festival, Still captures a powerful sense of place amid a supernatural mystery on a low budget, leaving viewers curious to see what Doscher does next. less...

As a freelance director, RACHEL MAY invariably stages superior work, but her most impressive moments may have been back-to-back productions at Synchronicity Performance Group, which she co-founded. With the black plague period piece “One Flea Spare” for the Naomi Wallace Play Festival and the African-American girl gang drama “Breath, Boom”, May vividly evoked two utterly dissimilar eras and approaches to the spoken word, while giving the audience emotional investment in characters far from our life experience, and making the most of the narrow confines of the 7 Stages Back Stage theater.

“www.synchrotheatre.com.”

less...

Actor’s Express 887 W. Marietta St. 404-875-1606 www.actorsexpress.com. Wier Harman faced no small task in taking over for Chris Coleman, founder and esteemed artistic director of Actor’s Express. But Harman’s first season was marked by bold selections and intriguing executions, particularly the thrilling theatricality of his inaugural show “The Illusion” and the avant-garde experimentation of “Fefu and Her Friends” and “The America Play” (perhaps the most challenging production of the past year). Current production “The Laramie Project” promises to continue the trend. Also worthy of note: tireless Tim Habeger of PushPush Theater. less...

The artistic director — or is that ringmaster? — of Dad’s Garage Theatre, Daniels is gradually building a national reputation for coming up with quirky ways to attract and entertain new theater audiences. If he has a signature scene, it’s the audacious, inventive, on-stage car chase of Action Movie: The Play, and he frequently plays to his strengths with comedy. But more serious productions like Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins suggest that Daniels has ambitions beyond simply making people laugh. less...

In the past year the artistic director of Theatre Gael has shown some remarkable versatility, both with his diversity of choices and his ability to change tones on a dime. Helming The Beauty Queen of Leenane for Theatre in the Square, he smoothly and scarily moved from kitchen-sink realism to shocking violence, while for his own adaptation of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales he juggled pop styles ranging from medical soap opera to spaghetti Western. He may be fond of Irish theater, but he’s scarcely restricted to it. less...