Sheldon Epps

Last updated
Sheldon Epps
Born (1952-11-15) November 15, 1952 (age 71)
Occupation(s)Television director, theatre director
Years active1981–present

Sheldon Epps (born November 15, 1952) is an American television and theatre director.

Contents

Career

Sheldon Epps was born in Los Angeles, California. [1] He moved to Teaneck, New Jersey, when he was 11 years old, where he attended the local public schools, and was first drawn to the stage while at Teaneck High School. Epps graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 1973. [2]

He began his career as an actor studying at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Indiana Repertory Company, the Alley Theatre, Civic Light Opera of Pittsburgh [1] and The Production Company which he co-founded and for which he directed a number of plays. [3]

In 1980, Epps made his theater directorial debut with the Off-Broadway musical Blues in the Night . It was revived in 1982, this time on Broadway. Since then he has directed a number of other stage productions on Broadway and in regional theaters namely Scenes and Revelations, Play On! , Blue and Purlie .

In 1994, Epps moved to television, directing an episode of Evening Shade . His other television credits include Smart Guy , Sister, Sister , Frasier , Everybody Loves Raymond , Friends , Girlfriends and George Lopez .

In 1997, Epps became artistic director of the Pasadena Playhouse. [3] Despite the financial trouble the Playhouse has endured since the 1980s, Epps has continued his role in bringing back the popularity of theater to the venue. [4]

In 2020 Epps was appointed Senior Artistic Advisor at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.

His best selling memoir MY OWN DIRECTIONS was published in September 2022 by McFarland Books.

Directing work

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hunter Foster</span> American actor

Hunter Foster is an American musical theatre actor, singer, librettist, playwright and director.

The UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, is one of the 12 schools within the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) located in Los Angeles, California. Its creation was groundbreaking in that it was the first time a leading university had combined the study of theater, filmmaking and television production into a single administration.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George C. Wolfe</span> American playwright

George Costello Wolfe is an American playwright and director of theater and film. He won a Tony Award in 1993 for directing Angels in America: Millennium Approaches and another Tony Award in 1996 for his direction of the musical Bring in 'da Noise/Bring in 'da Funk. He served as Artistic Director of The Public Theater from 1993 until 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arye Gross</span> American actor (born 1960)

Arye Gross is an American actor, who has appeared on a variety of television shows in numerous roles, most notably Adam Greene in the ABC sitcom Ellen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Rubinstein</span> American actor, composer, director (b. 1946)

John Rubinstein is an American actor, composer and director.

Jeremiah Morris was an American actor and television and theater director. Morris, influential in Los Angeles theater, appeared in Broadway plays and on popular television series for close to 40 years and directed television and theater productions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pasadena Playhouse</span> Theater in Pasadena, California, U.S.

Pasadena Playhouse is a Tony Award-winning historic performing arts venue located 39 S. El Molino Avenue in Pasadena, California. The 686-seat auditorium produces a variety of cultural and artistic events, professional shows, and community engagements each year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen Moorer</span> American theater actor, director, and producer (born 1961)

Stephen Moorer is a stage actor, director, producer and non-profit administrator based on the Central California Coast. He founded the only year-round professional theatre in Monterey County, GroveMont Theatre in 1982, renaming the non-profit organization Pacific Repertory Theatre in 1994, when the group acquired the Golden Bough Playhouse in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bob Martin (comedian)</span> Canadian actor (born 1962)

Robert Martin is a television and musical theatre actor and writer from Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Kerr (actor)</span> American actor and attorney (1931–2013)

John Grinham Kerr was an American actor and attorney.

Mel Shapiro is an American theatre director and writer, college professor, and author.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gerard Alessandrini</span> American dramatist

Gerard Alessandrini is an American playwright, parodist, actor and theatre director best known for creating the award-winning off-Broadway musical theatre parody revue Forbidden Broadway. He is the recipient of Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre, an Obie Award, four Drama Desk Awards, an Outer Critics Circle Award, and two Lucille Lortel Awards, as well as the Drama League Award for Lifetime Achievement in Musical Theatre.

Douglas Hughes is an American theatre director.

Matt Shakman is an American film, television, and theatre director, and former child actor. He produced and directed WandaVision and has directed episodes of The Great, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Fargo and Game of Thrones. He is the artistic director of the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, California.

Christopher Ashley is an American stage director. Since 2007, he has been the artistic director of the La Jolla Playhouse.

Gilles Chiasson is an American producer, director, composer, writer and actor. While he first came to prominence as an actor, particularly in the original cast of the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winning RENT, Chiasson went on to work in film and television development, then theater administration and operations, and now works in education. He currently lives in Los Angeles, California, with his wife Sherri Parker Lee and their two sons. He is a theater teacher at a high school in Los Angeles.

<i>Baby Its You!</i> Jukebox musical

Baby It's You! is a jukebox musical written by Floyd Mutrux and Colin Escott, featuring pop and rock hits of the 1960s, with a special emphasis on songs by the Shirelles and other acts signed to Scepter Records. The show "tells the story of Florence Greenberg and Scepter Records, the label Greenberg started when she signed the Shirelles." After several tryouts and premieres, the show debuted on Broadway in April 2011, directed by Sheldon Epps.

Charles Randolph-Wright is an American film, television, and theatre director, television producer, screenwriter, and playwright.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rahn Coleman</span> Musical artist

Ronald Edward "Rahn" Coleman is an American record producer, musical director, arranger, orchestrator, composer, vocal coach, and pianist. Coleman was born in San Francisco, California, and grew up in nearby Oakland, where he attended public school and began studying piano at age 4. He has also played oboe, clarinet, violin, English horn and pipe organ.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Suzi Dietz</span>

Susan (Suzi) Dietz is an American theater producer and director. A five-time Tony nominee, and the winner of a Drama-Logue Lifetime Achievement Award for outstanding contributions to Los Angeles theater, she was the artistic director of the LA Stage Company, the producing artistic director for the Pasadena Playhouse, and the executive director of the Canon Theater in Beverly Hills. Her Broadway credits include Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks, The Little Dog Laughed by Douglas Carter Beane, Fela! by Bill T. Jones and Jim Lewis and Terrence McNally's Mothers and Sons.

References

  1. 1 2 Sheldon Epps Biography at FilmReference.com
  2. Klein, Alvin. "The Duke and I", The New York Times , March 30, 1997. Accessed October 17, 2011. "BORN 44 years ago to St. Paul (a minister who always found someplace to preach) and Kathryn Epps (who taught home economics in Thomas Jefferson Junior High School in Teaneck), Sheldon Epps lived in Los Angeles until he was 11. We moved to Teaneck when I was in the seventh grade, and there I stayed through junior high school and through college, he said.... He discovered theater when he performed in a summer musical program at Teaneck High School."
  3. 1 2 "A Conversation with Sheldon Epps: Michelin Distinguished Visitors Lecture". CaltechLive!. California Institute of Technology. 19 March 2007. Retrieved 13 September 2020.
  4. Patt Morrison, "Sheldon Epps: Play it again", Los Angeles Times , February 26, 2010
    • " My Lord What A Night" (2021)
    • " Miss Maude" (2022)
    • " Personality" (2023)
    Sheldon Epps at Broadway World