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Stephen Sachs

Stephen Sachs is a playwright and the Co-Artistic Director of the Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles. 

STEPHEN SACHS is an award-winning playwright, director, producer and the co-Artistic Director of the Fountain Theatre, which he co-founded with Deborah Culver in 1990. The world premiere of his new play, Arrival & Departure, which he directed, enjoyed a 3-month sold-out run at the Fountain last season and won BroadwayWorld's Best Play award. He adapted and directed celebrity readings of All the President's Men and Ms. Smith Goes to Washington at Los Angeles City Hall starring Sam Waterston, Bradley Whitford, Joshua Malina, Jeff Perry and Bellamy Young. His stage adaption of Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric (Stage Raw Award) inaugurated Center Theatre Group’s Block Party at the Kirk Douglas Theatre and was chosen to represent LA theatre for Grand Park’s new Our LA Voices Arts Festival. His play Bakersfield Mist (Elliot Norton Award) enjoyed a 3-month run on London’s West End starring Kathleen Turner and is now being produced in regional theatres across the country and translated into other languages and performed worldwide. Other plays by Sachs include Dream Catcher, Heart Song, Cyrano (LA Drama Critics Circle Award, Ovation Award nomination), Miss Julie: Freedom Summer (LA Drama Critics Circle Award nomination), Gilgamesh (Theatre@Boston Court), Open Window (Pasadena Playhouse, Media Access Award), Central Avenue (PEN USA Literary Award Finalist), Sweet Nothing in my Ear (PEN USA Literary Award Finalist), The Golden Gate, and The Baron in the Trees. He wrote the screenplay for Sweet Nothing in my Ear for CBS starring Marlee Matlin and Jeff Daniels. Directing credits include Arrival & Departure, Bakersfield Mist, Broomstick, My Name is Asher Lev, Athol Fugard's The Blue Iris (US Premiere), Completeness by Itamar Moses, Warren Leight's Side Man starring Christine Lahti; a China tour of Top Secret (LA Theatre Works), The Train Driver by Athol Fugard (US Premiere), Conor McPherson's Shining City (LA Premiere), Athol Fugard's Coming Home (LA Weekly Award), Athol Fugard's Victory (U.S. Premiere, NAACP Award); Miss Julie: Freedom Summer, the world premiere of Athol Fugard’s Exits and Entrances at the Fountain (Ovation Award, LA Drama Critics Circle Award) and at Primary Stages (Off-Broadway), and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland, Fugard’s The Road to Mecca(LA premiere), Arthur Miller's After the Fall (Ovation Award), Sweet Nothing in my Ear (World Premiere), Hippolytos (new translation by Anne Carson) inaugurating the Outdoor Classical Theater at the Getty Villa in Malibu, and many others. Sachs has been nominated for the SDC Zelda Fichandler Award three times, recognizing an outstanding director who is making a unique and exceptional contribution to theatre in their region. Sachs was recently honored with a Certificate of Commendation from the Los Angeles City Council for “his visionary contributions to the cultural life of Los Angeles.” 

Photo from Bakersfield Mist.
Playwrights, Rewrites, Multiple Productions
Essay

Playwrights, Rewrites, Multiple Productions

Bakersfield Mist

30 August 2014

I remember very clearly when it suddenly hit me—that I could see it and experience it for myself—that the play would have a future life. And that happened because I was able to take part in and see three productions of my play, one after another, in different cities with different audiences, and be part of the reaction.

Landscape of Los Angeles.
Why Do Los Angeles Actors Do Theater in Los Angeles?
Essay

Why Do Los Angeles Actors Do Theater in Los Angeles?

21 March 2014

When Joseph Campbell spoke of the power of myth he didn’t have LA stage actors in mind. Yet a powerful and prevailing myth has spread for years in theater centers throughout the country about why actors do theater in Los Angeles. The legend claims that LA actors are somehow less serious and do theater only to be seen by casting directors in “the Industry” and not for the art of the work. This is simply not true.