Stebos's portrait (center) by Jason Das (collaborate:create 2015)

Artistic Statement

As director, I love complexity: different points of view, multiple layers of action and meaning, theatricality, collaboration among the arts, the richness of experiments that blossom in rehearsal, the union of opposites.

Yet, within that complexity, I enjoy finding the simplicity and sharpness of moments of absolute clarity in what a character says, feels, or imagines, or what the audience suddenly realizes. The tangible epiphanies I evoke are connected with the unpredictable, with themes that speak directly to the soul, with silences and pauses, with long unanswered questions.

I particularly seek plays that explore the limits of genre and build autonomous worlds that will make the audience visit unknown environments and yet recognize themselves somehow in the playwright’s proposed circumstances.

I am deeply interested in collaboration as a way of exploring realms outside my usual perceptions. I conceive the playwright, the actors, the designers, the crew, and myself as a team converging on a project, with different kinds of expertise but equal standing, an ensemble of whole artists in each field who decide to materialize something bigger than the sum of its parts.