Directing New Plays: Tools for Art and Collaboration

Every theater director will oversee a new play process in their career: here is what to expect and how to prepare.
Drawing from over 20 years of experience as a freelance director, and as the Artistic Director of LCT3 at Lincoln Center Theater, Evan Cabnet combines the creative with the pragmatic to provide an honest, useful, and entertaining look at the art of directing a new play.

Integrating practical advice with personal experience, Directing New Plays demystifies the process of directing a new work. From developing a creative vision to navigating the challenges of collaborative art-making, this book offers a comprehensive look at the director’s role in the process and the tools they use at every step, including development (readings and workshops), pre-production (casting and design), rehearsal (staging, working with actors, rewrites, and run-throughs), tech, previews, and opening a world premiere production.

Incisive, supportive, and clear, this book is an indispensable resource for theater directors looking to begin- or to sustain- a career in new play development.

Evan Cabnet is an NYC-based theater director specializing in new plays. He has directed new works by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Gloria, Pulitzer Finalist, 2015), Helen Edmundson (Therese Raquin on Broadway for the Roundabout Theater Company), Christopher Shinn (Teddy Ferrara), Steven Sater & Burt Bacharach (Some Lovers), Bekah Brunstetter (Oohrah!), Liz Meriwether (The Mistakes Madeline Made and Oliver Parker!), Kenneth Lin (Warrior Class), David West Read (The Dream of the Burning Boy and The Performers on Broadway), Zayd Dohrn (Outside People), Daniel Pearle (A Kid Like Jake) Julia Brownell (All-American) and has collaborated with Stephen Sondheim, Edward Albee, John Guare, Donald Margulies, and Theresa Rebeck. As an Artistic Director, he has developed and produced plays by Jackie Sibblies Drury (Marys Seacole, Obie Award, 2019), Martyna Majok (queens), Aya Ogawa (The Nosebleed, Obie Award, 2023), Zoe Kazan (After the Blast), Bryna Turner (Bull In a China Shop and At The Wedding), Miranda Rose Hall (Plot Points in Our Sexual Development), and Antoinette Nwandu (Pass Over, Lortel Award, Best Play, 2019). He is a founding member of the Ars Nova Playgroup, where he developed or directed works by Annie Baker, Beau Willimon, Liz Flahive, Carly Mensch, and many others. He is a former Associate Artist with the Roundabout Theater Company, a Resident Artist with Richard Foreman’s Ontological-Hysteric Theater, and a Performance Consultant for the Metropolitan Opera (Die Fledermaus). He has directed for NYU’s Graduate Acting Program and the Juilliard School and has guest lectured at Columbia and Yale University. From 2017 to 2024 he served as the Artistic Director of LCT3 at Lincoln Center Theater.